Blogs from Rurrenabaque, Beni Department, Bolivia, South America - page 11

Last Friday, 23/10 I arrived in La Paz from Copacabana. I spent pretty much the entire day trying to obtain my Paraguayan Visa--which I recently found out was actually a planning mistake and now Im traveling to Paraguay because I feel that I HAVE to, given the expense. I took the 6:15 flight from La Paz to the jungle town of Rurrenabaque, which borders Parque Nacional Madidi. Even making the flight was very lucky, as there had been rain for several days prior, and flights cannot land in Rurre after rain because it is made of dirt. The flight in itself was very scenic flying several km by snow-capped peaks (we were below the summit) in a 12 person jet. I opted to take the Pampas tour instead of the jungle, because no matter how tough ... read more

We´re back from our 3 day trip to the Pampas (amazon lowlands)! The trip was great (the weather could´ve been better, but oh well) because we were able to see a lot of wildlife. We were skeptical that we´d be able to see all the wildlife they advertised, but we weren´t disappointed at all. I´ll get to that in a little bit. The first day was quite tiring because Myra and I had to wake up at 4:00 to catch a 6:15 flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque. It sounds like an unimaginable hour to wake up at, but we´ve had to wake up really early for all our tours so far so we weren´t too put off. What did put us off was our 3 hour car ride from Rurrenabaque to Santa Rosa (to get ... read more

The are two options for those visiting Rurrenabaque: A pampas tour or a jungle tour. Nearly all the tour operators were pushing the pampas tour, and nobody seemed interested in taking us into the jungle. However, since we had come to see the Amazon rainforest, it seemed strange to then only visit the pampas. Wer wanted to see big trees and were also under the impression that the pampas tour would be very busy with large tour goups. So when one of the operators we talked to finally got excited about the jungle and told us it would be a much better, more intimate and authentic tour, we opted to go with them. This was a decision well made. The tour guides were a family-run operation, of Tacana people who still live and work most of ... read more

On return to Rurre from the Pampas we were all buzzing however it was time to start saying our goodbyes as Cinthya was heading out on a flight to La Paz that evening and Dave was following the next morning. The six of us booked ourselves into the same hostel and whilst doing this Cinthya rolled up telling us her flight had been canceled due to the weather so she had to stay the night. A shower was the first item on the list for Sharon and I and the second was a beer. After telling the rest of the guys where we would be we headed to the local bar and once again relaxed and relived the last three days. Eventually the whole group were together and we had a last night celebration with quite ... read more

People that think the travelling life is easy is wrong. Don't get me wrong you do get to see some amazing places and the majority of the time life can be quite relaxed however it isn't always late nights and late mornings..... On Tuesday morning my alarm went off at 4.45am as we had to be at the airport for 5.30am in time for our flight. So the four of us Sharon, Scott, Kate and I caught a taxi to the military airport and duly checked in. It was the first surreal experience of the day as whilst we were sat waiting to board the flight it felt like we were in a 1970's Bond film as the walls were painted yellow and blue and the military staff were walking around in coats with fur lined ... read more