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Published: June 14th 2006
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Fishing for Sardines in the Jungle
Moments later the fish unhooked itself... I spent a day chilling in Coroico before taking a bus to Rurrenabaque, which is a town in the Amazon Basin. It was another eventful bus ride. The bus was coming from La Paz and turned up 4 hours late. Somewhere along the way it had run out of fuel. It then got a flat tire. By this time it was nightfall. The road we were on was very much like the "world's most dangerous road" that I tried to avoid. It was narrow, windy and when you looked over the side, there were no barriers but only a steep cliff-edge. To make matters worse, the headlamps were now playing up and kept going off for no reason. Even better, the engine was cutting out when it felt like it. This all happened at the same time, just as we were approaching a sharp bend. The ladies at the front gave an almighty scream, we thought we were headed over the edge. The driver seemed to take no notice, he didn't break or turn the wheel. The screams continued and we were waiting for the nose of the bus to head downwards, when suddenly the driver came out of his coma,
whacked on the brakes and turned the corner. We finally made to the lowlands and reached Caranavi, where a 30min pit stop turned into 3 hours because the bus really had broke down. They got it started and the next 7 hours were trouble free, after which it broke down again. We finally made it to Rurre, 8 hours later than scheduled.
Rather than go on a boat tour of the pampas, where you're guaranteed to see monkeys, anacondas, dolphins, alligators and much more, I decided to avoid the gringo wave and went on a 5 day trek in the jungle for some real isolation. It was just me, a guide and a cook for 5 days.
My guide was called Juan Carlos. He was from the indigenous village of Real Beni and he looked like the TV series version of the Incredibile Hulk, he even had the same haircut. The cook was his wife. They didn't speak English, so I got to practice my Spanish, although I don't think it improved very much. I spent the first day travelling by boat up the Rio Beni, to the Hulk's village where I stayed the night. The village is
Tarantula
Spotted during a night-walk self-sufficient. There was no electricity, no running water and no bano. For the next 5 days, the jungle was my toilet. I noticed that everyone in the village was missing their top front four teeth. This made them look like friendly vampires.
The next day we started our journey in the jungle. It was like a boyhood fantasy come true. Juan led the way with his machete, clearing the path when he needed to. It was like travelling with my very own Ray Mears. He explained what all the medicinal properties of all the trees and plants. When we reached our campsite, he disappeared into the jungle and returned with different branches which he then used to make a comfortable camp.
Days 3, 4 and 5 were more of the same, but all very different. We crossed rivers, fished them for dinner, hiked up to lookouts which afforded amazing views over the jungle and the pampas, made rings from macaw nuts and trekked through more jungle and more jungle. I tasted fruits that I'd never heard of. As for the wildlife, I heard a lot: birds, monkeys and at the night, the mating calls of the frogs stopped
you from sleeping, but I didn't see too much: a few birds, the tails of a couple monkeys, but a lot of insects. Night 4 we had a jaguar visit the camp twice and I missed it on both occasions. We then went on a night walk in search of it. Two hours later, all we could find were footprints.
I survived the 5 days pretty much unscathed, albeit with a few scratches and insect bites. The worst I had was waking up to find a tick on my groin and an inch from my delicate area. It wouldn't come off until I got my tweezers and yanked it off. It still hurts now.
Back in civilisation I came down with another bout of gut-rot. I decided against taking the bus back to La Paz and booked a flight. Rurrenabque's airport is no more than a field and a shed. The problem with a grass runway and an aircraft that carries no more than 20 passengers, is that if it is raining you can't take off. I was on a flight scheduled for Friday. It rained all day and my flight got put back to 8am on Saturday.
If all went well, I would arrive in La Paz at 8:40am and hopefully be able to get to a TV screen to watch the England game which kicked off at 9am (Bolivian time). In typical Bolivian fashion, my flight was again delayed and we didn't take off until 9am. I landed in La Paz, jumped in a taxi and headed into town. I'd forgotten that today (Saturday) was Gran Poder which is the biggest festival in Bolivia. Traffic was horrendous so I asked to the taxi driver to let me out. I was now lost, carrying my big backpack, trying to find a pub and suddenly I found myself in the middle of the street parade. It took me ages to get out of it, and when I did, I got stuck behind a queue of people in a road that was cornered off. Eventually I found a place to watch the game and caught the last 20mins. It wasn't worth the effort.
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