Advertisement
Published: March 18th 2008
The Long Hike
The second day started off with a very nice breakfast in the main hall with its screened walls, thatched roof and insanely beautiful mahogany floors. Sergio wanted to take us for a long hike to another river where we could swim and fish.
The only people in the lodge at this point was our group of 5 (the two of us, a couple from Ireland, and a Dutch guy), so we all piled in the dugout canoe and Sergio paddled across Lake Chalalan to the start of one of about 20 trails through the jungle.
I ain´t scared of no bugs!
Well, mosquitoes. I wasn´t too worried about mosquitos...we´ve been around those a time or two and we had the super-DEET spray, so we weren´t terribly concerned. And they weren´t too bad at all, nothing like we heard they would be in the rainy season. But, you aren´t supposed to wear bug dope under your clothes, so we only applied the spray on the few exposed areas. This was no problem until the forty-two seconds it took to change into my swimsuit in order to take a swim in a beautiful jungle river. It was the
SAND FLIES (dang you!!!) that ate us alive....especially me (KJ). Later that night it became obvious what a multi course meal I had been to those little bugs. I was absolutely covered from heel to head! In fact, as I write this over a week later, my battle wounds are still visible.
The hike back was quite a bit faster as we all were motivated by the temptation of nice swim in the lake followed by a nice cold cerveza. Before too long, we had accomplished both goals and had some time before dinner to siesta.
Last night at Chalalan
For our group´s last night, the staff of the lodge gave a presentation about coca leaves and what they mean in the local community. Chewing coca leaves still plays a big role in Andean cultural, both for medicinal and ceremonial purposes. We had learned a lot at the Coca Museum in La Paz, but this presentation, along with traditional music and dancing was really fun. They taught us the proper way to first pick out the best leaves of the pile (four of them) and fold them and tear them and toss them on the ground as an
offering to Pachamama (Mother Earth). They also instructed us to take a tiny piece of some jungle plant and some kind of ash (the type varies from region to region...some people use baking soda, which explains all the "Coca and Bica" signs we saw last year in Southern Bolivia, or ash from the stalk of the quinoa plant, or some other ash like concoctions) and sprinkle it in the middle of the pouch of leaves before folding it up and sticking it in the side of your mouth. This definitely made the leaves taste sweeter. They also made us a hot sweet cocktail, they called "Baby Puma" that was pretty tasty. After the initial offering to Pachamama, much Baby Puma and later beer was consumed that night while we danced around in the jungle heat.
The final morning, we went for another canoe ride and short hike, saw some howler monkeys (though mostly heard them) and then got back in the canoe for the much shorter ride back downstream to Rurrenabaque. We got caught in a crazy rainstorm that completely soaked us, and grounded all the planes for the day. We were able to fly out with Boliiva's military
airline late the next afternoon.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 16; qc: 77; dbt: 0.0772s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
ash
non-member comment
those darn sand flies!!!
i remember those horrible critters. they ate me alive on numerous occasions throughout south america (esp. peru) and i have scars to this day to show for it! they must love our gringa skin...haha. so, the lodge looks sweet. it sounds like you had a great guide who taught you a lot about the jungle wildlife and fauna. que bueno!