Advertisement
Published: October 22nd 2006
Edit Blog Post
Rurrenabaque ´airport´
Our plane arriving. Note the bloke in charge of bringing the plane in - he was also our bus driver to the airport - and dog overseeing operations Thanks for all the comments and e mails, particularly regarding my apperance which were really welcome (eg, "it looks as though Suze is taking her terminally ill Grandad on one last trip before he croaks"). The Nivea anti-ageing wrinkle rifle has since been plucked from the bottom of my ruck sack and will have a key part to play in the coming weeks.
We spent the best part of a week in Rurrenabaque, a jungle village on the banks of the River Beni, where we arrived via a 12-seat, military twin-prop plane which landed on a grass airstrip. From here we went on a 3-day Pampas tour which was incredible. Without any exaggeration, on the three-hour motorised canoe ride to our camp we didn´t go more than 5 seconds without seeing a crocodile, alligator, water rodent, humming bird or eagle. Unfortunately our guide (ex military hulk, aptly named Rambo) wasn´t the most friendly. His first words to me were "hey, little boy, come here" (which was obviously quite funny). He let himself down on quite a few counts - 1) promising to take us to the see the sunset at 5am. However, with most of us up and waiting he
didn´t show until 9 (when I found him and woke him up) as he was so pissed the night before on jungle juice (100% meths) 2) trying to bribe Suze and 3 other irate girls not to tell the agency 2) throwing frogs at Suze (again, quite funny though Suze didn´t think so) 3) not stopping to help one of our group who was having an asthma attack walking across the savannah in 100 degree heat.
However, this was inconsequential compared to another groups´ experience, we learnt later on. Three blokes dared to question their guides ability and were each thrown to the floor and threatened to take everything back via the medium of a machete which covered all of their throats!
None of this ruined anything though. Suze was the first person to stumble across an anoconda buried in the pampas. I say, ´stumble´, as she was merely looking for a place to throw up - one of a number of side effects she was having from the malaria tablets. I´m not sure ecological tourism has caught on here yet. Call us old fashioned, but we´re sure you´re not supposed to grab a cobra in the marshes
and then chase tourists with it whilst swinging around your head like a lasoo.
We then got to feed one of the crocs on the banks, who was supposedly a ´pet´, named Pete. You tap him on the head so he opens his mouth and then throw the food directly in. Employing my darts technique, I took to the oche, tapped his head and then threw straight from the hip. Unfortunately it hit the wire and bounced straight out. Though tempted with the cover dart, triple 19, I stayed resolute and threw the second bit in without touching the sides. Despite Pete still on the bank and loads of his mates everywhere you looked, the guide said it was perfectly safe to swim. Suze, not quite trusting him after their earlier arguement, decided against it. I, however, was determined to do it so ran in, submerged myself for 5 seconds and sprinted back out. We then went 30 seconds upstream and started pirnaha fishing (whilst sharing a bottle of jungle juice) attaching chunks of beef to a hook which generally perished with the blink of an eyelid.
On the last day, Suze and the rest of the group
went on a jungle walk. I decided to lay in one of the hammocks on the bank and reflect on the tour so far. One of my more worrying thoughts was to wonder if, at the age of 32, my dad ever soiled himself in front of my mother. Figuring probably not, I drifted off into a satisfied sleep.
Returning back to Rurrenabaque, we spent a couple of days with the people from our group (a mixture of english and irish couples and bizarrely a girl, who it transpires, works at the same institute as Suze) relaxing by the pool.
I´ll quickly take you through the last week as I´m sure this is all very boring if you´re not actually out here. After Rurrenabaque we got an overnight bus to Potosi, the highest city in the world and once rivalling Paris and Seville as the richest, on account of the silver deposits in the surrounding mountains. It´s now just like any other poor city becuase of the dwindling supply. The thing to do here is to go and visit one of the mines and see for yourself the appaling conditions the miners work in (it´s not uncommon for
View from the boat
A turtle and a cappibarra (world´s largest rodent) them to stay down there for 24 hours without food, inhaling the many toxic gases - the average life expectancy of a miner here is just 45). Asthmatics, they said, should on no account go. You´re underground in dusty, claustrophic conditions for 3 hours. It took me ages to convince Suze that we should go on the tour, given her fear of enclosed spaces and reassuring her that my asthma hardly affected me these days. However, I shouldn´t have bothered, I had to come back out 20 minutes in, on the verge of my first attack since I was 8 years old. Suze, however, stayed down there for a further 2 and a half hours, and after crawling through the maze of tiny tunnels - some of which lead to sheer drops - started drinking pure meths with the miners... It´s the done thing to buy presents to give out once you´re down there - either pure alcohol, dynamite or soft drinks. Suze on her high horse about the dangers of mixing alcohol and explosives, decided to give them a stick of dynamite and 2 litres of Fanta. Thanking her for the gifts, the miner then used the Fanta to
make himself a triple meths and orange (it was Friday and all the miners get hammered in the mines in the afternoon. The drinking is also supposed to be an offering to their God) and kept offering it to her - it´s considered really rude to say no...
Perhaps this explained Suze´s subsequent actions. Once outside the mine, the guide then put on a dynamite demonstration. Lighting the huge stick to make a home made bomb, he then passed it round in a sort of Russian Roulette pass the parcel. To Suze´s close family, I promise I tried to discourage her, but she was determined to play Debbie Maghee to a Bolivian Paul Daniels. The next thing I knew she had the lighted explosive in her mouth and was posing for photographs.. Not 20 seconds later, the guide grabbed the dynamite from a Frenchman´s mouth and sprinted off to dump it in a hastily-made shallow hole in the ground. You´ve never seen an explosion like it. Such was the impact, Suze´s attempt to take a snap yielded nothing but blue sky as she stumbled back from the blast.
From there we went to Tupiza, in the south,
Piranha fishing
An 8 year old boy casting his line which is where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed. It´s real wild west country with red mountains and cacti all over the place. Bearing in mind that I do look a bit like that Paul Newman (as he is now, obviously, rather than in his Hollywood heyday) we went horse and mountain bike riding. Given that I´ve never even patted a horse before it was quite disconcerting that I was given no instructions beforehand. With the horse on the verge of a gallop, all I could hear was Suze shouting "sit up Matthew. What the hell are you doing with your legs?". Frank Spencer goes horse riding. Meanwhile, Suze was loving it and when the guide - bored with the incompetence of the rest of us - galloped off into the distance, she was the only one in hot pursuit.
Now in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile (the Atacama desert is officially the driest place on earth). Will update soon.
Matthew and Susie x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0642s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Nikki
non-member comment
Brillant
I just love it, what a crazy trip you are having, but one I reckon most of us are jealous of and wish we were doing. So cherish it!! xx