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Published: January 9th 2011
What does one do on Christmas Eve in Bolivia? The easy answer, we found, was to sit on a bus and drive over night from the salt flats of Uyuni to La Paz. The back of our ticket kindly gave a brief description of the state of the road that we could expect on our journey. They weren’t wrong. Although dark, you still felt that the driver was trying to dodge and swerve past every pot hole, rock and animal. Fortunately for us, I think he had done this before, and was keen to get to La Paz in case he missed out on any egg-nog or stuffing.
As we arrived in La Paz the skies had opened, and the thought of trying to find our hotel in the wet wasn’t one to savour. Luckily for us, the rain meant that the taxi drivers saw us as easy pickings, and were more than happy to take us wherever we wanted for a very festive price. We had fully expected to find La Paz deserted on Christmas Day, but we couldn’t have been further off the mark. Most of the shops, restaurants and street vendors just considered this to be another
Xmas supper
Turkey was off the menu, so llama was the next best option...day to earn a bob or two, so we slowly strolled about town. La Paz is an extraordinary city built in the end of a valley surrounded by snow capped peaks. Sadly this meant more hill climbing at altitude, and every time we made it to our hostel to rest, we were faced with climbing up 4 more floors to get to our room.
Our first task of the day was to rustle up a traditional Christmas lunch. We soon knocked that idea on the head when a we found a street vendor selling her wares. A mixed saltena smothered in piccante sauce made thoughts of turkey with all the trimmings subside, and it was made all the better as there wasn’t a cracker or paper hat in sight. The day was made even more Christmassy when we wandered up to the main parliamentary Plaza to find a jolly fat fellow in a red suit. Megan was offered the chance to sit in his sleigh and duly did, am not sure who had thought all of their Christmases had come at once...
That night we headed out for a slightly more substantial Christmas meal, but with no turkey
on the menu we decided we would opt for something a little more South American. We eventually settled on llama steaks for our Christmas meals washed down with a Bolivian red – and they weren‘t bad either, a bit like chicken, but perhaps a little more gamey!!! So a belated Merry Christmas to you all!!
The next few days were spent wandering the streets, exploring the sights and shopping for tat (read knock off goods of questionable quality) and further discovering how incredibly hilly La Paz is and how we are both on the wrong end of the fitness scale.
From La Paz we decided to head into the jungle so we jumped on a flight to Rurrenabaque, to enjoy a 3 day tour in the Madidi National Park in the Amazon Basin. We left a 15 degree La Paz at 4100 metres, and 40 minutes later landed in the 30 odd degree heat at sea level with what seemed like 210 degree humidity. The change in the environment was instantly evident and we headed straight to a hotel that we knew had a pool. Within 10 minutes of checking in we were splashing around and cooling off
in what has to be the biggest swimming pool in South America!!! We decided to grab lunch at a local Bolivian restaurant which was more like a family’s front room where the kids were used to wait on the tables, whilst the mother whipped up a storm in the kitchen (not sure where the father was, no doubt doing something very tricky and important). For a grand total of 18 Bolivianos (£1.80) we both got a drink and a main, unfortunately we had no idea what we were ordering, but thought we would have a crack at it anyway. The meal was very tasty, however putting sensational value to one side it had the unfortunate effect of going through Megan faster than Usain Bolt at the Olympics. The basic effect was 12 hours of vomiting, which meant a slight delay into the Amazon.
We eventually headed off in the pouring rain, and bounced along for about 3 hours in the back of a 4 × 4 until we arrived at the boat. Our boat was more of a dug out canoe, which reminded us of our time in Botswana being punted around the Okangvango Delta. Fortunately this canoe had
Not the best weather for a tour
oh well, we are heading into the jungle.... an engine, so our journey was a lot smoother. By now the rain had stopped, and we spent a further 3 hours slowly making our way along the Beni River, spotting a huge array of wildlife. There were alligators and cayman basking in the sunshine on the riverbank, a Tucan (from a distance), several hundred turtles all competing for space on top of logs and branches in the river, and dozens of Capybara. The Capybara has the dubious accolade of being the largest rodent in the world. They are truly an extraordinary beast, slightly smaller than a Shetland pony with the face of a giant guinea pig?!? The closest we got to any of these jungle animals was when we pulled the canoe up to the river bank under some low trees. Within seconds we were surrounded by dozens of bright yellow squirrel monkeys, who obviously saw us as their meal ticket. They weren’t wrong and our guide pulled out a couple of bananas and the monkeys went crazy. One of them thought that Megan’s head would make a nice perch from which to enjoy its meal so jumped on board the canoe and climbed on up.
