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Published: February 6th 2009
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I´m finally on the plane!
And I didn´t look so pleased with myself after it took off because I started to feel very sick... And so after 5 days of disappointments and false starts, I finally took off from La Paz and headed for Rurrenabaque, a small town in the jungle from where I would do a little tour in a boat for a few days. The first few minutes of the flight were exciting, but small planes do jump around a bit and before I knew it, I was having to sit very still with my eyes closed, praying that I didn´t throw up.
Fortunately, the flight was only 40 minutes long, and we were soon landing on the rather muddy runway without too much drama. The change in landscape was incredible - no more high altitude, scruffy city - instead there were palm trees, greenery, huts and a rather significant increase in temperature!
After checking into a small hotel, I shot off into town to book a tour for the following day. Most people do the standard 3 day pampas tour (in a boat, lots of biting insects) or a 1 day jungle tour (on foot, even more biting insects). The costs between tour companies vary quite a bit, and the price seems to be linked to how well they treat
Landed
And it´s hot, hot, hot here!
In the background, you can see the pilot fiddling with the propeller the animals: the cheapest tour will let you feed Pringles to the monkeys (yes, I did see this happen!) and the most expensive ones are the most ethical. I opted for a cheapish to medium priced tour company (recommended in my guidebook) and just hoped they had a reasonably ethical approach. It´s a tricky area though, as everyone wants to see the animals, and some tourists want to hold the snakes, feed the monkeys and catch fish (without thinking about the harm they might be doing) and a lot of the guides are happy to facilitate this...
So after booking my tour, I suddenly remembered I should book my passage out of the jungle (had heard enough horror stories about the bus to even contemplate it as a transport option). I went to the Amaszonas office and booked a flight that was timed perfectly with the end of my tour (it would fly an hour after I got back to Rurrenabaque). What could go wrong, I thought? Hmm... so many things... But more on this later.
We set off the following morning, three hours racing along unmade roads, then transfer to a boat on the river Yacuma. There
A pig
Spotted doing mud snorkelling on the way to Santa Rosa were lots of birds and turtles sunning themselves on the riverbank, and then on a bend in the river we stopped and soon the pink river dolphins started surfacing (they congregate on bends in the river for some reason). The guide asked us if we wanted to jump in, and I did so slightly reluctantly. I´ve always wanted to swim with dolphins, but preferably not in something resembling oxtail soup. I´ve got a bit of a fear of swimming in water where you can´t see anything - you never know what´s lurking beneath your feet! And after the swim I found out exactly what was lurking in there, apart from cute river dolphins: caimans and pirhanas...
Early evening, we reached our base camp in the jungle and spent some time sat on a bridge photographing the squirrel monkeys. These monkeys get fed by some of the tours and we saw one group leap into a tour boat to grab what food they can - felt quite sorry for them. I noticed the monkeys at our camp were trying to cross the river by leaping from the treetops to the other side and I spent a while trying to get
the perfect shot of them flying through the air. And then my stomach turned over....
I spent the next 12 hours curled up in agony, under a mosquito net in our hut, leaping out of bed every hour or so to race down the walkway to the primitive toilets. This was one of many stomach bugs I´d got since I arrived in South America, and they were getting more frequent (a week later, I discovered the sinister reason for my recurring illnesses...) Anyway, the following morning I felt marginally better and asked the guide what the morning´s activities were: turned out to be a walk in an anaconda swamp. Excellent - I don´t think there´s a more suitable activity than trudging through stagnant water full of mosquitoes and giant snakes after being massively dehydrated from a dose of the sh*ts. So did I go? Oh yes (I believe it is better to regret the things you do, rather than the things you missed out on - stupid, but there you go).
It was absolute hell - all the bad things were there. We were given a pair of wellies each (all the wrong size, all leaking) and then
Mango baby
On the way to Santa Rosa walked for an hour under a boiling sun through the most horrible putrid water. The air was humming with mosquitoes and lots of other things with wings and within minutes we were being bitten like crazy. I started to feel quite faint (a month earlier, I had passed out in a supermarket in Argentina and know the warning signs quite well), but conking out in a swamp full of snakes isn´t really a viable option (plus I didn´t want to get my camera wet). Maybe there aren´t any snakes here, I thought... maybe the guide is just kidding and its actually just a boring swamp with mosquitoes. Five minutes later, the guide prodded his stick into a small mound of dried grass sticking out of the swamp and out popped a huge snake - not an anaconda, but big, scary and fast! My self-preservation instincts kicked in and I leapt on the nearest person (a tall Dutchman from my tour) and tried to climb him as if he was a tree. Luckily, the snake shot off in the opposite direction and disappeared under the water.
I spent the next hour walking back to the camp very, very carefully, willing
Go on... strangle him!
Ecotourism is an overused and meaningless word in these parts myself not to pass out or be sick. I´ve never been so pleased to see civilisation (a hut and six hammocks counts as civilisation here) and after ten minutes horizontal and a litre of water, I felt miraculously better.
The evening´s activities brought more wildlife-bothering - this time we were to go out in the boat after sunset and look for caimans! At first, it was just observation - we shone our torches at the riverbank and pairs of red eyes stared back at us. And then somehow our guide managed to grab a baby caiman (about 18 inches long) and it was examined and touched for a few minutes then put back in the water. When you enter the national park, you are given a leaflet with strict rules about not interfering with the animals, but I think majority of tour operators just ignore it.
The next morning, we were instructed to get up at 5.30am for a boat trip to see the sunrise. At 5.30, the tour group reluctantly assmebled on the jetty, and 15 minutes later (after dragging the guide out of his bed as he seemed to have forgotten our early morning start) we
Hanging the wings out to dry
On of the many birds I spotted (but couldn´t identify) were off down the river to find a good spot to see the sun come up. The spot we found (on the edge of a swamp near the river) was good for the sunrise, and also good for biting insects. It was almost impossible to take photos as everyone was dancing around with flailing arms, covered in mosquitoes. The results were worth it though, I think.
After breakfast came the final activity of the tour: fishing! I had been assured that the fish get returned to the river but the first fish caught (a catfish) was thrown into the boat. Some time later, the guide caught a piranha and this was thrown into the boat too. And then at the end of the fishing trip, the fish were put back in the river - alive, I think, but probably a bit pissed off at having to lie in the sun for half an hour.
So that was the tour! I don´t think anything died during our trip (apart from several thousand mosquitoes) and I had a great time seeing the animals and photographing them, but I think I would have preferred to see less of the animals if
Another bird
No idea what this one is either! it meant their wellbeing wasn´t being compromised.
And my flight? Hah! Well, turns out Amaszonas had a little trick up their sleeve... the flight wasn´t cancelled, nor was it late... it went five hours early. EARLY!!! While I was still on the tour! And the following day was the referendum in Bolivia (no transport whatsoever on the roads or in the air) and so I spent an extra day in Rurrenabaque lying in a hammock counting my mosquito bites.
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