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Published: August 4th 2011
How to:
Build a Jungle Raft - Part IWe love Bolivia. We got to do so many things here that would normally be either prohibited due to regulated safety restrictions or they would be just plain illegal. Welcome to our jungle-rafting experience, which honestly I don’t think was either…although an Israeli guy did die while attempting the same feat as us, but he went without an experienced guide. The idea of floating up river into the Bolivian rainforest on a raft that we would have to help construct was an idea sold to us without much hesitation. Normally people either get a 30-ish hour bus from La Paz, 40-minute flight, or 2-day speed boat trip to get to Rurrenabaque, the gateway to the Bolivian Amazon, but a homemade raft sounded much better to us. Here’s our story…
“Really? We have to leave now?” It was 5am when we got the wake-up call in our La Paz hotel – the van was waiting outside. We had just said ‘adios’ to our friend Nacho an hour ago after a fairly mammoth session around town. With best game faces on we began our adventure.
First, we picked up an old man, young mum and baby somewhere along the road to
Ze Germans!
Our mates Wencke & Martin with Ruben & Guadalupe. the town of Caranavi. During the six hour drive, we passed about four or five military check-points and upon arriving in Caranavi we had a much welcomed late breakfast at a local restaurant. After switching cars we continued for an hour and a half to Guanay – the village on the river which would be our starting point for the raft through the jungle.
Sarah and I had another bite by the river, before we were introduced to Ruben, a local man who was to be our guide / ‘raft-captain’. Wasting no time (as it was already about 3pm), we helped Ruben to construct the raft which consisted of six 3-metre lengths of wood which we attached to rubber truck tire tubes with short lengths of twine. Safe as houses, yeah?!
After loading the spanking-new-homemade-super-jungle-raft with our backpacks and supplies, we hit the ‘Rio Kaka’; and we were off! It was exciting to be floating on the wide river with unknown potential lying ahead. This was going to be a memorable trip for us! About an hour after embarking, we stopped on the riverside to pick up another couple who would be joining us for the adventure. Because we
had started a bit late and night was approaching we all agreed to set up camp here for the night. The other couple that we met was from Germany. We immediately liked Martin and Wencke, and we all ended up becoming great friends who would go on another tour together and later meet up in La Paz.
While we pitched our tents, Ruben prepared us a nice dinner of chicken, with a tasty salad. After dinner I was chatting with Ruben who mentioned that he was going to head to a nearby village and he would be back later. Myself, Sarah, Martin and Wencke got set up around the fire, shared some stories and jokes, and enjoyed the beautiful star-filled night sky. We hit the sack early, tired but enthused. Ruben was nowhere in sight…hmmmmm, might need him to guide our raft in the morning, though.
Ruben woke us around 5.30am for breakfast. He had returned from the village with a young lady -nice one mate; well played! As we later discovered, it turned out that the lady, Guadalupe, was his niece and she was to be our cook for the trip. After brekkie we took off on
the raft again. As you can see from the pictures, we all managed to fit quite well. Ruben waterproofed our entire luggage which we then used as seats and the food and cooking stuff was behind us to the back of the raft. Ruben manned the front of the raft, with Guadalupe seated behind him. I took the oar to the left, while Martin took the right. The girls continued to look pretty and took a comfortable seat between Martin and myself.
We had to maneuver quite a lot of rapids on our first full day, and we passed countless gold prospectors by the banks of the river. Some were companies; others were small cooperatives and there were even a few one-man-shows, too. When lunchtime arrived we pulled to shore and stopped up on a beach for some delicious sandwiches. After tearing our way through the sandwiches, we hiked toward a waterfall. Along the way to the cascades we spotted a huge toad and saw a water snake, which I think was a moccasin. Nice! It was really refreshing to dive into the fresh pool of water that awaited us. We scrubbed off with bio-degradable soap and after soaking up
Mutiny
Ruben gets a close up of his machete! the scenery we made our trek back to the boat. Guadalupe prepared pasta for us, and we picked fresh oranges from a grove.
With lunch over, it was time to navigate through some more rapids. These ones were tougher, but myself and Martin earned our stripes and came through the test with flying colors. A few hours later, the heavens opened on us but the rain was warm and quite nice. It also provided a beautiful double-rainbow. Before we arrived at camp the rain had ceased. So we set up our tents and hung our clothes to dry around the fire. Dinner that night was tops – Guadalupe prepared a delicious Spaghetti Bolognese to enjoy around the campfire and afterward we exchanged stories. We also learned about Wencke's fear of spiders because the little (although significantly bigger than your average house-spider) buggers were crawling all over our feet.
By the third day, I was really enjoying waking up to a cooked breakfast. We all gobbled the eggs, fruit, and pancakes and sipped down our coffees. With tents broken down, it was river-time again. A few hours down the river we stopped at a pueblo / village, called Maigaegia,
to shop for food supplies. The girls needed to use the baños, so Ruben pointed us all towards a pub that, despite being about 9am, was open; and so it was beer time! We all enjoyed a few cold ones and entertained ourselves with the table beside us – the lads sitting there were absolutely wasted. They must have pulled an all-nighter!
After the beverages, we got the shopping done by picking up meats, fruits and veg. The girls also snuck in a few chocolates, so the boys grabbed a case of beer. Before lunch most of us took a nap while floating along the river in the sun. Our lunch destination was, as we named it, ‘Cow Dung Island’. The small cove also had tons of butterflies, fruit flies, and best of all- fresh fruit. We picked and ate grapefruit, limas (looks like a grapefruit but is sweet), nectarines and cracked open some coconuts to sip on their sweet water. After all that we still had room for Guadalupe’s pasta lunch.
