Rurrenabaque and Chalalan Ecolodge

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We finally managed to escape La Paz, and flew out to Rurrenabaque, deep in the jungle of the Beni region of Bolivia, flying by light aircraft for 40 minutes and dropping from 4,000 metres above sea level at La Paz airport, down to only a couple of hundred metres in tropically hot and sticky Rurrenabaque. Labding on the bumpy sand-grass runway, we understood why they wouldn’t land there in the rain. We were collected by rickety rural bus and transported into the centre of Rurre and to the office of the Ecolodge to have our briefing for departure the following day by boat deep into the Beni region and the Madidi national park area.

We checked into our hotel and wandered out to find some food and see the sights of the town. Rurre is a very lush and sleepy jungle backwater, but it is also a gringo waiting room for tourist trips to the jungle and the pampas, so there’s no shortage of bars and restaurants and internet cafes. After wandering around for about 5 minutes, we remembered how much we really dislike hot and humid weather! We crawled into a cool and shady looking bar and sat with the sweat pouring off us having some lunch.

The next day was an early start down to the river to catch the boat which would take us upriver 5 hours into the jungle to Chalalan Ecolodge. At first the river was wide and slow flowing, grey in the cool mornning light, with misty views over to the hills in the distance. Soon we passed through a gorge which marks the edge of the Madidi National Park and then we turned off the main river to head up into the jungle. The river became shallower and faster flowing, so shallow in many places that the boat crew had to push us through with their poles and often even get out of the boat and push us over shallow rapids.

After nearly 7 hours in the boat, we finally reached our jumping off point. From there it was a 2km hike through dense jungle to the ecolodge. The ecolodge is run entirely by an indigenous community, who live about a day’s hike further up the river. The lodge is Accommodation at the ecolodge is in very comfortable, but basic wooden cabins (cold showers) with the main lodge being where meals are served and evening festivities are held. There is also a beautiful lake. After lunch, we went out on the lake in a canoe with our guide and two other guests. Around the side of the lake we watched little yellow coloured monkeys playing in the trees.

After dinner we went out for a night hike in the jungle to look for nighttime wildlife. We set off covered up completely with DEET insect repellent, broad hats, long sleeves and long trousers tucked into our socks, to prevent nasty creepy crawlies. In the deep jungle it is so pitch black you can’t see your hand in front of your face, so headtorches are essential. We found a swampy pool full of noisily mating frogs and shone our torches epxectantly into the deep undergrowth looking for the red reflection of eyes staring back at us. Rather to our relief we didn’t see any eyes! We finished our night hike with a visit to a rather large tarantula sitting just outside his sandy hole (presuambly waiting for the nightly tourist visit!)

The next day, we went off on a long and very hot daylight jungle hike, again looking for wildlife. We saw lots of bright coloured macaws, more monkeys and a rather large herd of wild pigs, which apparently can be quite dangerous if you cross their path. We also heard a jaguar, but unfortunately, despite searching we couldn’t spot him. We were due to go out again after lunch, but we decided we’d had enough of hiking in the ridiculous heat and humidity, so spent the afternoon lazing by the cabin, snoozing in the hammock and then had a swim in the lake - the water was like a warm bath.

After dinner, we went out for another night trip, but this time on the lake in the canoe again, looking for Caiman (small crocodiles!) Again, we shone our torches to see the red reflection of eyes and we saw plenty o small caiman cruising around the shallow edges of the lake or sitting on half-submerged logs. We were also very lucky to see an oscelot, prowling the banks for his prey. The oscelot probably wasn’t so happy to see us since we spoiled his dinner. Our torches startled the poor heron just as the oscelot pounced and it flew squawking to the safety of a log in open water.

The following morning, there was just time for a trip across the lake and a climb up the hill to the viewpoint over the lake and lodge and with views away to the distant hills. We had a very interesting chat with our guide, Eric, who told us all about how the lodge began and how hard the community had worke to establish it and gain government support and foreign investment. The income from the lodge all goes back to the community and as a result they now have a school and medical facilities of their own, improving their standard of living dramaticlly. Eric seemed to have been the main driving force in the whole set up and although we had probably paid over the odds for the trip, we felt pleased to have heard the story and to have supported this venture.

Then it was time to board the boat for the 5 hour boat trip back to Rurrre. The journey back was much quicker than the journey there as we were going with the river. We arrived back in Rurre and itn seemed hotter than it had been in the jungle.

In an attempt to get ‘off the beaten track’ we had planned to catch a bus from Rurre on to a place called Trinidad, further east and then on again to Santa Cruz in the eastern lowlands of Bolivia, however, the trip to Trinidad was to be 17 hours on a bus and according to the guidebook, Trinidad had nothing more going for it than boa constrictors in the gutters. The prospect of 17 very hot hours on a bus to Trinidad and 14 hours on another hot bus to Santa Cruz, now didn’t seem such a good idea! We decided to try to fly straight to Santa Cruz instead. However, the flights out of Rurre were booked up for the next 2 days, so we had to spend another day hanging around in Rurre. It was alos impossible to fly direct to Santa Cruz, so we ended up having to fly to La Paz (more time hanging around in our least favourite city), staying one night and then flying on to Santa Cruz the following day. However, we still got there quicker than if we’d travelled by bus!

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