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Published: April 24th 2009
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Part 2 of the Amazon Basin....
After feeling so deliciously clean for 1 night it was off to the Jungle for a two day tour of more mankiness!
We walked through the markets (my head was down as we passed plucked chickens and raw meats) and we jumped on a wooden long boat to travel the lovely Beni River that straddles the town of Rurrenabaque. Our guide, Nelson, was wonderful and we had been recommended this tour because it was one where the profits help out the local community village (where we were going to stay the night).
The difference between a pampas tour and a jungle tour is that a pampas tour is on the river (a different river 4 hrs away) and it involves a lot of wildlife spotting. The jungle tours are also in the Amazon Basin but they are more about trekking and learning about the plants and environment. I really wanted to do this tour so I could compare the Amazon and this part of the rainforest with our beautiful Daintree Rainforest and I managed to convince Stacey and the English girls to come along for the experience (not very hard to do).
The first part of the tour involved ziplining through the rainforest (in Oz we call it jungle surfing or flying foxing and we also have it in the Daintree). Whereas ours only has 4 ziplines in Oz, the one out here had 8 and they were much longer and more exhilarating. We had a blast flying 45mtrs above the rainforest canopy attached by just 2 caribeenas on a wire. We ate fresh oranges local style, where you cut a little bit off the top and suck the juice out and of course the views were amazing.
That afternoon we had lunch prepared by a local family in the village and we learnt about some of the traditional foods and agriculture of the people. We saw and gathered the yellow Chocolate Fruit and had fresh hot chocolate for breakfast the following morning. We picked and ate Amazon Potatoes and Platanos (the bananas that are used for cooking). We sucked the juice of fresh limes straight from the tree and ate fresh grapefruit and papaya (my favourite) for breakfast. We wandered past rice fileds and saw it drying in front of the village shacks and we ate it for dinner with fresh meats and vegetables. Of course I struggled a little with all the chickens, ducks and other things with wings flapping about but mostly they left me alone.
100 people live in the village (made up of 5 families) and we stayed in different familys´ huts. Unfortunately Stace and I had to remove about 10 cockroaches from our hut but we did it swiftly (actually we squealed and jumped around a fair bit) and then we flew under our mosquito nets to sleep suprisingly well and to wake to the sound of rain on the thatched roof in the morning.
That morning we trekked to the waterfalls. A 4.5km trek up, down, around, through and beyond the rainforest. Nelson taught us about the traditional bush medicines, bush foods, survival skills and showed us some beautiful flowers and the biggest spider web I have ever seen...it looked like a "natural" hammock and I could have fit inside! We crossed many rivers and there were a few slippery moments along the way (I took Stace out on a downhill mudslide - it´s always me that´s the clumsy unglamourous one!) and then we swam in the little falls before making the 4.5km trek back. Our delcious lunch was much needed and much appreciated.
Stace and I were meant to fly out of Rurrenabaque the next morning but due to the rain the little green grass runaway was not in use! So we got bumped to the arvo which meant we could chilled out by the local swimming pool with the most delightful bird I have ever seen - a toucan with the brightest orangey-yellow-red beak and the bluest of blue eyes.
As we boarded our little 20 seater plane back to La Paz we were a little anxious that it would get off the "runway" (the pilot literally stands there hand turning the propellor). The ride was hot and bumpy but the view of the giant snowcapped mountains and of the thousands of tiny red houses on the mountainsides of El Alto, a suburb of La Paz, as we flew in, were well worth the effort (and turbulence).
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