Messing about on the river

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The big jungle trip began with a very early start in La Paz, around 5am...some fellow travellers didn´t make it back from the pub that night so we were delayed until the agents finally decided to ditch them.

Once on our way, pretty much having an entire bus to ourselves, we headed off for the Death Road which leads down from La Paz to the jungle below, and which crazy Gringos choose on a regular basis to mountain bike down.

The bus journey confirmed my fears about this road, and I´m quite happy not to have taken the bike. Imagine, if you will, an essentially single-track road winding down a valley from 4km up through the clouds, hugging the side of the mountain. On one side, you have a cliff face with occasional waterfalls running over the road, on the other you have a sheer drop of about a kilometer, and quite often you are surrounded by cloud. Spectacular, certainly, but quite frightening when you have to reverse to allow an ariculated lorry to pass! I decided to go to sleep after one such occasion as I couldn´t bear to look as we reversed right up to the edge.

We finally reached the boat some hours later, and scrambled aboard for a few hours rest in the baking heat (the boat had no roof, sadly).



The first stop was at what appeared to be an abandoned wooden house, and our guides quickly setup a makeshift tarpaulin camp, replete with mosquito nets to save our gringo skin from the wildlife. We had quite an early night as we were completely knackered, and started fresh the next day.

After an hour or so in the boat watching the world go by on the sheer forested cliffs on each side, we arrived at a local community (about 30 people in very basic wooden houses) where we´d spend the day and that night. The village was lovely, if primitive - these people live a very isolated existence, but a contented one. The local kids daren´t venture out to speak to us in the daylight.

The afternoon was filled with a rainforest hike, through thick undergrowth for which our guide´s machete was very useful, and an hour or so spent fishing for piranha in a remote lake. Naturally, we used red meat on the end of the line, which turned out to be quite effective. By the end we had 6 decent sized fish, complete with nasty teeth, enough to fill our bellies that night over dinner.





After dinner, we hung out in the village chatting to the locals, and eventually showing the local kids some photos we´d taken. These kids were fascinated by the headlamps some of us had brought, and had no concept of a world beyond La Paz - something really amazing. The sky above the village was a sight to behold also - I have never seen so many stars.



Our final day began with a visit to the local school where our guide presented some notebooks and pencils to the local teacher, and continued with a boat ride to a secluded waterfall with a lovely fresh pool at the bottom.


Considering the state of cleanliness we were in at this stage, this was glorioius, despite the numerous bites we received whilst getting dressed again, and the near death experience I had when I almost got carried over the edge by the current.



Naturally, as we were now thoroughly refreshed, we squeezed in another rainforest hike just to make us really minging again. Nice.

We arrived in the town of Rurrenabaque dirty and in need of a good wash, as well as a nice beer and pizza. Thankfully there was a good laundrette as our trip into the Pampas was to begin the following morning!

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