Rurrenabaque

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Hi all!

After finishing our Salar de Uyuni trip, we headed to La Paz (the capital of Bolivia) with our 3 friends. The bus ride was.......let's just say not quite what we grew to expect from Argentina and Chile, but, we made it safe and sound nonetheless. Not much to report from La Paz. We essentially relaxed for 3 days here in a great hostel. The 5 of us spent most of our time eating great meals! La Paz has every type of food imaginable, and super cheap which was a nice change of pace from Chile. We enjoyed great Chinese, Thai, Bolivian and Indian (X2) meals. We are talking soup, main, dessert for like 40 Bolivian- prox. $6! We were in heaven!

Our next major adventure was a 6 day pampas/jungle tour in the northeastern part of Bolivia. For this, we headed to a small town called Rurrenabaque (on the Beni river) by plane for the first time on our trip. The option was either 18-20hr bus ride on dirt road, or 45min flight....we chose flight, as does probably 99.9% of the other people who head from La Paz to Rurre. The plane ride itself was a cool experience. As you'll see from the picture, it was a very small plane. Only 18 seats to be exact with the cockpit right in front of you, all the dials, etc. on display! Pretty cool. Lots of weird noises/feelings to make you feel a bit uneasy as we first flew over the Andes (incredible) and then over jungle. A major problem for Rurre is it's airport. It's just a dirt strip, and because it rains ALOT there, more often than not the landing strip is flooded and so no planes can land there. This was the case on our departure day, so we landed in a town called Reyes, and then bused the additional 40mins remaining- no big deal. The first part of the trip was our time in the Pampas, following which we would head to the jungle (Madidi National Park) so I'll split the blog into 2.

Pampas del Yacuma (Santa Rosa, Beni):

Day 1: To start, we drove 3.5hrs in a 4X4 with our guide and driver to the lodge we would stay at which was right on the bank of the Rio Yacuma. For this part of the trip we went with Bala Tours and stayed at their Caracoles lodge. After a short boat trip to the lodge, we got settled, ate lunch (amazing food our entire stay, great variety!), relaxed in the hammocks and then set out in the boat on about a 3 hour wildlife watching trip up river. Our guide (Herman) was really great. 100% of the wildlife we saw was new to us so it was great to have someone telling you what everything was! Instead of listing the animal here, you can just check out the pictures which are labelled. After the boat trip was dinner, and then following dinner we set out on the river again for about 40mins looking for the glowing eyes of Caiman! This was really cool. If you shine a flashlight near the shore, you can see just there glowing yellow/orange eyes. Kinda creepy when everything else around you is pitch black!

Day 2: After breakfast we went down river this time for about 4 hours for more wildlife watching. Each time you go out you see slightly different animals/birds so the 4 hours flew by. After lunch, we were lucky enough to get to swim with Pink Dolphins in the river! Now I know what you're probably thinking, since when are dolphins pink, and why the hell are they in a river. Apparently in the Amazon river (and the Amazon basin- where we were), there are Pink Dolphins- the only place in the world! So, because we went to the Pampas during the wet season, the water was high, and so there is lots of dolphins around. And, most importantly, they are happy, and quite playful. After watching 3 of them play with a volleyball we tossed in the water, Laura and I hopped in the water, and nervously swam around, moving the volleyball around while the dolphins continued to play with it right next to us! This was cool, and weird. I touched one with my foot which was interesting to say the least. None of them got too interested in us considering the ball was their first option. After swimming we tried our hand at phirana fishing (unsucessfully, high water is bad for fishing apparently). After dinner we had a short walk looking for noctural animals (saw a night monkey and porcupine- not like ours). Also, tons of frogs, especially in the bathrooms!

Day 3: More our last morning in Las Pampas we went Anaconda hunting! There is a healthy population of anacondas in Las Pampas, and so it's actually quite common to spot one. The search was pretty simple- walk through a swamp in rubber boots until you find one! Unfortunately, due to the high water levels, we spent most of the time in 1-2 ft. deep water, making our way through tall grass. That much water makes it nearly impossible to spot the snakes, so we came up empty handed (a good or a bad thing depending on who you ask). Next was a jeep back to Rurre, checked in with our next company, and then stayed the night in the town.

Parque Nacional Madidi (jungle)- Chalalan Ecolodge

Day 4: Now we are with a different company- Chalalan Ecolodge. This company was highly recommended (top 50 ecolodges in the world by National Geographic Traveller), and is considered the leading in sustainable tourism in Bolivia. First, some quick info on Chalalan. Chalalan was started by the people of a village called San Jose de Uchupiamonas and 100% of the employees of the company come from that village. The guides, cooks, maintenance, customer service staff, everyone! Additionally, 100% of the profits from the lodge go straight back to the village. Our guide talked extensively about this, and was quite proud, as he should be. Those profits have built a school, hospital, and built the infrastructure necessary for the village to have potable water. Also, the profits fund a number of scholarships for members of the village who wish to persue post-secondary education. Overall just an amazing cause, and you could tell how important it was to every staff member. They made it very clear they were happy to have us there, and they were very welcoming and helpful our entire time at the lodge!

In the morning of Day 4, we started with a 5 hour boat trip up river, followed by a 2km walk to the lodge which sits on the shore of Lake Chalalan (deep in Parque Nacional Madidi), super remote location! After lunch (again, great food!) we went on a 3.5hr hike with our guide on one of the many natural trails Chalalan has developed over their 10 years of existance. Our wildlife viewing was much different here than in the Pampas. This time around, it was almost entirely hiking, and a lot more guide involvement. We would walk slow and regularily stop while our guide (Ovidio) would listen and try and locate where the nearby wild/birdlife was. No surprise, Ovidio had an AMAZING ear for the jungle. Laura and I basically pointed out nothing, it was all Ovidio which I guess is to be expected considering he's done this for 10 years! The highlight of the hike was stalking a group of 100+ wildpigs who upon realizing we were close, got pretty perturbed and started grunting, stomping and running everywhere! This was louder than you can imagine, and a bit freaky to tell the truth! This apparently is rare to spot these, especially in such a large group (allow they can get to be 200+) so we considered ourselves lucky! After dinner we went on a night hike for about 45mins which was really interesting! Again, Ovidio amazed us with what he could find which included a huge black caiman and baby, tarantula, snake and 3 frogs. This hike was maybe the highlight of our time at Chalalan. After the hike, the entire staff came into the dining room and played music for us, taught us dances, taught us about their village's history, and also taught us how to chew coca leaves and what benefits they have. People in Bolivia (and Peru I think) swear by the effects of chewing Coca leaves. They say it reduces hunger and increases alertness and endurance for long hikes in the jungle. Since we chewed just sitting down, all we got was a numb cheek and tongue, but we'll take their word for it. Also, if you were wondering, Cocaine does come from the Coca leaf, although many obviously illegal purifications, etc. steps need to occur first.

Day 5: After breakfast we went on a long 4.5hr hike in the jungle up river for more wildlife and bird watching. We didn't see as much on this hike, but the highlight was the Howler monkeys. Although we had seen these before, Ovidio had a pretty bang-on call for them, so we got them really riled up, yelling, howling of course, and generally making sounds so loud and weird you wondered if they were going to come down from the tree and rip our heads off! After a short lunch and some time to relax, we went on a canoe ride around the lake where we saw tons of monkeys. This also was unfortunately the scene of Laura and I being introduced to Sun-flies. Very small, no noise, and they have a love of ankles and lower legs. Laura got bit more than me (37 by her count, all in about 1 hour), however my reaction to the bites was a bit more exaggerated. The result was a pretty swollen ankle for 3 or 4 days which had to be looked at by a Dr. after we got back to Rurre. Nothing serious though- some cream and pills cleared it up in a few days. It seems like it was nothing more than a moderate allergic reaction to the bites. After dinner was a night canoe ride, looking primarily for the Amazon Tree Boa (we saw a small one), but also caiman eyes again (also saw more of these, and close to our dock which we swam off of haha).

Day 6/7: We got word the previous night that all flights for today (our day of departure) had been cancelled to allow for the previous day's cancelled flights to be rebooked (again, super common in Rurre) so we stayed a bit longer at Chalalan (one extra 2 hour hike plus lunch) then had a 2.5hr boat trip down river back to Rurre. We stayed the night again, hoping to get a flight the next day which we did, making it back to La Paz which welcomed us with cooler weather (the heat and humidity in Rurre was unreal).

Overall we had an amazing 6 days as you can probably tell from the amount I have wrote. Both companies were incredible (I forgot to mention, we payed at both places for a group tour, but because it's down season we got private tours at both!), and we would recommend both of them in a second! It was a great change of pace to get to see some wildlife for a change, especially in a place as amazing as Madidi which is considered one of the most biodiverse places on earth.

Thanks for reading!
Greg and Laura

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