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Published: March 8th 2014
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We took a hair raising flight in a tiny propeller plane to rurrenebache which is the gate way town into the Bolivian amazon. The heat and humidity hits you like a heavy blanket upon leaving the plane. It was so hot we decided to book into the only hotel with a swimming pool and spent the first afternoon floating in the pool before going to a local restaurant for some delicious amazon fried fish for dinner.
We were collected by our tour company, Mashiquipe at 8 the next morning and lifted to the boat which was to carry us up the beni river to the jungle lodge with a 3 hour stop at a local village on the way. The boat ride is spectacular with views of thick forest on either side and as far as the eye can see. We chatted to our new friends a British couple, Tom and Ruth on the journey up. After a delicious lunch we opted to do a 6 hour jungle walk, which considering the temperature of 35 degrees and 100 percent humidity, was exceptionally brave. The choice was not without reward as I saw a
jaguar. We came across a half eaten fresh carcass of a wild pig and obviously disturbed the dozy full jaguar who awoke in a jolt and bolted into the trees, not before I caught a fleeting glimpse of his spots though. We also saw a herd (not sure what the collective noun is ) of wild pigs, well heard them first snorting and grunting and clicking, not dissimilar to the sound our bulldog makes. We also smelt their pungent stench. Our guide, Ernesto, was extremely knowledgeable about all the jungle plants and trees pointing out various trees and advising us what their names and traditional uses were for. I was fascinated by the strangler tree which starts as a vine on the jungle canopy and grows down twisting its way around the trunk of its victim tree until after about 40 years it strangles the primary tree to death and takes its place in the jungle. I was also fascinated by the height of the trees, at least 30 m, you had to crank your neck at a 90 degree angle to see the canopy. Hardly any light escapes from the roof of the jungle so there was really no
need for sunblock at all. This might be an obvious thing to say, but there is just so much life in the jungle, you can even feel the life in the trees creaking and occasionally snapping with the sound of a gunshot. The cicadas make a continuous drilling sound and creatures are just everywhere. The list of animals we saw included capacchin monkeys, yellow screwler monkeys and red and brown howler monkeys. The howler monkeys are incredibly cool u can hear them calling their troop from over 5 km.
Day 2 in the amazon we awoke at the crack of dawn in a futile attempt to avoid the oppressive heat and set off on a 15km walk through dense jungle. Ernesto stopped and told us about the medicinal properties of various plants and trees but mostly we walked in silence consumed by the noises and movements of the jungle. After 7 hours of trekking and near exhaustion Ernesto told us to leave our packs. He then lead us to the edge of a cliff top to the most breath taking view I have ever seen. Suddenly the view of tree trunks gave
way to to the dense canopy of the amazon rainforest which stretched as far as the eye could see. The only thing that broke the carpet of green was a tributary to the amazon which snaked its way through. Evaporation mist hung over the forest as hundreds of red and yellow macaws swooped in to their nesting spot which happened to be directly under us. It felt as if we had been transported back in time 65 million years ago to the Jurassic era where terradactals ruled the skies and flowering plants hadn't yet evolved. Goosebumps were made for moments like these.
Our camp for the night was.... Terrifying!!! We were given a threadbare mat and a mosquito net and told to set up in the jungle. What made things really scary was the night walk where we encountered not 1 but 3 giant turanchalas less the 10 from our less than adequate shelter. We went to sleep giggling with fear... And in fact I don't think we really slept at all because when the 5.30 call of vamos came we were shattered.
We
had our best bird watching experience that morning where we saw 2 different toucans, parrots, parakeets and lots more macaws. We then built our own raft and rafted down the amazon chatting to Ruth and Tom about their travel experiences in India. When we arrived at base camp we decided we wanted to try fishing so went for a walk through the swamps in search of bait and came within a metre of a cayman, which is the amazons version of a crocodile and pretty scary.
The following day we took the only mode of transport possible back to rurrenebache and a car journey to the pampas which are the flood lands of the amazon. On our journey there we spotted a sloth hanging lazily onto a tree and saw a giant otter bounding along the road. When we arrived in the flood land district we hopped into another boat and almost immediately spotted pink dolphins splashing around in the dank dark murky flood waters. I was not overly excited at the thought of swimming in those waters especially after been told that the flood plains were the home of the giant
anaconda. It was so hot though and when given the opportunity to swim with pink dolphins you would be stupid to turn it down. So we all cooled off and splashed around with the friendly dolphins who nudged us giving me a huge fright with the constant thought of the anaconda in my mind. We weren't done with the weird and wonderful creatures of the amazon just yet as our next activity involved piranha fishing in an Amazonian lake. John was the only one who didn't catch a piranha but he substituted it with a decent sized cat fish. We were also lucky enough to see blue macaws and the famous toco tucan with its giant yellow beak that its neck can barely support when it flies. Sunset over the lake with the rare colourful birds flapping about was yet another magical South American experience.
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