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Published: April 3rd 2007
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**********CLICK ON THE LEFT SIDE TO SEE THE VIDEO********** This will be a long one(and most likely boring as its longer!!) cos this was so good and i never thought i would ever be in the Amazon Rain forest going up and down the river in a boat.
Left La Paz and luckily caught our flight to Rurrenabaque with the military airline TAM. The flights are cancelled a lot due to the rain and the runway in Rurrenabaque being made of grass which turns to mud. As we flew over snow capped mountains and decended into the valley we could see the typical spectacular sights you expect of the Amazon jungle. There were rivers of brown winding through the sea of green. Then the heat hit us on descent and we knew it would be a sweaty one. I wasnt looking forward to the landing but it was actually pretty smooth and easier than a normal runway. We caught a taxi to town and checked into the santa ana hotel which was nice and only cost 3.50 euro so we were happy. We booked our trek with Anacondas for 54 dollars and were to leave at 8.30 the next
day. That night we headed out to the aptly named mosquito bar for one to many cocktails. Best way to get asleep when its 30 degrees at night....
Next day with hangovers in tow we were up at 7am in the already boiling heat. It turned out to be 45 degrees that day. We had to take the 4 hour 4x4 journey through crater filled roads to the river for our boat ride. So there was no sleep to be had to make up for the night before. On the way we got a taste of things to come and we saw a sloth climbing a tree for grub and tons of birds(flacons, cranes and vultures). We stopped for lunch and eventually made it to the river. After about 2 mins Gar spotted a pink dolphin coming up for air in the river. After checking with Luis and a quick aligator check we dived straight in and got pretty close as there very curious. They were beautiful!!
After the swim we loaded up our gear onto our small boat and headed up river for a 3 hour ride to the campsite. As we went around the first corner
we seen a kingfisher dive straight to the water hunting and a every feet hundred feet an eagle was perched at a treetop keeping watch. We rounded a corner into a little cove and saw 3 dolphins(mam,dad and kid) come up for air in unison. Again we dived in and got even closer to them but they still shyed away and wont let you touch. Luis beckoned back to the boat for some bird watching.
We went on further and came across the Paradise Bird which nest low in the trees. Not sure what happened maybe the guide was a little cocky but he didnt slow down the boat in time and crashed into the tree were the bird was nesting. The mother in her panic(typical!!), knocked the chick into the water and it never resurfaced. We tried saving it and it was horrible to hear the mother calling for her young. We all felt pretty shitty about it not least of all our guide.
We headed on and soon saw the Ca Ca eagles(huge) and a giant crane flying which was seemed about the size of an ostrich. Soon after we stopped close to some bushes and
Luis started whistling. Dozens of lillte capachino monkeys appeared from the trees and when we took bananas out for them they had no problem jumping on the boat onto peoples heads and shoulders to feed. It was cool. After a while they got a little bored, faught each other for a while then left.
We pushed on forward in the searing heat and saw a tucon(the guiness bird) which has a weird way of flying. We arrived at our campsite the Sunset Lodge which has its own bar. The elevated village looked like an oversized treehouse and was surrounded by water cos of the rainy season.
That night we went out in the boat for some aligator hunting. We could see big aligators through the trees. When you shine your torch you can see red eyes staring straight at you. Luis caught a baby Camen which was cool and was showing off by putting it in his mouth. He then made us promise to tell nowone cos he would get into shit. Then it was back to the lodge for a few beers. It seemed strange to us that we went out searching for aligators when the next
day we could see 3 hanging around under were we slept. There was a huge one about 10 feet long who stayed under the kitchen waiting for scraps.
And that was the eventful day that was Day 1.......
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kinger
non-member comment
yeaarrww!!!
Looks deadly lads, keep the blogs comin. Are you sure that pink dolphin wasnt Gar?