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Published: February 21st 2013
Given Chris was on holiday and time was a little more of the essence for him, we decided that the £100 it cost to fly from the mountains of Sucre down to the jungle of Rurrenabaque would be money well spent – especially as the alternative would be over 30 hours of Bolivian buses, on Bolivian roads – in the rainy season!
Rurrenabaque has developed into a popular jumping off point for two broad types of trip, upriver you can travel to explore the jungle, and downriver stretches the lowlands of the pampas and their abundant wildlife.
Chris and I first tackled the jungle for an abbreviated 2 day trip, as another friend Andrew was flying out to meet us and we needed to be back in Rurrenabaque on day 3. Jungle trekking is focused on walks at different times of day (pre-dawn, afternoon and night) to explore the huge variety of vegetation and the myriad of small insects. Its not the type of environment where you're likely to see huge amounts of “big” wildlife, but having said that even on our shortened tour we got very lucky. Firstly on the night hike we saw two different types of
snakes (including the incredibly poisonous coral snake), as well as a host of insects and spiders. Our morning walk the next day passed plenty of multi-limbed “walking trees” that can shift their position slightly to try and best capture the sunlight, and upon reaching a set of clay “bathing pools” we spotted the native Bolivian wild pigs called “Peccarys”. We got a good sighting of them at the bathing pools, and saw (and certainly heard) them several times on the way back to camp.
Despite the wildlife, the highlight for the group – if certainly not for me – came on the first morning when I unceremoniously ended up in a river after falling off a log tree bridge that I was trying to cross in my hiking boots. I perhaps should have seen that the wily guide slipped off his wellies to cross barefoot in order to give himself more grip on the glass like surface, but unfortunately I didn't do likewise and as my boots offered no grip I was soon in the drink! It was the last resting place for my dignity, and also for my camera which didn't take too well to its bath! Luckily
Chris was there to help me – by laughing and taking pictures! I had been somewhat of a sacrificial lamb, as after my plight everyone removed their shoes and crossed safely in bare feet!
Andrew arrived safely and our next trip was out to the pampas, the flat, wet, verdant lowlands that stretch towards Brazil. Because the pampas are riddled with waterways, you can get very close to the animal habitats and the low shrubbery makes the animals reasonably easy to spot. On our first boat ride we saw heron, cayman, turtles, the very playful squirrel monkeys and also some of the larger howler monkeys.
I had visited the pampas on my previous trips to Bolivia and knew that the formula would be quite similar, with a variety of dawn, afternoon and night trips – some on land and some by boat. What became apparent is that the amount of wildlife you see isn't really governed by the amount of wildlife that's there, but by the season you go in. In the dry season, the much smaller numbers of good watering holes around which the wildlife will congregate (and the guides of course all know about!!) mean that
you'll see lots of animals (leaving aside the ecotourism aspects of the fact that the boats are likely to return to the same spots day after day and the impact this might have on the animals). In the rainy season, (when we were there), there isn't that need for the animals to gather around watering holes (as everywhere is pretty much inundated), therefore wildlife spotting becomes more hit or miss, as we found in our fruitless piranha fishing, and our anaconda search, which actually would have been more appropriately titled an hour long, thigh deep pointless wander around a swamp!
We did have some good fortune when we went swimming with the blind pink river dolphins. This was good fun, although the incredibly murky water meant that we couldn't really tell that we were swimming with the dolphins until they surfaced! We also saw what must have been over 100 great egrets all flying together which was a very impressive sight.
Our final day saw a 5.30a.m start and us get lucky with a very clear sunrise – the only downside was an absolute mauling from the mosquitoes – my shoulders were like a pin cushion afterwards!! The
only disappointment in the trip was probably the night safari in the boat. I had done this type of thing a couple of times before and always found it amazing, but usually the catalyst for this was the company hooking up a spotlight to a car battery which was able to spot the reflections from the eyes of the various creatures on the river banks – an incredible experience. Unfortunately we had no such technology available and were left to our own head-torches which didn't quite do the same job!
Back in Rurre we checked back into our hotel – one of the few in town with a pool, which was heaven on the return from the trips!! We had been drawn in by the publicity which touted an Olympic sized swimming pool – but as you'll see from the photos this may have been a slight exaggeration, and we weren't surprised when Michael Phelps didn't pop by for a training session! The other weird thing about the hotel was the attitude of the husband and wife owners. The husband was so friendly, whereas the wife seemed to absolutely hate my guts (even though I rolled out my very
best and most polite Spanish!!). She really didn't seem to want us there – and was even grumpy when accepting our money – something I was sure would bring a smile to her face!
