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Published: August 14th 2010
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After coming back from the Salar we booked our bus tickets to Rurrenabaque for the next day. A gruelling 18 hour journey on a bus that doesn’t have a toilet or reclining seats and is on a road that hasn’t had a surface put on it.
As it happens, Steve became very poorly over night with a cold and thought it was best that we didn’t trundle all the way to the Bolivian jungle, far away from medical help, just in case things got worse. Well, thankfully they didn’t and after five days of resting in La Paz we decided on trying again. This time, however, we decided that for the sake of everything bony and muscular, flying would be the best option. 40 minutes vs. 18 hours - best decision made so far.
Our flight was a couple of hours late which meant that we missed our tour. Something was telling us that maybe it wasn’t meant to be, but after a couple of visits to various offices we pushed everything back a day for no extra cost. It also meant we could take full advantage of the free cocktail offered to us by the airline and get
to know a couple of guys who we were about to spend the next three days with.
The next morning we set off on a three hour bumpy, dusty jeep journey to a place called Santa Rosa on the bank on the Yacume River. Here we picked up a dug out canoe with cool seats made of washing lines, which took us another three hours up river to where we were staying.
Along the way we saw so much wildlife; caimans, capybara (giant hamster rodent animals), squirrel monkeys, birds, birds and more birds. We also stopped to spot pink dolphins (which we did) and to swim with them if we wanted. After seeing the daddy of all caiman just around the corner most of us decided that staying on the boat was plenty fun enough, apart from Steve and Paddy. This was also the water where we went piranha fishing the next day. They both survived with all parts still attached you’ll be glad to hear.
Being a little apprehensive about the term ‘eco-lodge’ we were very pleased when we turned up to find a tiny little village made of wood up on stilts. Our camp also
had a bar called ‘The Sunset Bar’ which had hammocks and deck chairs up in a tree house made for watching the sun set. Perfect after a days travelling.
We were the last group to arrive that evening and by that time all of the beds in the dorms had been taken. Fortunately the only other place to put us was in our very own posh hut with en-suite shower and toilet. Fabulous - although we are still talking planks of wood with big holes in between to let all manner of Amazonian creatures through, plus a toilet cistern that seemed to attract frogs.
That evening we went on a quick excursion out on the boat to have a look at the caiman’s eyes. They glow just like cats eyes, really cool when there are five or six of them all in a row. It also makes you wonder how close they come to camp.. but there’s no point in dwelling on the many animals that
could come near to camp. It’s all theory anyway because, other than monkeys and frogs, all the other animals stayed away in their own camps, no need to come anywhere near ours.
We spent the rest of the time marching off in to the pampas, anaconda spotting, fishing for piranhas, chatting with a caiman called Peter, swimming again (laughing at the people swimming again) and generally having an awesome time. The end came too quickly and we would love to have spent longer there, with a better camera.
Thank you to all of you who have left comments on the past couple of blogs. It’s so nice to hear from you, especially when you’re missing home a little. We hope you’re all well and having a jolly good summer.
Lots of Amazonian love
S&S
XxXxXxX
PS We’re not all about the flying, we’ve got a 27 hour bus journey starting at 8.30am tomorrow. La Paz, Bolivia to Lima, Peru. A piece of pie!
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M&D
non-member comment
A wonderful blog, we were particularly taken with the squirrel monkeys - gorgeous. What happened to the pink dolphins? Swimming with the piranhas Steve eeek!?!?! You both look great and in your element now that you are back in the warmth. lots of love xxxx