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Published: September 26th 2008
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Polly:
Jungle boogey...da da da doo doo...jungle boogey. Finally I could sing this with conviction. I kept singing it in the pampas, thinking I was in the jungle. Heat, strange food, and primitive surroundings do crazy things to you.
We got on a boat, along with our group and a few locals who were hitching a ride up the Beni River, then up the Tuichi River to the shore near our camp. As we travelled upstream of the Tuichi River it got a bit shallow and Ross and I had to jump in and push our primitive little vessel up the stoney rapids. Apart from one girl hurling over the edge (having a bad reaction to Larium) it was a beautiful couple of hours, getting more jungly by the minute.
When we arrived we all helped carry supplies through a 15-minute jungle track to a small opening, which was our camp. In our group was Caitlin, Laura & Megan who were old mates from Philidelphia Uni, and Reni (a boy!) from Berlin. As Caitlin was still poorly, she was taken by the "Doctor" and given some specially prepared medicine. About half an hour later the "Doctor" was also
introduced as our guide. Jose Luis was a true jungle man, he lived and breathed the jungle, knowing every plant and every sound.
After some lunch we went on a 3-hour trek into the jungle. It was really humid, but the shade from the canopy of trees kept you bearably cool. I don´t know how they cope in summer? As we strolled through the jungle there was a constant chatter of creatures around us, but generally they kept out of sight. I had a feeling that they knew the score and were silently following us from the tree tops. Jose Luis started making bird calls, and birds responded to his whistles. Some of them make the strangest noises. We managed to see one of the tuneful birds, and he wagged his tail in time to his song. Another bird made a sound like a 'toot' followed by what sounds like a stone being dropped in water!
Every now and then the howler monkeys would start, well, howling, and we would try to track them, but I think they were too clever for us.
JL stopped and made us listen to a low grumble, and said it was
Boat Trip to the Jungle
Travelling up the Beni river the wild pigs. Quietly as possible we crept through the undergrowth then suddenly one of them wandered out into a small clearing. He was followed by about 20 of his mates. It was amazing to see them just doing what they do in the wild. Suddenly they noticed us and made a loud chatterring noise which is them smacking their teeth together, to alert the others, then they fled leaving an awful aroma. Apparently they have a gland which secretes a foul smell to warn off prey. I think they were just farting with fear.
We were all desperate to see a jaguar, but they've only been spotted 3 times so far this year, so we weren´t that lucky.
We went back to our candlelit dinner, prepared also by candlelight on a calor gas stove. It was a simple pasta with tomato, and really tasty. Just after dinner, an otter came up from the river and feasted on some of the vegetable skins which was really cool to see.
We then got DEETed up and went for the night trek. I´m glad I did it, but I would never willingly do it again. The torches attracted the
mossies so we were pretty much reliant on JL´s low beam torch. You couldn´t see where you were walking, kept tripping over fallen trees, ankles caught by vines and walking into spider webs. The "highlight" of the trip was spotting the spiders. Not a great activity for an arachnophobe! We saw many tarantulas, some the size of your hand. We also saw a spider that could kill you with one bite. As we walked to a clearing JL scanned his torch and we saw about 30 pairs of spider´s eyes. The irrational fear started to take over and I was imagining them crawling up my legs and all over me. JL then started paddling in the stream in his flip-flops to point out the baby aligators. Rather him than me. I was really relieved to get back to camp and soooooooooooooo grateful for the mosquito net protecting my bed and belongings.
The next day we went on another hike to a different area and saw a few more pigs. We saw some monkeys, but they were fast and so high up. JL was teaching us about some of the plants which was really interesting. He chopped down one vine
and let us drink the water from it. He showed us the poison tree, which if you cut it, secreted a liquid that killed you, the only antidote being breast milk! He also showed us some of the edible fruits including the acai tree, which looks a bit like a palm tree. He was amazed to learn that the acai berry was taking off in British healthfood shops.
Before leaving JL made me some jewellry from jungle nuts and seeds, which was a perfect parting gift and really meant something.
On arriving back to Rurrenabaque we learnt that our flight back to La Paz was cancelled due to the political protests and that all the roads were blocked. There were about 100 tourists in total stranded, and some were coming up with inventive escape routes involving boats & jeeps. The rest were getting tanked up! We knew we were going to miss our flight from La Paz back to Santiago anyway, so we decided to sit tight. Although Rurrenabaque, as part of the Beni region, was in support of Santa Cruz, there was no violence in the small town. The local news was somewhat censored and biased so
we didn´t really know what the situation was like elsewhere. We didn´t want to catch a boat to somewhere and find out it was dodgy.
They said that the flights would start again in 3 days, but after turning up for our rearranged flight we were told that the protests were to continue. They advised us that the road blocks to La Paz would be suspended for 24 hours, so we made a hurried exit with 2 Bolivian women and a Japanese man. We took 3 different taxis and eventually arrived back in La Paz at 5am the following morning.
Bolivia is an amazing country. The geography is so extreme and so varied. We would've loved to have gone south to see the salt flats of Uyuni, but we both felt we should get to Chile and return one day when the country was at peace politically.
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