Loaded with pasta and on a citrus buzz, we headed back along Rio Kaka. In the afternoon we spotted lots of wildlife including capybaras (think giant
rat-beaver; pig-sized, giant rat-beavers!), loads of birds like lorikeets, vultures, hawks, herons and gomeros (sounds like a guy cat-call whistling). Our Jungle Raft team continued on for a few hours and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset before it started to get dark.
“Diez minutos más, amigos” Ruben repeated every ten minutes for almost an hour, but we made it safe and sound to our base for the night. With our camping skills now finely honed, we set up camp in the dark with the help of flash lights. Tonight we were staying on the aptly named…”Spider Island”! Ruben and Guadalupe prepped dinner while Martin and I foraged for fire wood. We all chipped in to gather plenty of lumber and we made an impressive fire surrounded by semi-circle stone seats. Dinner was great again, and we washed it down with beers and shared life stories with Martin and Wencke. Sleep came easy when it was time.
The next morning after banging in breakfast and returning to the river we stopped at a tiny community to go piranha fishing. Unfortunately the boss was away and we couldn’t get permission to try catching the fanged fishies. Bummer.
Floating down
Captain Ruben
Leads the way.. river for a few more hours, we hit a river junction and we switched on to the Rio Beni. Soon after swapping streams, we stopped up on a little beach for lunch again before wading through a stream and trekking to an indigenous family. We said hi to the clan and then walked through the jungle towards a fresh water pool for a much needed bath. After a few days without a shower, the freshwater system was a welcome break. We also had the chance to dive off a ledge which I took advantage of without question. Our mini jungle trek took us past many plants and trees that were new to us. Ruben showed us ‘pan de frutas’, ‘huevos de monos’, and ‘papaya de silva tree’ (which had spikes on it). As we walked by the indigenous family again, they were cooking up a little barbeque which they shared with us. We enjoyed plantain chips and jochi – a type of jungle beaver! We bought some dried meat from the family (wild pig). The daughter of the family was eight months pregnant, and Sarah had to wonder if she would deliver in a hospital or in the jungle. I
was fairly sure that no hospital would be involved.
Back at the raft, we all climbed on and resumed our duties. That meant Ruben up top with Martin and I flanking with oars. Guadalupe sitting behind Ruben with Sarah and Wencke nestled in the middle of Martin and myself. An hour or so later we were floating into Madidi National Park when we heard some ferocious screaming and howling. We soon learned that it was howler monkeys that were responsible for the racket. Still further down the river Ruben was telling us a story about apparitions of the Virgin Mary in the area, and he eventually showed us a cliff face with a supposed image of the Virgin. Following our religious experience we shored up for the night and set up camp again.
Nightly campfires were tradition by now, so Martin and I set about foraging for firewood. My German pal hacked away at some piles of branches with a machete and we dragged them back to the beach. Following dinner and after polishing off the remaining brewskies we all crashed back in our tents and in the complete darkness of the night. No stars tonight.
Morning
started again with a nice breakfast, but unfortunately also with the pitter-patter of rain which only got worse. We packed our tents as quickly as possible but the rain was much faster than us. By the time we were on the raft it was like a monsoon. The rain was absolutely bucketing down and it had taken the warmth from the air and from our bodies. We kept things light, but the heavy rain stated to wear on us. After about three hours Ruben looked at us and decided that our sad faces had had enough. He knew of an abandoned park station that we could hole up in….so we did. It would take us an extra day to get to our destination of Rurrenabaque now, which was fine with us so long as we got to dry off for the night. The park hut had been abandoned due to a mudslide which was evident in the fact that the ground floor of the building was covered in a few feet of mud. We managed to get all our stuff off the raft, over a muddy bank, and up the wooden ladder into the attic of the park station. A
quick moment of worry occurred when we heard Wencke scream after she slipped down the ladder, but luckily she was fine.
All was well again as we dried off and hung our clothes to music and a snack of homemade popcorn. Myself and Martin played a game of chess, which (come on Martin, admit it!) I won only to have the decision turned around for some crazy German rule, which Martin took advantage of to claim a dubious victory. It was fun either way. The girls had a chat and eventually confirmed that Guadalupe was indeed the niece of Ruben, and not a mistress, as had been insinuated earlier.
Late evening brought more fun. We went for a walk into the jungle and upon returning we spotted more cool stuff back at the hut….tarantulas, bats, and cockroaches (not really within the ‘cool’ family). After dinner, we all played cards and listened to music. We discovered that while Ruben was a great guide, his card-playing abilities left much to be desired.
So as we awoke the next morning, we knew today would be our final day on the raft. While we all looked forward to the next adventure
in the Pampas close to Rurrenabaque, we would all miss our time on the jungle raft. A few hours after breakfast we made it to the shores of ‘Rurre’, a small jungle town that hubs us tourists as we move either deeper into the jungle or towards the Pampas to spot wildlife. After sorting a hostel and having lunch, we all agreed to get together with Ruben and Guadalupe for drinks that night which we did. We said farewell to our guide and cook, and then there were four of us….ready to party in Rurrenabaque and prepare for the adventures of the Pampas.
with pink dolphins, in water shared by piranhas and caiman…..check out the next blog update of the Pampas & Rurrenabaque and see a photo of Sarah biting a piranha!
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Michael
non-member comment
What Would Bear Grylls do?
The Bolivia rafting looks incredible. You guys are the real deal. Keep it coming!. Cant wait for the Galapagos blog!