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Published: September 25th 2008
Ross:
Rurrenabaque is a laid-back town in the Bolivian department of Beni, located on the banks of the Beni River, a tributary of the Amazon. It is located within the Amazon basin and as such is at a much lower altitude than La Paz. This is reflected in the heat, humidity and mosquito population. It's economy seems to be mostly supported by the likes of us using it as a gateway to visit the Amazon jungle (or selva) and the pampas (or savannah). Jimmy and Nic (from our week in Portillo) had strongly suggested we visit Rurrenabaque, and so here we are...
After our 'bus ride from hell' we finally enlightened at Rurrenabaque's bus terminal with buttocks still clenched. As soon as we stepped down from the bus we were simultaneously accosted by three tour operators offering tours of the pampas and jungle, two of which kindly backed off fairly swiftly at the sight of our somewhat grey faces. The remaining guy, Luis, a middle-eastern looking chap with impeccable English offered to drive us in his tuk-tuk around a few of the local hotels so that we could settle down for a few hours kip, a welcome alternative to
Our trusty trucks...
...all laden up with gear for the 3 dayslugging the rucksacks about. We settled for Hotel Santa Ana and were soon fast asleep in a nice clean double en-suite.
After catching up on a few hours we headed down the main street in search of the best (read 'cheapest') pampas or jungle tours. With hindsight it appears that, on the large part, all the tour operators collaborate to make up numbers so regardless of who you book with you're likely to end up with a different company. Luis, our trusty tuk-tuk driver from earlier, turned up trumps and offered us as good a deal as any, so we signed up with his Alligatours agency for 3 nights/2 days in the pampas and 2 days/1 night in the jungle.
We also made a point of visiting the local Amaszonas Airlines office and booking the 45-minute flight back to La Paz to avoid a re-run of the previous bus journey. With flights and tours in the bag we ventured out for a pizza, our first food (other than Imodium and cream crackers) for some 48-hours...
There's no cash machines in Rurrenabaque so we managed to get a cash advance from the local bank, Prodem. It's possible to
Roadblock numero uno
Not much more than a pile of dirt which our 4X4s could've easily driven over but apparently this may have upset a few of the locals. get cash advances from some restaurants as well if you're running short.
When we arrived at the Alligatours office the next morning, Luis was running round like a headless chicken telling us that we couldn't go to the pampas because some other guys hadn't showed up, and we couldn't go to the jungle because some Russians had booked an exclusive trip. He also started rabbiting on about some escalating political issue involving road blocks and that no agency would be going to the pampas at all. In the end he reluctantly moved us into the Indigena Tours pampas group (who incidentally are owned by Fluvial tours, who also own Alligatours and Jaguar Tours, and whose office is next door...getting the picture yet?). Apparently, Indigena were going to risk the road block situation...
We'd been provided with a list of required items, so we'd managed to slim things down to only our day-packs for the 2 night stay. After slinging the rucksacks in the back of Luis' office, we clambered aboard a couple of battered Landcruisers and were off. 2 1/2 hours and a couple of vertebrae later we arrived at the aforementioned road block. Basically a tractor was
Waiting for a lift from the other side of the road block...
...after carrying all our gear over the roadblock and around the corner out of sight. moving dirt into a pile in the middle of the road and some of the locals were stood around watching. The 4x4s could've easily driven over it but apparently politics would not allow it. Our guide, Juan Carlos (aka JC aka Gatorboy) expalined that we must carry everything over the road block for a kilometre or so until we were out of sight of the locals, at which point he would arrange alternative transport, so off we went.
After a bit of flirting and flashing of the gold teeth by Gloria (or was it Gladys?), our allocated cook for the trip, a bus finally rolled up to ferry us to lunch in Santa Rosa del Yacuma and then on to the River Yacuma itself. It was while eating lunch with a bunch of locals huddled round a TV that it dawned on us the scale of the developing political situation. The TV was showing live coverage of the violent demonstrations and riots taking place in Santa Cruz over a long-running autonomy issue. Basically, a few of the richer Bolivian departments (Beni included) had been campaigning for some time against President Evo Morales' plans to enforce greater state control over
these lower-land regions and spread the wealth gained from natural gas reserves more equally across the country. Things had come to a head and were just starting to kick off. Luckily for us, the violence was contained within the regions of Santa Cruz to the east and Pando to the north, but the sympathetic department of Beni was showing support by blocking roads and disrupting transport, hence the road block. Nonetheless, we decided that being stuck out in the pampas for three days was probably as safe a place as any!
