Blogs from Rurrenabaque, Beni Department, Bolivia, South America - page 27

Hi all, back from an exciting three days of seeing wildlife in steamy regions of Bolivia. Currently, we are in Rurrenbaque, a small jungle town that caters to tourist visiting Madidi National Park, one of the most biodiverse places on earth, with over 1,000 bird species (more than all of the United States) in a space only slightly larger than Rhode Island. We did not see all of them, but Sara made an honest effort. On a separate note, I am welcoming all comments, good or bad (please, not ugly), either just to hear from people enjoying it or from people telling me to shorten my entries (yes, sometimes they drag on too long). Now, back to La Paz for our supposedly short plane ride to Rurrenbaque and our additional travels in the city. Well, after ... read more

We've been on the road now for about 3 months, more or less, and the whole time we've been up in the mountains (except for the Galapagos excursion, which was something of a holiday within a holiday). Many moons ago my good friend Pete had also travelled these parts, and the one recommendation that I remembered was that we should go to Rurrenabaque, or Rurre as it's more often called. Having spent so much time up in the clouds we were looking forward to getting down to jungle level, and seeing some of the teeming wildlife that we'd heard and read much about. The journey there was, well, different. We'd biked down from La Paz to Coroico and from there caught a bus bound for Rurre. It was claimed that this bus had toilets and fully ... read more

Well we eventually made it to Rurrenabaque after 10 hours in La Paz airport. I had a horrible flight as it was a little 12 seater plane and shortly after leaving La paz and the beautiful snow capped montains behind we were submerged in thick dark grey cloud and rather sever turbulance at one point the plane dropped what seemed like a few hundred feet and let out a large beep (never known a beep mean anything good, I´ve not said a prayer in a long time but I said one then). Andrews hand was white from me squeezig it so tightly! As we were coming into land we came out of the cloud had a quick glimpse of thick forrest and a wide chocolate brown river and then we were on the rather bumpy grass ... read more

The Rainforest This trip is so fantastic! After La Paz, I flew to the Amazonian rainforest. Steamy, low altitude and difficult to believe I'm in the same country as the altiplano. I stayed at the Mapajo Lodge, near the town of Rurrenebaque (known as Rurre). Rurre is the main entry point for tourism in Bolivian Amazonia. It's a bit of a frontier town and there are loads of companies offering tours of the rainforest or tours of the "Pampas", a waterlogged area with trees wide enough apart for you to be able to see loads of wildlife. You can go on tours there where you catch piranhas and eat them for dinner which sounds a bit of a lark. If you opt for a rainforest tour you see less wildlife but you still know it's all ... read more

You left us in Santa Cruz in the east of Bolivia. It´s a bustling metropolis where American cultural influence is quite apparent. Only 10 years ago it was still a regional town. However, it has now grown bigger than La Paz. The hotel that we chose proved to be our saviour. Hotel Globetrotter is an oasis of calm in the surrounding maelstrom. The proprietor used to work for the Scandie airline SAS. He had travelled throughout Europe and much of the rest of the world, picking up five languages on the way. The name Globetrotter came from an old SAS offshoot business, but he is the real globetrotter. He had resettled in the city of his youth and now spent his time running a very comfortable hotel in the centre of Santa Cruz and tending to ... read more