Blogs from Rurrenabaque, Beni Department, Bolivia, South America - page 13

A terrible night´s sleep. I was desperate for the loo, but was afraid to leave the protection of my mosquito net, for fear of the swarms of bugs that hung in the air and the huge black cockroaches that carpet the floor and threaten to crunch beneath your feet. Still, the night didn´t last long. We were up and in the canoe by 5:30am. The atmosphere in the pampus was so different at this hour. We watched the sky turn a shade of milky red as the sun rose and listened to a chorus of throaty growls as the howler monkeys rose from sleep. We spent the remainder of the morning piranha fishing. This was a primitive affair - a chunk of meat was tied to a string and dangled over the side of the canoe. ... read more

Bonjour a tous, Je viens de revenir de trois merveilleuses journees passees dans la foret amazonienne. Ce fut toute une experience, assez differente de mon experience dans les jungles d;Equateur. Voici donc un bref apercu des derniers jours. Tout d;abord, vendredi il m;est arrive une aventure assez rocambolesque, mon papa en a ete le temoin distant. Apres ma session Internet, je suis retournee a mon super restaurant de Rurrenabaque (medaillons de veau dans une sauce a la creme, pain maison et brownies maison). J;ai mange en compagnie du couple d;allemands. On rentre a l;hotel vers 10;10. Tout le monde est sur le party a Rurrenabaque, y,a de la musique qui sort a tue-tete de tous les bars et restaurants. Une fois dans ma chambre, je me rends compte que, misere, j;ai perdu l;une de mes cartes ... read more

Bonjour bonjour, Me voila de retour des pampas. Malheureusement, je ne peux pas uploader de photos pour l;instant, ils empechent d;utiliser les ports USB. Bizarre. Donc voici un super resume des trois derniers jours. Mercredi, lever de bon matin et petit-dejeuner a l,hotel. Je pars ensuite tranquillement a l;agence Bala Tours. Et la, surprise-surprise, nous sommes 13 a partir ce matin pour les pampas. On nous assigne dans 3 jeeps differents. Je suis chanceuse, je me retrouve avec le couple d;allemands et nous ne sommes que 3 passagers dans la jeep. Vive l,espace! Je prends place a cote du chauffeur qui ne nous adressera pas un mot durant tout le trajet. Il a un peu l;air bete comme on dit. A sa defense, je dois dire que nous roulons sur une piste de terre pas mal ... read more

After the Inca trail we headed back to Bolivia to finish off the parts we hadn´t managed to get to in time before our date with them there hills. Our friends Esther & Bianca (as appearing in Chapters Easter Island, Sucre, Potosi and La Paz...) recommended the trips they´d finally managed to book and relying on their good judgement we booked EXACTLY the same trips! and we weren´t to be disappointed. So we started by flying to Rurrenbaque...the town (in the loosest sense of the word) that provides the gateway to the MADIDI national park jungle and the pampas. It´s a nice relaxing place and we stayed at a lovely hostel (ORIENTAL...just in case anyone is going that way). We started with the Pampas trip, 3 days tripping along the rivers and flooded plains looking at ... read more

I shuddered as I felt the movement on my skin. Instinctively, my hand reached out to kill the would be invader. But there was none. It had taken the boat three hours to bring me back to civilisation but it would take my mind much longer to readjust. The swarms of mosquitoes were replaced by waves of motorcycles. Rurre, a town of merely fifteen thousand seemed like a megalopolis compared to Torewa, a community of six families. A lomito broke my diet of fish, rice and plantains, a cerveza my almost three week abstinence from alcohol and water so thickly laced with soil, you could eat it. It felt good. Scratch that. It felt fucking good. You don't know what you've got till it's gone. How true. The first night I tried to sleep in my ... read more