When we arrived at the River Yacuma, 8-man dug-out style boats with small outboards awaited us. We hopped on board and took our seats for a 3-hour sail up river. Around the first bend we sighted out first wildlife: alligators, everywhere. There were literally hundreds of them all the way up the river, the biggest of which were probably about 8 or 9ft long. Initially, this was a little daunting as the river level was very low, making the width of the river only about 5 metres and the depth shallower than the draught of our boat, at some points. The boat, being long a narrow, was also
fairly unstable. However, after the first hour or so we had become accustomed to seeing the great reptiles everywhere. In addition to the gators, we saw turtles, cayman, squirrel monkeys, spider monkeys, herons, stalks, eagles and the legendary capybara. If the banks weren't full of gators, then families of capybaras would be wallowing in the mud or shallows, cooling down. Many of the bumper-sized rodents had scars or blood on their snouts, probably a legacy of sharing the river with the gators, but generally they didn't seem too bothered.
On the first boat trip up to our lodge we also sighted the rare pink river dolphin (no, that's not a euphemism!) but unfortunately they were far too elusive for a decent camera shot. On the last day we came across the floating carcass of a headless pink river dolphin which was nice!
We also experienced some of the devastation caused by wild fires spreading across the arid savannah on either side of the river. At one point fires on both banks meant that we basically had to hold our breath and cover our faces whilst JC floored the outboard throttle to get us through as quickly as possible.
Santa Rosa high street
No golden arches here, my friends... We finally arrived at our lodge (which seemed to be the furthest up the river), quickly unloaded and jumped straight back in the boat towards one of the two makeshift 'Sunset Bars' to watch the sun sink below the horizon over a cool beer (laced with DEET). After the sun had disappeared we returned to the lodge for a slap-up feast courtesy of Gloria/Gladys followed by a quick run-through of the itinerary by JC, had a good old swing in the ubiquitous hammocks before finally turning in under our mozzie nets to the sounds of the jungle! Oh, and I even managed a quick shower (cold but refreshing)...
The next day, after a scrambled egg brekkie we headed off on foot for a 5-hour stroll across the savannah in search of anaconda and cobras. A large proportion of the open-ground was charred from the fires and embers were still burning underfoot in places. Some cattle had been stranded in the middle and didn't look best pleased. The temperature was touching 46 deg C so it's hardly surprising the place goes up in flames so easily. We eventually reached a wooded area and drying river bed, home of the
At the River Yacuma
The start of a 3 hour boat trek up to our lodge anaconda, apparently. We eventually located one of the prized reptiles hidden in a hole in a tree but no amount of coaxing by our guide could get the bugger out. There were plenty of shed skins about, more evidence of the mighty serpents! We then came across a cobra in a bush (no, still not a euphemism...) and finally, on the way back, one of the Spaniards in our group, Marissa, spotted another anaconda which swiftly disappeared down a hole despite JC grabbing it by the tail.
On returning to camp, it was evident that a lot of the ash from the charred ground had worked it's way up mine and Paul's (from Belfast) trouser legs by the waist-down afro-carribean looks we were both sporting. JC had, at this point, jumped into the gator-infested river to swill off, and beckoned us in. Frederico, the local pet gator kept an eye on us all from the bank whilst we splashed about nervously. Strangely, it was only the blokes who took a dip in the river. Pol and I have different thoughts on the psychology behind this...
The rest of the afternoon was spent snoozing on the hammocks, followed by
a late-afternoon cruise down to the other 'Sunset Bar' and a spot of fishing for piranhas. Pol netted the first of the aggressive little blighters, whilst I bagged a small catfish (which was duly used as bait) and a respectfully-sized piranha. We ate them for dinner, although you don't get a lot of piranha to the pound. Luckily, there was some chicken on offer too...
On the second night we hopped back in the boat for a cruise in the dark, spotting eyes in the water using flashlights and torches. It pays not to wear headtorches due to the fact that it attracts all the insects to your face, we later realised...
On the last day we took an early morning float down the river without the outboard running. JC was a little late waking us up for this so unfortunately most of the animals were displaying the same behaviour as normal. On the way back to the trucks, we stopped for another dip with the pink river dolphins whilst Spaniard Miguel scanned the banks for reptiles in close proximity.
The journey back to Rurrenabaque was much the same, albeit with two road blocks to negotiate this
Start of the river cruise
Check out the photographer in Ross´left lense and our boat in his right time, and two subsequent changes of vehicles, much to JC's amusement. We arrived back in Rurrenbaque after a thoroughly enjoyable pampas experience, and checked back into Santa Ana for another night before the start of our jungle trip.
Rumours had started circulating amongst the international travellers in town about the political situation and it's influence on the Amaszonas flights back to La Paz. There was no official info available from Amaszonas at this stage plus we couldn't do much due to our jungle trip the following day so we decided to review the situation when we returned to Rurrenabaque on Saturday 13th September.
Anyone visiting Rurrenabaque (and who has read this far!) should call in and see Luis at Alligatours. He can be full of bullshit at times, is a little over-excitable and his 'Mr Jones?' trick at the bus station is fairly transparent but he is generally a nice guy and is a good contact if things do get a little heated politically. Plus he's one of the few guys in town with a taxi that isn't the pillion seat of a motorbike and he'll do you a good deal on a tour or two...
The first of many...
There's a lot of pictures of these beasts. Sorry, but there were a lot of them everywhere...
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