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Published: November 9th 2008
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Monkeys jumping on our head
hopefully we didn´t get any diseases This trip was another highlight of the trip. Well, the trip to the Pampas was a def highlight, our jungle trip turned out to be less than fantastic! Getting to Rurrenabaque (main town) involved a very terrifying 45 minute flight on a tiny plane with lots of turbulence. The scariest part was landing on the little dirt track! We were both happy to be on land even if it was very very hot once we arrived at our desitination. For our trip we were booked two separate excursions, a 2 night Pampas tour and then a one night jungle trip.
The Pampas trip was really good fun. We had a 3 hour jeep journey followed by a 3 hour boat journey but getting there was one of the most interesting parts. Within 200 meters of going down the river we started seeing caimans (alligators) and Capibaras--the largest rodents in the world, seriously these guys were the size of a huge dog and weight up to 65kg. We saw them everywhere, usually on the shore but somtimes swimming. Usually in familes with about 5 or so babies. We also saw river turtles, pink dolphins, monkeys, a sloth and loads of birds.
The monkeys were really funny. Our guide pointed them out and we stopped the boat to watch. Just as I was pulling out the big camera to take a shot of them in the trees the monkeys started jumping on the boat and walking right past us and jumping on another girls head. I soon realized the cause when I saw the guide holding a banana over robs head. Soon we had monkeys jumping all over us!!!!
That evening we went on a night boat ride where we watched aligator eyes glowing in the dark. It was very spooky and fun especially as it happened to be halloween night. At one point a load of fish jumped in the boat which was fun and scary. Well, one girls was brought to tears so dont think it was much fun for her, I think she though it was a gator in the boat.....
The next morning we were woken up by howler monkeys who really sounded like gorillas. Rob and I got up and saw them and then also saw a few tucans. The excursion that morning was to go look for Anacondas which we got to see plenty
of. The guides were not exactly envirentmentally friendly. You know how you were always taught to look but not touch and not to disturb the animals.... Our guides would jump right in and grab the snake by the tail and pull them out for us to see. It did make it quite exciting even if the snakes were not too happy. I got to touch the first one and it def tried a little attack which made me jump back. The guide assured me it was not poisonous so I had nothing to worry about. Hmmmm. Later then morning our guide did get biten by an angry snake --which he was totally calm about.. "oh look, it bite me" and that was that. That afternoon we went Piranha fishing which was good fun. We were pretty good at catching the fish but once we caught them we had to get the guide to get the hook out. I assume there are plenty of these fish as we were able to keep them and eat them for dinner.
The next day we went swimming with pink dolphins in a part of the river where there were not supposed to be
and caimans (gators). Sure enough, we found some gators about 50 or so meters away and our guides tried to wind them up for good picture opportunities. The more brave people in the trip were taking turns trying to touch the poor caiman´s nose. That pretty much sums up the pampas trip. We had a really good time and would def recommend it to others. We spent the night in Rurrenabaque.
The next day we did our jungle trip. It turned out that we were the only two booked on the trip which was kinda fun. Overall this trip was not nearly as good as the first one. It was only for one night and we went on a few walks though the jungle and a few macaws, parrotsand monkeys. Overall it was a little difficult as rob´s spanish was better than our guide´s english. We spent most of the time trying to guess and what he was explaining to us. The accomodation was very basic. There were not any mosquito nets in the cabin or eating area except over our bed and we had no facilities to even wash our hands before dinner. We had brought "wet-ones" which
we took advantage of. The Pampas was not by any means 5 star accomodation, but it was a lot nicer than where we were for this trip.
The second day a boat was supposed to pick us up around 2:00. 2:00 came and went, as did 3:00, then 4:00. By 6:00 we kinda figured that our boat had forgotten about us. Gotta love Bolivia. Anticipating a boat ride we had been wearing shorts and flips flops (as opposed to trousers and boots) which the mosquitoes loved! I counted 18 bites on one food alone!!! On top of this, my stomach I had a dodgy tum and it was election night in the US and we had no way of finding out who won. Overall, not the best part of the trip.
So, we got a second night in the jungle and the next morning a boat finally showed up around 9:00am, just in time for us to miss our flight to La Paz. We were both pretty grumpy but managed to get on the next flight which was delayed and didn´t leave until 3:30. We were very happy to make it back to La Paz where we caught
Caiman
the others were taking turns trying touch his nose up on the news and found out who the new pres of the US was--and we were pleased with the result. We did chat to the company that we booked the jungle trip with and found out that they had put us on a cheaper trip (instead of their regular tour) because it was just the two of us--which was why it was so bad. They gave us a pretty good refund and were very apologetic about everything.
The next two nights were spent taking it easy in the countryside in a town called Coroica. We had originally booked 3 nights but because of our delayed flight we missed the first night. This place was perfect for us. Unfortunatly by this point both of us had dodgy tums so we used this time to recover from that (although even now 4 days later we are not really better yet). All we did was go out for dinner, read, play cards and sleep. We had our own private cabin in a place called Sol y Luna which we would def recommend even though it is a little out of town. It was exactly what we needed after the fun of
the jungle.
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ericka yeremin
non-member comment
great
i was born in trinidad, but i am living on california now, thanks for sharing the pics, i miss to be there