Mosquito attack!

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We wanted to have a few days in the 'Amazon' which from what we´d heard was best and cheapest in Bolivia, north of La Paz. It isn´t really the Amazon proper, actually Madidi on the river Beni which flows into the Amazon. The only problem is that it is either a 20 hour rough bus ride or a flight away on a little plane. From the horror stories we´d heard of grown men crying through fear of the bus tumbling off a cliff and of 20 hour journeys on rubbish buses turning into epics with breakdowns and landslides we decided the better option of taking the plane, which is substantially more expensive but only takes 40 mins.

So we set off for La Paz airport at 5am to get our flight an hour later and join our tour that morning in Rurrenabaque. The only problem is that the airport in Rurrenabaque (Rurre) is tiny, is set in a small valley surrounded by mountains and only got a paved runway a few months ago, before this there was no chance of planes landing if it was raining at all. There was low cloud that morning in Rurre despite La Paz which is a lot higher being clear. The flight kept getting pushed back until we knew that we would miss our tour from Rurre that morning. At 10 o´clock with relief we were allowed to board. The plane was tiny. You had to bend almost double to board it and there was just one seat on either side of the aisle, 19 in total and the two pilots were clearly visible in the cockpit. We took off and all was fine to begin with but although the plane flew high we were in cloud the whole flight. To begin with this wasn´t too bad with just a little turbulance throwing the little plane around. However this began to get rapidly worse, particularly as we began to decend. Neither of us are nervous flyers but the plane was being thrown around and worse of all started to drop suddenly, feeling like it was falling out of the sky. The pilot put the landing gear down and slowed the engines and we began to drop out of the clouds. My first thought was how alarmingly close the trees were to us but the cloud was so low that there was only a small gap between them and the trees. The airport was so small and the plane so basic (the GPS system was, and I´m not joking, basically a glorified car satnav that was actually screwed to the top of the cockpit dashboard) that the pilot would have had to land visually without any other aids. So when we dropped out of the clouds it became clear that the pilots couldn´t see the runway as the trees went skipping underneath us. The plane was banking hard making me feel quite faint and the guy in front of me throw up. All of a sudden the pilot took the landing gear up and powered up the engines and as we began to climb alarms started to go off in the cockpit. Of course we were a little worried by this point, my thoughts being that we were about to stall. We climbed back up into the clouds and I thought we were (and would happily have done so) go back to La Paz as the pilots couldn´t land. However to my dismay we then began to go down again, the landing gear went down but the engines were still at full power. The trees came back into view again, very close to us. This time we kept going down and I couldn´t see a runway yet. The runway was suddenly there and we touched down on very wet tarmac. As we were going very fast and the runway was very short the pilot immediately put full reverse thrust on to try and slow us. This combined with the soaking runway caused the plane to skid and swerve alarmingly. After being so scared for the last 20 mins I thought our time had come. However the pilots brought it under control and we stopped in time and still on the runway. Of course once we had stopped they were joking and laughing about it, apparently it had been much worse earlier in the day!

Once off the plane we got onto a bus to be taken to the 'terminal' and our bags were offloaded and strapped to the top of the bus- no such thing as baggage reclaim or security here. The bus didn´t even drop us at the terminal ( a wooden shack) but took us staright into town. When we arrived in town we collected our bags and made our way to a hostel. We found a really nice place with an outside terrace and hammocks. After sorting out our tour for the next day and changing our flight due to being delayed we relaxed for the rest of the day in the hammocks reading our books. That night we headed to a bar where we recieved a free drink courtosy of the airline. Only in Bolivia would an airline give you a free drink voucher on check in.

