En-Route to the Jungle

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We hadn’t planned on staying in Trinidad. Actually, that’s not true. We had planned on it, but the roads were impassable so we booked a flight from Santa Cruz to Rurrenabaque. The road re-opened the day we flew so we could have gone by bus. Anyway, Plan B turned into Plan A and we ended up staying a night in Trinidad because it had been raining all day in Rurre making the runway there unusable. Still with me?!!

So, courtesy of Amaszonas Airlines, we stayed in the Moxos Palace Hotel in Trinidad overnight. The sign outside has four stars on it, but we are certain they are only there because they make a pretty pattern. They can’t be there to signify anything otherwise there would probably be no stars at all. Well, maybe one to be generous!!

There’s not too much to see in Trinidad itself. There are a few places you can get to by taxi which may or may not be worthy of a day trip. But when you are stuck in “transit” you can’t even do a trip out because of the fear they may suddenly decide to fly very soon.

So, what DID we do? It may surprise you to know that we ate well and drank a little! The surubi (our favourite river fish) in La Casona was possibly the best we have had. It’s funny how we always end up either eating or staying in somewhere called La Casona and it always turns out to be good!

We also walked around the dusty streets of the capital city of the Beni region. Trinidad is famed for its open drain sewerage system (luckily it wasn’t too smelly!) and its numerous motorbikes. Both were very easy to find good examples to photograph for illustrating the point! It was also quite good for spotting wildlife. We got a great view of a sloth in the main plaza, apparently the biggest plaza in Bolivia, and lots of birds.

Luckily we only needed one night as the rain abated enough for Rurre’s runway to dry out. Then to our amazement there were only two other passengers on our flight so it felt like we were on our own private jet. The windows were dirty though which was a shame because the views over the Amazon basin were amazing.

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Photos

A Sloth
I couldn´t believe it when he popped out into clear view.

DC-3
At least that´s what Russ thinks it is! A rusting plane from a bygone era!

Bikes and Sewers!
All out in the open air!

Plastic Plants
Trish went over to inspect them and they were REAL!

Parrots, toucans and a clown!
On the wall inside the La Casona restaurant

A view over the Amazon
Shame about the dirty windows!!

Comments

[peter]

stars
love the star paragraph. there wouldn't be a four star in trinidad anywhere would there