The canoe
wound its way upstream until we arrived at our camp which was a collection of wooden buildings on stilts, connected by walkways a couple of metres above the ground. Fortunately one of these buildings was a bar with plenty of hammocks, so all was not lost in this heat as a cooling remedy was never far away.
We had arrived at our camp on New Years Eve, and were due to be going for a night boat trip to spot alligators. As it turns out, all of the alligators were busy seeing in the new year, so we postponed this activity until the next night, and went to our own party. There were 10 of us on our tour, and we went upstream to another campsite to join up with about 3 other tours, and plenty of locals. It is hard to see where the locals come from in the thick of the jungle, but they were out in force, and determined to celebrate. We had a great, if somewhat surreal night in the jungle celebrating with random local brews, mosquitoes and plenty of firecrackers. Am sure the alligators were much more sophisticated, but to be fair our party
was thrown together at short notice.
The following morning we headed off in the pouring rain to the Pampas where we walked for about 40 minutes (luckily the rain stopped not long into the walk) in order to go anaconda hunting!! On our way, we came across a very protective black Cayman with a nest. For those of you who don’t know, the cayman is like an alligator, but where the alligator eats fish and is the cute cuddly type (relatively speaking) the Cayman is a hands down carnivore / hunter, who seemed interested in ridding the world of pesky human beings – starting with us!! We needed to get past said lady’s nest (where we presume some eggs were) in order to get to the swamp, and she came out of the lagoon to chase us away from her offspring. You’ve never seen a bunch of tourists move so fast!!!
After much searching we ended up finding ourselves a 3 metre anaconda trying to rest in the grass. We felt a bit sorry for Hissing Sid as all it wanted to do was soak up some rays, and it kept getting stroked and touched. We eventually let
him slither off and were then lucky to sneak back past the Cayman nest to our canoe and return to camp.
More hunting was in store the next morning as we headed upstream for a spot of fishing ..... Amazon style!! With hand held lines and chopped up bits of red meat, we were officially piranha hunting!! It didn’t take long to get into the action for after only a few seconds in the water, every one of us had lost their bait to the more practiced piranha, and we went through a dance of dropping the line with fresh meat time and time again. After a while we were starting to get the hang of it, and Megan was the first to hook one of the lively critters. Not long after, she bagged another one and was feeling pretty pleased with herself. I kept on drawing blanks, but with the last piece of bait and time running out, I tried again. This time I had success, and “reeled in” certainly the largest catch of the day. After all it isn’t the size of your tackle but the wiggle of your worm that does the trick.
With a canoe
“full” of piranha we went back to camp for an early lunch, where our guide cooked up our catch. All in all a very successful morning. We had a 3 hour ride downstream to meet our 4 x 4, but were lucky to have enough time to enjoy a dip in the river. After some rather nervy looks at the shore line for alligators we ploughed in, without a care for them or the piranhas that might have been lurking in the muddy waters. As the sun had come out now, it was a welcome break from the heat, and we managed to make it back to the canoe with all appendages accounted for.
It turns out that while we were out of La Paz, the bus and taxi drivers went on strike as the government cut fuel subsidies pushing prices up by 70%. This meant the locals were most upset and expressed this by way of riot and demonstration. The government soon backed down on their threat and peace was quickly restored. So the following day we made it back to La Paz, fortunately none the wiser of the troubles, and welcomed the drop in temperature and humidity.
We booked into the same hostel again, and were reminded of how high the city is, especially on the 4th floor.
Our next stop is Copacabana and the Isla del Sol on Lake Titicaca, which is the birthplace of the Incas. For now we would like to wish you all a belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and hope that you all had as memorable a time as we did.
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Annie
non-member comment
Sooooo.... who won the cricket then Megs?!?!
Looks like you're still having a blast! Can't wait to see you in March :-)