Pampas and Jungle

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ARrived back in La Paz today after a week in the Bolivian Amazon Basin.

Just getting there involved a hellish 16 hour bus ride from the end of the Death Road to Rurrenabaque. Imagine the death road by bus. By comparison, it´s MUCH better by bike. There´s little you can do but squirm when you have a left hand (edge) side window seat, and the bus starts reversing back to let another pass, and you can only hope that although you can´t actually see ground between yourself and the drop, hopefully there´s a good 30cm or so leeway before the wheels get there. It was actually really, really terrifying, and were thankful for the plane back- a terribly turbulent 19 seater. Furthermore, the bus ride, of COURSE, came with the everpresent regaton music BLARING all the way through the night (but if it meant the driver stayed awake so be it). NB: There is an entry in the making all about bus rides in South AMerica.

PAMPAS TOUR
Despite having completed a degree in geography where supposedly one learns about all the different biomes of the world, I don´t think I´d heard the word 'pampas' outside of the sphere of disposable nappies. And they would have come in handy on the trip too.

The pampas tour was three days cruising down the Yacuma River in a long and low wooden boat, sitting knees up on an increasingly hard wood panel for a seat. This, after the death road on a bike with only front suspension, meant that our 'sitting' bones were quickly found and continuously felt.

We saw: turtles, alligators, caimans (which are distinguishable from alligators by features that I still can´t remember), loads of different birds including the spikey headed, quirky Birds of Paradise. When the boat came past a crew of these they would start squaking and clumsily rearrange themselves in their tree, completely without agility or glamour. We thought they were just screaming to be the next comical stars in a disney movie.

There was another part of the river where there was one bird with a habit of bomb-dropping out of the overhanging tree into the water when we came past. All you saw was a something drop and a splash and people laughing 'what was THAT??'

We also saw capybara. They too would feature well in a disney movie, they have a stately and at the same time very concerned expression. I think they are the South American equivalent of wombats (in size and general shape) but they are better described as big guinea pigs. mmmmmm, supersized cuy.......

We went 'anaconda hunting' in the swamps, and our guide managed to find a big one in the water (see photos). We went spotlighting at night, on the river, looking for red alligator eyes. Very atmospheric with a starry sky and only the sounds of the paddle in the water, some monkeys and birds occasionally in the trees, and sometimes the sound of an alligator sliding off the bank into the water, or bone crunching through......something.

The highlight though was swimming with the pink river dolphins. There are only a few rivers with dolphins, and in each river they are especially localised. We swam with them at this particular bend of the river that is wider, where apparently they spend all their time hanging out. You should know that this is the very same river infested with alligators (not to mention pirhanas, read on), but Luis assured us that the alligators don´t come in the water when the dolphins are there. Mind you, he only came in the water very briefly, and AFTER watching us all splash around in there for 15 minutes or so without event. hmmmmm

We all went into the muddy water, some were more bank-hugging than others who ventured into water-treading territory. i was part of the latter group.

We were all very aware of one suspicious alligator chillin out on the bank not 100m away, and Pen and Shannon even swam closer-unable to resist such a great photo opportunity. It was a great experience though, having about 8 pink, baby rat pink, river dolphins swimming around you, surfacing metres away.

Pirhanha fishing the next day was pretty exciting too, though we didn´t have enough skill or luck to make the pirhanha soup that was on the itinerary. They´re just too fast. It must have been a great breakfast for them. It was especially exciting though when someone did jerk one onto the boat- having a piranha brush past your arm or leg on the end of a line, then having it flapping about on the floor of the boat induces everyone to try to jump up on the seats so toes don´t get got, and in an unstable boat without enough room for everyone to do this at once, well, it´s exciting.

that´s all for now. Jungle episode next entry.

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