The next day we got up and went to meet our group for our pampas tour. There were 8 in our group which included 3 Irish girls, 2 English guys and a Dutch guy. We got into our jeep-this time a Toyota Land Cruiser-and started our 3 hour drive to the start of the tour. We finally arrived after 3 bumpy hours at the river and got into a boat. The journey down the river was interesting. As it was the dry season the river was quite low so on several occasions the boys had to get out the boat and push as the boat was stuck on the bottom of the river. At one point we all had to get out and walk while the guide pushed the boat. On the way down the river we saw cayman, turtles, capabara and lots of birds. We didn´t expect to see many cayman or capabara but the river was full of them. Thankfully cayman don´t eat humans as at times they were scarily close to the boat. We arrived at our lodge in the early evening and after taking a shower we settled on the deck and watched the sunset.

The next morning we got up and prepared for our walk looking for anaconda. The guide had warned us to cover up as the mozzies were bad and when he came our completely covered up apart from his eyes we decided to take his advice. If the guide was dressed like that it must be bad. Bad does not even come close to describing it. We took our boat for a short trip up the river before getting out and starting our walk. We walked through a field on the lookout and it wasn´t long before one group found an anaconda in the grass. The group that found it were being quite cruel to the snake and it was getting quite distressed so we took some pictures and continued the search in our group. The guide took us into a wooded area and thats when the mozzies struck. They were in a swarm around us which had us running and swatting like maniacs. In the wooded area the guide did find an anaconda in a hole in a tree. We walked for a bit longer before all agreeing that the mozzies were unbearable and headed back to the boat. When we returned to the lodge we inspected our mozzie wounds to find that they had bitten us through our clothes! After some lunch we relaxed before going out fishing for paranha. We returned having caught one small fish that was to be cooked for dinner. That evening we relaxed as a group playing cards before heading to bed.

On our last morning we went out on our boat after breakfast to look for dolphins. The dolphins that live in the deepest part of the river are called Pink Dolphins. When we got to the deepest part we got a small glimpse of the dolphins and some of the group went swimming although the brown colour of the water did not tempt us. Back at the lodge we had an early lunch before starting our long trip back to Rurrenabaque. Once back we all went out for dinner and some drinks. The bar we went to was ironically called Mosquito Bar!

The next morning we got up for our flight back and were thankful that there were clear skies and sunshine. I don´t think our nerves could have taken another bumpy flight back. Unfortunately the flight was delayed 2 hours but when we fianlly did take off we got back to La Paz nerves intact.

We spent one night in La Paz and took a morning bus to Arequipa in Peru. We had to first take the bus to Puno where we were told that we would have to change bus that would go direct to Arequipa. In reality when we got to Puno we were bumped onto another bus company going to Arequipa whch turned out to be a local bus that was anything but direct. After stopping several times about an hour outside Puno we were finally on our way. The bus journey has to be the most random we have ever taken. On a par with the train journey back from Machu Picchu. Firstly a woman got onto the bus and started selling sweets and chocolate. She gave out free sweets to everyone on the bus conveniently missing out the only gringos on the bus before going round selling chocolate bars. We thought that this was a bit strange but as it was a local bus we accepted that it might be quite normal practice. That was until a man stood up and started preeching about natural medicine claiming that the product he was promoting could cure cancer, asthma and diabetes. His speech came complete with graphic illustrations of the various organs affected by these ailments. He ranted on for half an hour before trying to sell some sort of herbal cereal that was going to cure the world. Next up was our third act of the journey- a man busking up the aisle playing his guitar and pan pipes. When he had finished his act he then started selling mints! When he sat down we thought that our entertainment was over but how wrong we were. Half an hour outside Arequipa another man stood up and started tryng to sell herbal tea bags. He wittered on for the rest of the journey about the benefits of these tea bags and how they could cure urine infections. Twelve hours after starting our journey we finally emerged from the bus in Arequipa extremely shell shocked and in need of a drink. We made our way into town too find a hostel and then went in search of that well deserved drink.

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Comments

[Emily]

Holy Crap!
I thought travelling was meant to be fun!

[dad]

mozzies
Should have taken you skin so soft with you and taken the vit B- looks more like chickenpox Tom