Rurrenabaque is a small town on the Bolivian side of the amazon jungle and where we had booked a 3 day tour of the pampas region (lots of small rivers and wildlife) then a 2 day tour deeper in the jungle to stay under the tree canopy and with LOTS of spiders! Because it's over a 20 hour bus ride from La Paz (almost half of which take place on the world's most dangerous road) we decided to splurge and take one of the small daily flights up there which woudl only take 45 minutes... in theory. In fact, it took us more like 2 days, 45 minutes, multiple trips back & forth from La Paz airport, and a couple extra nights in the hotel before we finally got there. As we would see (and feel!) when we landed in Rurre, is that there is only a very small narrow dirt landing strip in the jungle and when it rains, which it tends to do there, it becomes a massive mud pool and all flights are then postponed until it's drier. In any case, we finally got there, after just a slightly bumpy ride over the Andes.
Once we landed, our tour guide picked us up at the airport (I use that term loosely) in the jeep en route to the boat that would take us to our camp for the first couple night in the pampas. The pampas region is an expansive area of small rivers, wetlands, and with loads of biodiversity. After only a few minutes in our narrow riverboat we had already seen lots of caimans, alligators, turtles, monkeys, too many birds to even name, and capybaras (extremely large "rodent" type animals that love the mud!) We even managed to see a couple fo pink river dolphins before arriving at our camp... which provided the perfect excuse to get in for a swim with them in order to cool off! A lovely sunset and a few cold beers later and we were all tucked up under our mosquito nets and ready for bed.
The next day our guide took the group to look for anacondas in a swamp. I'm pretty sure our effort was a lot better than the rest of the group who all lounged in the shade under a tree for an hour or so as Tim & I mucked through the swamp... intentionally looking for anacondas, and trying our best to avoid the snapping alligators and hidden bees nests. Unfortunately the only thing close to an anaconda that we saw was a dead snake or two floating on top of the water... apparently the weather has been far too hot for much of anything besides the birds to be living in that swamp. That afternoon we jumped back in the boat and headed down to a more secluded part of the river where we were handed some fishing reels and bits of meat in order to try and catch pirañas, on purpose. It took only about 2 seconds before I felt some nibbles on my line, so I quickly pulled it up to see that they had absolutely devoured the meat but not the hook. A few more goes at this and it became very clear that the pirañas had become quite accustomed to boats of tourists feeding them meat. I did however manage to catch a monster which the guide rather harshly called a "sardine." Still, it didn't make it any less delicious that evening when we grilled it up for dinner!
The last day of our pampas tour we took a very early morning boatride out to see the sunrise and enjoy a few moments before the blistering heat and profuse sweating began all over again. Then it was off for another swim with the pink dolphins before heading back to Rurre.
The jungle tour was a little less enjoyable for me as I'd managed to catch my 72nd case of the "south americas" and spent the first day being very ill in the bush. Tim managed to go out on a walk through the forest to see snakes, tarantulas, and some very very old trees. The night walk a little later on was my first chance to see the tarantulas too... in hindsight, probably not the best idea to go searching for large hairy spiders before bedtime!
Our last day in the jungle we went for another walk... this time to go searching for jungle pigs. I'm not quite sure whether we heard or smelled them coming first... but there were loads of them crowding around a wateringhole. Then it was back in the boat for Rurre to catch our plane back to La Paz.
Next adventure on the list is the Salt Plains of Uyuni...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment