URBAN JUNGLE TO REAL JUNGLE AND BACK AGAIN.

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After a relatively short bus trip of only 4 hours, trundling through the flat expanse of nothingness that is the altiplano, your first glimpse of La Paz hits you like a smack in the face. The city is nestled in a huge valley amongst towering mountains and just sprawls up all sides like a swarm of locust. It’s a breathtaking sight as you wind your way down into the city centre at the lowest point of the valley (a very handy thing to remember when navigating the urban maze of La Paz is to just walk downhill and you’ll eventually get to the main street).

Since arriving in Bolivia me and Yvonne had stayed in some chronically basic (but very cheap!) hostals so en route to La Paz we agreed to up-grade our digs a bit and opted to stay in a proper hotel for 2 nights. We felt like royalty as we entered our room and gazed in amazement at the comfy looking double bed with pillows, TV with satellite and the very fancy en-suite with 24 hour hot water and flushing toilet!! I think it took us about 3 hours to leave the room and go and wander, and all that luxury for $14 US a night…
My first impressions of the main city as we strolled about that first night were a mixture of pleasant surprise and bewilderment. I really didn’t expect much from the capital city of the continents poorest country but like most things in Bolivia it exceeded expectations. The main drag is seriously long and has everything you need from food to shops to entertainment you’ll find it all here. You feel quite safe strolling along here too as its so busy and well lit, with lots of little street stands selling all kinds of handy things. I would highly recommend anyone who finds themselves here to try the delicious pizzas at Eli’s just down the road from the biggest ice cream restaurant I’ve ever seen. ‘Brossos’ is a huge, 2-storey eatery where they entice you inside with a sumptuous display of cakes and ice creams out front, all in hundreds of varieties. On our first visit (there were several!) I had a huge lump of multi-chocolate cake with gummi bear ice cream, it’s all great stuff. Needless to say Yvonne was very happy here!

I had been looking forward to wandering the famous street market but was slightly disappointed with it. it’s a strange set up with stalls all on the same street selling exactly the same random object. For example, during our 3 hour exploration we came across a street with stalls selling only exercise bikes, one street solely for bathroom fixtures and another for kettles. Weird place, worth a look but to go intent on grabbing a bargain because even if you find what your looking for the merchants will not budge an inch when it comes to negotiation on price. The witches market is worth a look too to get a compulsory photo of a baby Llama foetus if nothing else! Don’t go looking for a place to stay near here though as the prices are astronomical. Also on the tourist check list is the main square with the big cathedral and palace on it which is nice.

We had heard some horror stories about the 20 hour bus journey from La Paz to Rurrenabaque which is the gateway to the Bolivian portion of the Amazon basin. According to the rumours the bus is a wreck with no ‘cama’ (reclining) seats, it travels some of the way on the infamous ‘death road’ with its 600m sheer drops and no barriers (just lots of crosses and flowers…) and one great tale about the headlights not working so they got some guy to lean out of the door with a torch to light the way! So when there is an alternative option of a 40 minute flight instead you’d think that was an easy choice to make. However, being tight-arse backpackers the price difference of $100 US was just too much for us so we opted for the ‘death bus’. We got to the bus station for the 11 a.m. departure and caught our first look at the tin-can-on-wheels we’d be spending the next (and hopefully not our last) 20 hours on board. It looked ramshackle enough just sitting there but our fears grew when the engine spluttered into life and half the street was engulfed in a black, toxic exhaust cloud. By this stage our rucksacks were stowed away so there was no turning back. The seats were pretty bad and the bus was full so the lack of on board toilet was an issue as well. But to be honest it really wasn’t the most awful 20 hours ever and we arrived in Rurre without major incident at 7 a.m. the next morning. It was weird stepping outside and feeling the warm, humid air of the jungle on your face after spending the last few weeks at 3000m altitudes. It was drizzling rain that morning, but you don’t mind when its so warm, and we got a nice enough hostal in town easy enough.

The only 2 reasons backpackers come here are to do the ‘pampas boat tour’ or the jungle tours which both run out of the town. Later that day we booked ourselves onto a 3 day 2 night pampas trip leaving the following morning. After a much longer car journey than expected, but stopping for a rally nice lunch, we arrived at the Beni river where are ‘guide’ was waiting with the ‘boat’. Both these items were as you’d say “not as advertised”, with our so called guide being the biggest let down. However, I’m not going to rant about him so ill just stick to the great things we seen over the 3 days instead. We had heard from a nice Israeli guy a few weeks back in Arequipa that you see an animal every 10 meters as you drift down river and he wasn’t exaggerating! We had just got settled on the boat with the 2 other people in our group when we were faced with a 3m long caiman just laying there on the river bank! From then on there were animals everywhere in all shapes and sizes. The shallow river is on average about 15m wide with a narrow strip of mangroves and greenery on both sides and little else beyond that so all the wildlife is located right there on the river so you are never more than a few meters away. The caiman alligators were definitely the most abundant and ranged from cute little half meter ones to a huge 7m one we seen on day 2! There were also lots of the strange looking ‘bear-pig’ animals called capybara. We must have seen atleast 20 different birds ranging from huge storks to cool green and white kingfishers. Then there were the little golden monkeys which live in a particular type of tree. I got some great photos of a family group which came swinging through the trees at the back of our lodge one morning as I was brushing my teeth. This river is also famously the home of the endangered pink river dolphin. We were lucky enough to see one as we took a swim to cool off on the 2nd day. Oddly enough only the male is pink while the female is a light blue colour. Oh, nearly forgot to mention the great little ‘Tortuga’ (turtles)! There are loads of them too, you’ll see them all lined up in ascending order of size sunbathing on a log in the river. If you splash the water near them they all dive bomb off the log with a splash like para-troopers, funny stuff!

Our home for the 2 nights was a basic lodge up on a hill on the river bank with large dorm rooms covered in mosquito nets which is good. The food we got here was great and in huge quantities so you never go hungry. There was an outside toilet and one sink at the back facing the line of trees where I spotted the group of monkeys I described earlier. Day 1 was mainly just making your way down river to the lodge then at night you go out to spot gators with a torch, their eyes reflect bright orange and yellow in the light. The next morning you go further down river to go hunt for Anaconda! After a energy sapping walk through 2m tall grass in the midday heat you enter a huge flat wetland area where you spread out and keep your eyes peeled for any snakes. There were only 3 of us by then and our guide just feiced off and hid the long grass for a nap while we traipsed about doing his job for him. The closest we got was when I found a small skeleton of a snake, but I did have a close encounter with a deer which just seemed to appear out of nowhere then disappear again. Another good non-snake related thing was spotting all the fish eagles swooping over head. As you walk through the wetlands we came across loads of flattened spots with empty giant snail shells in a neat pile, this is what the eagles like to snack on.

The third day you get up early and go fishing for piranha in the river. Our fishing trip was short lived as our fool of a guide dropped the bait and knife into the river and couldn’t find it again. With the one piranha we caught though I threw it into the river for the eagle who was watching us keenly from a nearby tree to swoop down and grab it which was cool. All in all it was a good trip especially if you like watching wildlife in the wild where they should be. We got back to Rurre at about 5pm and got the bus that night at 8pm back to La Paz.

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