Advertisement
Published: November 27th 2004
Rarrrrrrghhhhh!
He wants us for dindins!We got to Rurrenabaque on the 27th November after a fantastic flight in a Cessna Grand Caravan (for the flight enthusiasts, a 12-passenger single prop aircraft). The flight was 1 hour, early in the morning, and you can see some of the pictures we took - the views were spectacular as we headed for a gap in the mountain range, and then flew over the land as it dropped down, first through cloud forest all the way to jungle and pampas below - we landed over 3200 metres lower down than we took off.
And it was hot, and very very sticky when we arrived.
Into the Jungle!!! After being met and meeting the group we were going with (3 swedish girls, aged 21) we all hopped into our riverboat (about 10 metres long and a metre wide) and set off up the Rio Beni - one of the tributaries of the Amazon. Generally it´s about 20 metres wide and goes at about 5mph - I think it´s about 15-20 metres deep too, so that´s a helluva lot of water.
After about 3 1/2 hours of sailing upriver, getting used to our new environment - (hot, sticky, insects and
lots of green), we arrived at our encampment. It was fairly basic: two very big wooden "huts" with plastic roofing and mosquito netting for windows. One was purely for sleeping with about 20 beds inside (all mosquito-netted up), and the other was divided into a cooking area, an eating area and a place for the guides and cooks to sleep with about 6 beds.
The first thing we both needed to do was go to the toilet, so we were pointed in the direction of the toilet - down a path into the as-yet very very foreign jungle. After about 20m past a tree with a termite nest in it and every other kind of vegetation I got to the toilets - sinkholes into the ground, but with proper toilet seats on them, surrounded by mosquito netting and a little roof. They were actually very civilised and well made and no problem whatsoever.
On leaving the area I was confronted with the sound of a very large flying insect. More like the sound of a helicopter, it was a flying beetle about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide obviously interested in the toilet area. It wasn´t dangerous at all
Huayna Potosi from the air
The mountain we climbed up! - far more interested in hovering about trying to get into the other toilet, but pretty nervewracking nonetheless.
So that was our introduction to jungle life.
After a brief break we set of into the jungle down the path they made (with our guide of course). After about 10 minutes we came across a large group of wild pigs (can´t remember the name right now). Big things and very noisy, they were a bit startled by us and one of the males grunted a bit at us (perhaps 20 metres away) but they weren´t too bothered and eventually decided they were startled and all ran away from us tearing up the jungle (from the noise of it) and quickly we were all alone again. Apart from the insects (which make such a racket ALL the time, wherever you are) and the vegetation.
Further down the path, we were shown some male and female trees of the same species (very different), medicinal trees, large trees with vines so interwoven as to form one organism - when the tree dies, so does the vine. We also had a go on their vine swing - coming from a tree easily
Some kind of bird
Sorry, it's late and my caption-writing skills are waning 25 metres above our heads. That was fun.
Parrots flew over our heads above the camopy - making a racket too, we found some small frogs (not the poisonous kind), and several different kinds of ants including Leafcutters and small ones that live in a tree.
The leafcutters were very ingenious - they have two types of ant in the colony: the big ones do all the lifting and presumably cutting, while the smaller ones supervise, checking for larvae on the leaves, and riding atop larger pieces of leaves guiding the big carrying ant. Really cool.
The small ants that lived in the tree form a totally simbiotic relationship with the tree, caring for it, killing any plant that tries to grow within a metre radius of it (this was the cleanest bit of the jungle I saw), and generally living inside it.
I asked where the entrance to the nest was and the guide pointed out a tiny hole (1mm diameter), and lo and behold a tiny ant duly popped his antenna out to say hello. It was fascinating, and to prove how aggressive the ants are to protect the tree he tapped it with his knife and EVERY
Floating down the Amazon
Baby Amazon tributary really ant on the tree steamed towards the source of the disturbance. You don´t want to mess with that tree, that´s for sure.
We also saw giant butterflies, and a tortoise.
I hope you´re enjoying this as much as I did.
Before dinner we all went downriver to a small stream for a wash - much needed. It was quite good fun pouring water over each other. It was also quite cool washing in an Amazon tributary along with 3 Swedish girls. Sorry Sarah, but it was.
After dinner (good food btw), we went for our Night Walk down the same path as before - only an hour this time (and each of us with our torches) we came across bats, the biggest spiders I´ve ever seen, the biggest grasshoppers I´ve ever seen, glow worms flying about and probably were very close to a million other thing that would really make you crap your pants if it got inside your mosquito net.
But luckily nothing did, and we slept well that night - our first under a mosquito net.
Sunday On Sunday we got up and went for The Walk of Hell - it started
raining about 10 minutes into the walk. And then it started to rain properly. And then it started to rain properly for the rainforest. And then I think it just thought "Oh well, I´ll do the most amount of rain in the whole world at that time". So it was raining a lot then.
My poncho held out quite well for an hour or so, and my boots held out the water for a while - but eventually it was pointless. 3 hours later we got back to camp, took off our soaking clothes - turning out our boots so much water came out it wasn´t funny. And the Swedish girls were in trainers.