A couple of other lasting memories from Rurre will be the amazing food at Julianos (
http://rurrenabaque.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/rurrenabaque-restaurant-spotlight-4/), and the airport we flew out of. We pulled up in front of the terminal, crossed the mud to get into the building, checked in through check-in desk 1 of 1, departed through gate 1 of 1 and arrived in the “departure lounge” - a collection of 4 or 5 wooden benches outside the building. Our 14 person plane then taxied across to just in front of the departure lounge and we got on board and off we went. A 35 minute flight took us to the world's highest international airport, 4,100m “El Alto” serving La Paz. The flight was brilliant as we all had window seats with amazing views of the rainforest when leaving, and the mountains when arriving in La Paz.
La Paz is an oddly alluring city, but for no reason I can quite discern. I think I like the fact that its location is
pretty unique in the world, in that most normal civilisations wouldn't look to found a city in a giant bowl on the edge of the altiplano 3,900m above sea level! It's chaotic, dirty, vibrant and in the rainy season its cold, pretty wet and almost every traveller you meet gets ill there (we certainly had our share of tummy trouble!!). But despite all the downsides its a place I enjoy, possibly because its a base for some of the finest outdoor activities available. We didn't have enough time to take part in any of the multi day treks and activities that are available, but we did summit a 5,350m peak called Chacaltaya – its a bit of a cheat because as a former ski resort a road takes you up to about 5,150m! Unfortunately, the views across to the larger peaks that surround it were all obscured by cloud, but we did have good views down to a selection of coloured lakes – and I was able to help/annoy the guys by showing them the photos from my previous trip of what the views would have been if they weren't completed blocked by cloud!
However, the main highlight for
me was the cycle down the “world's most dangerous road”. Its something I'd done last time around, and was a highlight I was desperate to repeat. Fortunately the road is now a lot less dangerous, as a new paved road has been built and takes virtually all the traffic, which means that now you no longer have to contend with avoiding the cars, buses and lorries and you're free to concentrate almost entirely on the cycling.
You start off in La Cumbre, at 4,700m and end up in Coroico at just over 1,500m. A drop of 3 vertical kilometres with only one uphill section (which you do in the bus!!), its an incredibly exhilarating day, but unfortunately the weather early on nearly made it one of the worst things I had ever done, rather than one of the best, which fortunately it turned out to be!
The first 30 or so km is a high speed, tarmac section down from La Cumbre. Unfortunately, the altitude, freezing temperatures, wind and driving rain made it a test of endurance rather than anything akin to fun. The weather meant that there were no views to enjoy, and I just had to
Anaconda hunting...
Or pointless wandering around in a swamp time!!hunch on the saddle while my ears and fingers had a competition of which could cause me more pain. We got to the checkpoint before the uphill section and I really didn't think I could take anymore – my body is quite frail with the cold at the best of times and this was pushing it too hard! Luckily, we had about an hour's rest at the checkpoint, and the cups of tea they provided were life giving, and miraculously by the time we started the non-tarmac section, the temperature has risen to almost bearable, and we knew that with every further metre we descended it was only going to get warmer!!
We had again got lucky with our tour operator as we were the only 3 people on the tour (some groups were up to 30 people which didn't look like any fun), and with warm (ish!) bodies we started ploughing down the gravel section, with its sheer drops of up to 600m and its distinct lack of safety barriers! The mist and the rain – especially the big waterfalls that were created as the rainwater cascaded off the mountain – seemed to add to the atmosphere, and
as the ride progressed and my confidence grew, I seemed able to go faster and faster to try and keep up with Chello – our amazing guide.
The pictures certainly tell a better story of just how hairy some of the sections can be, but we all made it down safely with no one coming off the bike even once, and I think we all look back on the day as something that started off as one of the worst things we'd ever done, and ended up being the best!! The drive back up to La Paz was almost as much of an adventure, as it was the birthday of one of the support team and so super strong rum and cokes were being shared around the bus quite liberally! I'd definitely recommend Vertigo biking, and their amazing guide Chello (
http://www.vertigobiking.com/).
The next major destination would be Cusco, Peru – to get there we went via Copacabana (Bolivia not Brazil!) to trek around the Isla Del Sol, on the beautiful Lake Titicaca, and we avoided what Chris and I firmly believe is the worst town we've ever visited – Puno (Peru). Virtually everyone we
meet that passes through gets unwell – so seeing only Puno bus station was more than enough before our safe arrival in Cusco!!
January did feel a little bit like a holiday, travelling with the guys through such amazing places – however I continued to practice the Spanish at every opportunity and have great memories of the solo walk I did up to the mirador overlooking Rurrenabaque on our final morning there. The next traveller to join me at the viewpoint was a guy from Barcelona, and with the Bolivian jungle stretching out to the horizon below us, with we chatted away amiably in Spanish about this, that and the other for what must have been 30 or 40 minutes. His final question before I left was to ask me how long I had been learning the language, and when I told him 2 and a half months he doffed his metaphorical cap to me and congratulated me on my progress. It was an amazing feeling, and I'm sure the next 9 months will bring with them so many more...
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