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Published: August 13th 2010
The cold temperatures seemed to be following us throughout Bolivia and they didn't sound to be any better in Chile. Brian and I felt bad but ended up canceling our trip to northern Chile. The thought of spending all that money (airfare, hotel and visas which were $135 per person) to deal with more cold temps and un-heated rooms just didn't make sense.
Several family members had mentioned Rio Selva to us, so we decided to look into it some more and the all-inclusive package had us hooked.
We packed up our bags again and set off. This was our first trip down to the Yungas region on the new road. The old road AKA the World's Most Dangerous Road is now only used for bicycle descends now. The trip on the new road was uneventful and much faster than the previous times.
In order to start descending to the Yungas, we first had to go up higher and cross over the Cumbre (over 15,000 ft in elevation) to get to our final destination at 4,300 ft. (This drop was done in about 1 1/2 hours!!)
Rio Selva is a resort near Yolosa, at the bottom of the valley from
Coroico. Its a riverside resort with all sorts of amenities, like six swimming pools plus four more that were connected by a series of slides, hot tubs, saunas, soccer and racquetball courts, game rooms and more..
We originally were only planning to stay 3 days, but since everyone was enjoying our stay there we extended our stay to six days.
The pools were not heated but after being so cold, the kids didn't mind and jumped right in.
We had a lovely little apartment with a balcony over the river. It took no time to get used to the sounds of the water and all the birds!
One bird in particular was the Oropendola. Its a greenish-brown large bird with pointed yellow bill, and long tail which was bright yellow, red belly and more yellow on it's wings. They are colonial breeders, and make long woven basket nests which hang from the end of the branches all in one tree. They made the strangest sounds too, something between a laugh and a whistle. I did record and film it, but never managed to get a good picture of it.
The plants and birds were amazing here. We had
papaya trees right outside our room and all sort of citrus trees, bananas, coffee, and mango trees throughout the resort. Several times we say parrots fly over us, and almost every morning during my walks, I ran into hummingbirds, which were 10 times bigger than the little ones I have visiting my garden.
The only nuisance were some little no see um yellow flies. I had over 40 bites and they itched like crazy. For some odd reason the bug repellent worked in keeping them away from Brian and the kids but not me. Luckily I had some lidocaine cream that gave me some relief but one night I had to put an ice cold wet towel on my feet to get them to stop itching in order to fall asleep.
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