(it took 4 days for the boots to dry out completely).
And the only thing of note we saw was an armadillo, but that was quite cool and sort of made it worth it. Cute little guy, I think a bit harrassed too by the rain, he sniffed about our feet for a bit until he realised what we were, then scarpered.
That afternoon after lunch we got back onto the boat (after drying off a bit), and steamed back downriver for 2 hours back
to the town of Rurrenabaque where we checked into a hostal, had a good hot shower and went for The Best Meal so Far in South America at a very nice place past the Moskito Bar. Excellent food and drink and very friendly service. Wouldn´t go amiss in the Oxo Tower.
That night everyone seemed to be on a motorbike as the townskids celebrated the beginning of the summer holiday by cruising up and down and enjoying the million Karaoke bars in town.
Monday Early morning we met at the tour office to get off on our 3-day Pampas tour. A bumpy 3-hour ride in an old Toyota Landcruiser took us to the small village on the side of the river (different river this time, small and very very winding) where we had lunch then got into a riverboat to cruise upstream to our Pampas encampment.
This river was much narrower and slower moving than the Rio Beni, and the coutryside was different, this being a Pampas tour. Pampas is more like grassland/wetland with less trees and more animals.
AND MOSQUITOES!!!! EVERYWHERE - read this with this in mind!!!
On the boat ride up we saw loads of
turtles sunning themsleves on logs sticking out of the river, and the odd alligator looking like a log sticking out of the river.
We saw 2 Capybaras (giant rat-like things) at the side of the river. Quite cute, for giant rodents. Also, there were herons, pink river dolphins and monkeys in the trees - howler monkeys, very large brown things that make a very weird noise in the morning.
Also we saw small brown monkeys but not sure what these were called.
So we got to the encampment - similar to the other one really and had some food and rested for a bit as it went dark.
At night we were taken by our new guide (Luis - a bit like action man), for a small excursion upriver about 30 minutes. We got off the boat at a small lake and walked inland a bit. The objective was to take our torches, and shine them into the lake - it was quite cool; you could see the eyes of the alligators all around the edge of the lake. My Maglite was best - it was about twice as powerful as the other torches and I counted about
Up to our necks in it
well, actually knees. But that's not important right now 15 pairs of yellow eyes reflecting back at us.
Tuesday I got up at 5am becuase I woke up then - another group was getting up early to do the thing we were going to do the next day. I listened to the sound of the Pampas waking up - the noises of howler monkeys predominating.
Then we went for our 3 hour walk through the Pampas wetlands (in wellies this time). It was very soggy and after about 1/2 hour we got to a stream - swelled by the rains 2 days ago - and waded up to our mid-thigh to cross it. We plodded on through bits of land, through clouds of mosquitoes who cared not for our repellent, across more streams, and along the side of lakes. Not much was to be seen animal-wise, apart from some herons, and we were getting a bit despondent and much much hotter as the sun came up.
Eventually, after 2 hours of wading and sweating and swatting and spraying our guide told us we were to return to camp. Having seen nothing so far, and getting very uncomfortable we were a bit miffed.
But!!! not 5 minutes
later.....
Our guide shouted excitedly - "Anaconda!!!", and within 5 seconds he had the snake by the neck (just behind the head) and held him up by the body with the biggest grin on his face. Later we were to find out it was his 39th birthday that day.
As you can see, we all had a go at holding Mr Anaconda before putting him down and he snaked off, presumably terrified.
Our guide rushed off, happy as Larry and we followed - our journey had been justified.
We all took showers in the rudimentary shower area (could have done with a mossie-net over that!!!!) and I chilled in the afternoon in the hammock. Later that afternoon we saw some small brown monkeys eating and playing in a tree above the encampment and we took some pictures - which you can probably see somewhere on this page.
That evening we went downriver. We dived in the river at one point and had a swim about - there were pink river dolphins in the vicinity but you couldn´t really say we swam "with" them. We then went to watch the sunset from the sunset bar and I
bough Luis a couple of birthday beers while the girls made some jewelery out of the seeds of one the trees. We have the proceeds around our necks at this moment!
Wednesday We got up at 5am to drift downriver again and listen to the noises of the jungle waking up - very cool. Then luis took us to a point just upriver where we watched the sunrise - very nice too.
We went back, packed, relaxed for a couple of hours and then began the journey back - arriving that night back in La Paz where it was noticably colder and much, much dryer.
Being totally knackered we checked into the 5 star Hotel Presidente for some luxury. At only 70USD it was a bargain - we enjoyed our 2-bathroom suite, cable TV (BBC World Service we love you!), minibar and Jacuzzi Bath very much. You can read Sarah´s account of it in the La Paz entry!
Phew, that was the jungle - who got this far then??? Anybody???
Advertisement
Tot: 0.068s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 10; qc: 23; dbt: 0.0221s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
anonymous
non-member comment
Pictures
Where are all the pictures dudes? Sarah I have got to see a picture of you in the jungle. Glad you both are having such a fantastic time. Eileen