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Published: August 7th 2007
After our adventures on the Island of the Sun, we took a four hour bus to La Paz.
La Paz, sitting in a 5km wide canyon, is a visually stunning city. It sprawls up the steep sides of the canyon in a maze of busy, noisy, dirty and polluted roads. Like a huge angry stain, the city spreads out over the lip of the canyon and on to the surrounding plains.
We were a bit freaked out by the drive into La Paz, as we made our way through the slums at the top of the canyon we were greeted by shoe shine boys dressed in black balaclavas shouting angrily towards our bus. It turns out that these guys wear this gear to hide their identity as they are ashamed of their profession, although they support families on the income.
We spent a day in La Paz exploring the city, getting lost in the miriad markets and desperately trying not to get run over by the crazy drivers. The highlight of La Paz was stumbling upon Plaza San Pedro, where the infamous San Pedro Prison is housed. This prison is unique in that the prisoners have to earn
money to pay for their stay in jail. It used to be open to the public to tour and has a fair share of Western prisoners who have been done for attempted narcotic smuggling..... To be honest, we didn´t like the city and were happy to move on.
Our destination was Rurrenabaque (or Rurre for short), a tiny town in the Amazon basin, about one hour flight North of La Paz. It was an adventure just getting there, with the airstrip being a grassy field on the outskirts of town and flights frequently cancelled due to rain. However, we made it up to Rurre relatively smoothly on a 15 seater twin prop plane operated by Amaszonas Airlines. It was a brilliant flight; we didn´t so much cross the Andes as fly through them, skirting the shoulders of mountains and cruising down beautiful glens. Hendrix particularly enjoyed the flight as he got a seat to himself (no luggage space)...
As we climbed out the plane, we were hit by (1) the humidity and (2) the bizarre feeling of being in the jungle, surrounded by lush green foliage covering surrounding hills.
Rurrenabaque is a great wee place, everyone we
met were friendly and helpful and we felt quite at home. We stayed a couple of nights in the excellent Hotel Rurrenabaque where we swayed the evenings away on hammocks hanging on the patio. Brilliant.
Having spent a day researching how to get into the jungle, we opted for a 3 day Pampas tour with the Indian Tours agency. It was a steal at $20US each per day for everything. We set off early the next day with our fellow adventurers Sarah, Tom and Jenna from England and Pia from Finland. With us came our brilliant guide Oscar and our equally brilliant cook Eva. Four hours in a Toyota Landcruiser over rough roads got us to the River Beni, a tributary of the Amazon. As we waited for a boat to pick us up, Sheena spotted movement in the river and we caught our first glimpses of the famous Amazon Pink Dolphins. These creatures are gorgeous and they know it, jumping out the water and playing as if for our amusement.
Another three hours cruising up river in a wooden canoe got us to our camp for 3 days, a wooden structure on stilts on the side of
the river with a basic dorm and more than it´s fair share of Mosquitos. The trip was gorgeous, we saw dolphins, cute Squirrel monkeys (inquisitive enough to jump into our boat, with some encouragement from a banana), huge and loud Howler monkeys, many varieties of birds and the spooky Maribou Storks. For any Irvine Welsh fans, it was a nightmare.....
The accomodation was basic, but the food was brilliant, Eva continually surprised us with really high quality dishes and we even got a perfectly baked cake as a leaving gift on the last day. This, combined with the Poker school initiated by Tom the Shark, made our stay a lot of fun.
Over the next couple of days we explored the area on a number of outings.....
Alligator spotting
- After dark we cruised the river looking for the red glow of Camen eyes and orange glow of alligator eyes. Primeval and spooky.
Anaconda walk
- We walked for 2 hours through forests and fields trying to find the elusive anaconda, no luck.....we reckon we were led on a bit of a wild anaconda chase.....
Piranha fishing
- A morning spent in the boat fishing
Bullet ridden building in La Paz plaza
for these mad little fishes. This river had red, white and yellow piranhas, with red being the angriest. Both Wendy and Sheena caught one....
Sunrise on the river
- Up and out before 6am to watch the most beautiful sunrise over the trees to the background wailing of Howler monkeys waking up
Swimming with Pink Dolphins
- The highlight of the trip. We cruised the river until we found three friendly dolphins playing in a pool, then we jumped in and joined them! Great fun watching them come to within a couple of meters of you then swim away. We also discovered that they love blue flip flops after Pia´s got thrown into the water and carried away by a dolphin. We had a beautiful moment when it was only Wendy and I in the water, far away from any boats and one of these gorgeous creatures swam past us twice to say hello.
Turtles on tour Bum bites. The mosquitos in Rurre proved they had great taste by biting Wendy on the bum 45 times....
The adventures of Anneka. (This will mean something to anyone
who watched that annoying UK TV program where Anneka Rice runs around like a fool trying to solve almost impossible challenges....).
We had arranged with the tour company that we would leave the jungle earlier than usual to catch our 5.15 return flight to La Paz. We were eventually picked up at 2.30 for the 3 hour drive to the airport, so nerves were a little frayed from the off. We encouraged our rather grumpy driver to drive like the wind and apart from one daliance with the ditch, he carried us safely to our destination.
As we pulled up to the airstrip we saw our plane sitting waiting, so we screamed up to it, horn blaring and hands waving, Sarah doing an excellent impression of Anneka. Only to see the pilot calmly close his window and begin his taxi.... .probably the only flight in South America to leave on time that day....
Undettered, we booked ourselves on the first flight out in the morning with Transporte Aero Militare (TAM), the Bolivian airforce sideline that carries fee paying passengers. This flight was scheduled to land in Lapaz military airport at 9.15am, giving us plenty time to get
to the civlilian airport across town for Sheena´s 10.30am flight to Lima (to catch another flight to Sao Paulo, to make a connection to Joburg to get to Malawi.... the domino effect was building....). Of course the TAM flight left an hour late and we scambled across La Paz in true Anneka style, only to see our gate closing 10 minutes before flight time.......
Plan C : Sheena booked herself on a flight the next morning from La Paz direct to Sao Paolo which would make it in time for the Joburg connection. Again, nerves were fraying a little....
All looked good and we jumped on a local mini-bus into town and relaxed. We got checked into a nice hostel and were preparing for a nice last night together when the next bombshell hit. Sheena had misplaced her purse somewhere between the airport and the hostel. Of course it contained credit cards and the all important passport! Nightmare!
We once again scrambled Anneka style and, with the help of my brother Gordon in Belgium, cancelled the credit cards, made contact with the UK Embassy and began looking for alternate flights to Malawi. (A replacement passport takes 5
days).
As a last resort, Sheena came up with the idea of going back to the airport and spreading the word that there was a reward for the return of the passport. We jumped in a taxi and headed back up the hill. After ten minutes, in an amazing stroke of luck and against all odds, we saw the mini-van that we had taken from the airport by the side of the road. In a city the size of La Paz, where the usual mode of public transport is these mini-vans, we were gobsmacked to see our one again.
Once again donning Anneka personas, Sheena and Wendy jumped out of the moving taxi and sprinted to the bus. To the immense consternation of the local passengers, Wendy gamely crawled under the seats and in the far corner, tucked behind a plastic bag under a rather portly lady, she found the purse, complete with cards and wallet. What are the chances???
I´ve heard many horror stories of travellers losing passports or credit cards in large foreign cities, but have never heard of someone finding theirs again. Brilliant.
All´s well that ends well as they say......
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Laura
non-member comment
The dolphins look amazing, and loving the photos of the monkeys! And what a relief finding the purse - now thats a story and a half!! Can just imagine u wendy crawling about frantically on the bus floor, lol. Keep on bloggin x