La selva saves local man

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The days they pass by in slow motion when you resist, and vanish like breath when you let go. Our expedition into the Bolivia have provided Stacy and I a handful of both types of days. Our first hour in La Paz, the highest capital city in the world, resulted in the worst experience with a cash machine ever, but we were still able to book a tiny propplane to the town of Rurrenabaque and a river boat tour in the amazon pampas. Pampas is the equivelant to savanah ecosystems with wide expanses of tall grasses carved up by meandering rivers enshrouded by thick tropical riparian forest. It is these rivers that provided the pathways of our three day tour by a long canoe like boat that was fjorded by outboard and our guide Jamie. These tours are unlike Jungle tours (which are in Tropical forest which is slightly more east of the Pampas ecosystem and higher in elevation as the Andes mountains reach out of the amazon basin and into the sky.) since the foliage is not as high, so the chance of seeing animals are more likely. And animals were definitely on the schedule. Capibaras, crazy huge colorful birds, alligators, baby anacondas spider monkeys and of course, a certain pink fresh water dolphin that we insistently renamed; "wow", "cute", an "ohmygod". Our accomadations were great, with spiker monkeys hangin out, and we even fjorded over to the sunset bar on our river to drink cold beers with other folk and watch amazing amazon sunsets ontop of the worlds most rickety wooden bridge. However, the gods must be crazy and following this tour the rains came, and the grass runway that provides the quick exit out of Rurrenabaque created a backlog of flights and thus a whole host of tourists bouncin around a cute little jungle town with nothing but pilsner pool tables and humid heat to entertain. All at the expense of our trip to the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world with, you guessed it, pink flamingoes. Oh well, its not like you get to see the whole world before you die, and pink flamingos are just to good to be true anyway. Stacy and I decided three days was enough down time and decided the plane was a lost cause and now was the time to take the alternative- 10 hour jeep ride to La Paz. Well this lovely ride took thirteen hours, left our ass literaly numb and after a brave but failed attempt by our taxi driver to extort 50 more bolivianos from us we crashed in our hostel in LaPaz for another night in the highest capital in the world. Now we are ready to get out. Peru is much kinder to the weary Americano and so off to Arequipa we go. I promise photos of the jungle and our tanned hides in the next edition of JoshBlog. Much love to my family who has just lost one of its beautiful patriarchs. May he rest in Peace. Happy holidays everyone.

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Photos

happiness is a warm rain
Tom on the left is soaking wet but in tidy spirits

PC040550
hunting for anacondas in the pampas

baby snakes
the baby anaconda found after a grueling two hour hike, so cute right now

stacy catches pirahna
And yes she is the only tourist in our party that caught one

Amazin
That killer amazon sunset I promised you

Rurrenbaque
our little tropical hang out on the Rio Beni, overlooking the vast amazon basin

JC is on our side
Local kids fight crime with wonderous 20 ft holy cross

Comments

[mom]

selva experience
It was great to read your experiences. Glad you got out of the mud and beautiful jungle. Can't wait to see pictures. Thank you for the updates. Big hugs to both of you and sorry to hear about your loss, Stacy's Mom and Jenny