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Published: October 26th 2008
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If the pampas was like a stroll through a safari park, the jungle proved to be much more of an endurance test, but with spectacular pay off.
It´s been getting hotter and hotter as the days pass by and by the time we get on the boat headed down the Rio Beni towards the Madidi National Park it´s steaming hot and we´re glad for the breeze created by boat travel.
After a couple of hours on the Beni, we join it´s tributary the Tuichi that heads deep into the Madidi. This 1.8 million hectare area has national park status which keeps the logging companies, road developers and oil prospecters at bay...for now. The indiginous inhabitants have their rights to fish, hunt and live traditionally protected by Unesco. On the way up the Tuichi we stop at a small Tacana community, San Miguel. This is where our guides for the next 3 days are from and they teach us weaving techniques used to build roofs for their houses, and Ritch helps use the huge press that extracts the super sweet juice from raw sugar cane.
We carry on upriver until we arrive at camp...complete with showers, 2 communal thatched
buildings: one housing the kitchen and dining area, the other a dorm of mosquito netted beds. We´ll be sharing this living space with our friend Kiran from the Pampas tour, as well as 4 po-faced Czechs. The 3 of us try really hard to make conversation with them but it´s like pulling teeth. They speak English & Spanish very well, but any friendly questions are met with monosyllibic responses. But they will be hiking with a different guide, so it´s only at mealtimes that the pain continues! This group mismatch makes me realise how lucky we´ve been on previous treks...always bonding as a group over shared meals noisy with conversation and laughter.
But, it doesn´t take away from where we are in any way. I wake to the noisy screeches of mackaws in the trees outside our hut, and we´re joined in camp by a spider monkey who visits everyday, knowing there is such a thing as a free lunch.
On our first walk deep into the forest, we have to coax information from our quiet guide Saba, who is very knowledgable when he gets going. We have to go as quietly as possible so as not to
scare the animals away; this is pretty difficult with crunchy leaves and snapping twigs underfoot, and it´s slow going in the humid heat. But with the machete happy Saba up ahead you feel a bit Indiana Jones and it´s great fun. The air is full of butterflies of every colour, some with wings the size of my hands.
In the flat grasslands of the pampas, animal spotting is ridiculously easy. Here the trees are huge and the foliage so thick that you hear more than you see, and the noise is incredible. The insects, frogs and birds fill the air with the most amazing layers of sound...there´s the familiar chirp of cicadas, but over that some of the weirdest whoops and squawks I´ve ever heard. Some sound almost mechanical, like sirens or mobile ringtones.
We catch glimpses of howler monkeys and capuchins high up in the treetops, and get more than glimpses of the huge and very dangerous bullet ants. We spend alot of this first walk chasing wild pigs through the forest...they´re big and ugly and let off a horrible musty stench, but Saba seems to like them and we´re totally at his mercy this deep in
the jungle, so we stick close to him.
Later that day the whole group gets in the boat and travels downriver to a part of the park where it´s easier to spot birds. Parakeets and mackaws live in holes in the steep rocky cliff face...the small bright green parakeets fly together in large groups, seemingly just for fun, and the bright red flash of the mackaws flying in pairs is absolutely stunning. We´re spoiled and see loads of them, but no blue mackaws...the apparently live in palms and are much harder to see.
Happily I´ve already had an encounter with 2 blue mackaws a few days earlier in a toilet at a remote restaurant on our way to the pampas tour jetty. I´d pushed open the door to find 2 cheeky fellas happily shredding all the loo roll. When I asked them what they thought they were doing, they reacted just like a pair of naughty dogs...jungle pets are fun!
Kiran has to head back to La Paz that night, so now it´s just me and Ritch with Saba. We go off into the jungle for a nightwalk and the noise is even louder that during the
day. The 3 of us creep around in silence, our torchbeams attracting giant moths who think we´re the moon, and picking out huge spiders in their face-height webs (Saba tells us some are ridiculously poisonous) Ritch does well not to freak out when on abseils down almost on his head. And we see more of the massive bullet ants...one bite and it´s 4 hours of excruciating pain.
More happily we also see loads of fireflies and find super-cute treefrogs. Then Saba whispers for us to turn off the torches as he´s spotted some howler monkeys in the trees above us. By moonlight we chase them as quietly as we can...luckily the moon is almost full and it´s bright enough to get a few good glimpses. We return to our camp beds tired and happy.
I wake around dawn to the rumble of thunder and the roar of rain. It´s wonderful...so cool after the past few days´oppresive heat and it makes the jungle smell amazing, leaving everything fresh and glistening in the new days´sunshine.
The wet foliage underfoot makes creeping quietly much easier on today´s walk and we´re well rewarded. We see lots of yellow spider monkeys playing,
more than glimpses of capuchins, lots more stinky wild pigs and very rarely, 2 toucans sat in the branches together which our guide is also very happy about. He´s warmed up well after a quiet start and has shared alot of knowledge with us.
We´re in much deeper jungle today and there´s some incredible trees...some so large it´s impossible to frame them in my camera window. He shows us a rubber tree and also a tree which seeps the most toxic poison in the whole jungle. He also shows us these amazing trees that can ´walk´in the direction of the sun! It takes them years, but they sprout branch-like roots in the direction they want to go, that stay above ground as they gradually move into sunnier spots. He also shows us the ´viagra´tree, a plant used for antiseptic and a garlic smelling treebark that keeps mozzies, and presumably everyone else, away.
Speaking of mosquitos, we have been providing some tasty jungle tucker for the little biting bastards. I think I´ve got it bad, til Ritch takes off his shirt one day and asks how bad his back looks. It´s bad...I lose count at 200 and he´s tormented
by the incredible itching.
It´s tough going in the jungle...very hot and humid and the biting insects can make your life hell. Not to mention being surrounded by poisonous frogs, spiders, ants and even toxic trees. But it´s a wonderful experience despite the itching and sweating...even the distress of having to pull a couple of tics off me can´t ruin my uplifted feeling. But we´re also pleased to get back to Rurre with it´s electric fans and shops full of anti-histimine lotion.
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