Amazon Jungle
Although all our travel guide books recommended flying, traveling as a group of 8 we thought getting a bus to Rurrenebaque would be no trouble. We would look after one another and make sure all our stuff was well protected in our laps and the cost of only 80 Bolivianos (around £8) for the 20 hour journey was rather attractive! How wrong we were…
We were told the bus was semi-cama, however on entrance we realised it was nothing more than an ordinary chicken bus and we were the only gringoes boarding it. The aroma inside was a mixture of stale sweat and body odour and the seats felt greasy to the touch. Feeling slightly grossed out we prayed the journey would be quick and easy and again we were disappointed. Our bus diced with death on the very famous 'El Camino de la Muerte' that connects La Paz to the north through the steep hills of the Andes. We were on 'Death Road'!! Statistically this road is the site of most number of road deaths in the world and it's really easy to see why - a single cars width, very bumpy, dirt road which winds down through the mountains and has sheer cliff edges without any barriers... Due to the wet season there had been many land slides and the road was in an awful shape. Although they had managed to get the road open, in many places it looked not even wide enough for a car to pass let along a massive bus. Also, every time a vehicle approached from the opposite direction, our bus had to find a part of the road that was wide enough to allow them to pass, which meant were regularly reversing back and getting awfully close to the cliff edge and the thousand meter drop. So many times it just looked impossible, however one way or another they just about managed to pass us. What made it thousand times worse was that we were always on the cliff side of the road.
As the bus made its way across we started picking up extra passengers. Strange, as the bus was already full when we left La Paz. So, these new people started making camp in the aisle and on the stairway of the bus. At one time we saw a family of 6 sharing just 2 seats and a granny sleeping on her sack of potatoes just by our feet. As there were no toilets on board numerous stops were made, which just made the journey that much longer. With crying and vomiting children and the constant jerking up and down along the bumpy road, none of us managed to get more than a few minutes sleep throughout the 20 hour journey and we arrived in Rurrenebaque tired, agitated, smelly and feeling rather deflated. The first thing we all agreed was that we would fly back to La Paz. Whatever it took!
Rurre (as the locals call it) is the gateway to the Amazon basin and is the best place to get on a jungle tour. After listening to numerous travel agent sales pitches, we booked a 5 day trip (3 days in the jungle and 2 days in the pampas) with Machequipe and this time we were not disappointed in our choice.
We travelled to our jungle lodge on a long boat and stopped off on the way to meet an indigenous family and tried our hands in squeezing sugar cane. It was yummy with a bit of lime… When we arrived at the jungle lodge we were pleasantly surprised with the accommodation, which was basic but really comfortable, with 6 per room and a separate dining area and best of all numerous hammocks dotted around the site. After lunch our guide Ismael (aka Negro) took us for our first of many jungle walks. The first thing we did was stop in front of a tree with a termite mound and we each tried a termite. They taste sort of minty. Ismael told us his grandmother uses them to make banana and termite bread. Lovely! As we walked through the forest he told us about the different woods and plants, what they were each used for medicinally. He took the bark of a tree which he later used to make me some tea, as I had a rather bad cold and he also used other plants to make us funny indian headgear and also water bottle holders. We each tried our hand at using Ismael's machette to cut a palm tree and then we ate the heart of the palm, which is supposed to be really good fo veggies as it's packed with iron. During our walk we saw so many species of animals, most of them were birds including a pair of Mackaws and also stunningly beautiful butterflies, some as big as Mark's hands. The highlight though was seeing the Howler Monkeys, which we had never seen before in the wild. After hearing their call we started following a group with Ismael leading ahead with his machette cutting us a route through the dense jungle and all us following in his foot steps trying to be as quiet as we humanly can. In the end we caught up with them and got to see them high up on top of the trees. Although we were horribly dirty, saturated with sweat, muddy and really tired from our long walk we didn't want it to end. As dusk approached we returned to the lodge to watch the sunset and dunked biscuits into our coffee all the time thinking how amazing this experience is!
The next couple of days in the jungle went by so quickly. We saw many more types of monkeys, some strange and rather massive looking guinea pigs, lots of birds. Although we tracked a jaguar's foot prints in our midnight walk we never actually got to see it, which was lucky in a way as we were camping in the outdoors that night with nothing more than a mosquito net between us and the wild life of the Amazon. What was really surprising was that even when we were in the middle of the densest jungle camping with no electricity but just a camp fire to cook on, we had amazing food with such variety.
One of best activities was building our raft which we used to get back to the lodge from the camp site - a slow 2-hr drift along the river. In the burning heat of the midday sun it was so refreshing to be in the cold water (even though it was brown with mud) we were all too happy to jump in and the boys made the most of it by playing games and fooling around most of the way back.
Our biggest problem with the jungle was the number of mosquito bites we seemed to accumulate. Even with the mosquito nets they managed to get in or they would just proceed to bite you through the net. I think Mark fared the worse out of all of us. He had over 40 bites just on one leg which he accidentally lent against the net one night. They would also get your ankles, hands, face and even bum whilst you were in the toilet. It felt like every inch of skin was covered in bites and it was impossible to have a moment's rest without having to mentally urge yourself not to scratch them. What made it even worse was that we were on our way to the Pampas and we had been told that the mosquito problem there much much worse.
When we got to the Pampas it was obvious the mosquitos there were ferocious. They would bite through your clothing and ordinary insect repelent seemed to have no effect on them. It was time to get the heavy duty 95% DEET out and hope for the best. Initially we thought the Pampas were not as good as the forest, as it was limited to staying in your boat and looking around the water edge and on top of trees for animals. However we saw many more monkeys in this trip including tiny squirrell monkeys which were rather friendly, also cappucino and black howlers, who did not seem to enjoy our company as much. We also saw alligators, turtles and many many birds including strange turkeys and vicious looking hawks. The highlight was swimming with the resident pink dolphins who are used to human company and come over for a play. Although a very strange feeling to be touch by a dolphin (the first few times I actually screamed) you soon got used to it when they came over for a quick nibble of your feet or nose your bum. Towards the end we ended up giving them a good rub and many many cuddles. It was the most amazing experience ever and to think that we had seen a 3 metre long alligator not far from where we were swimming and also knowing the black waters we were in were infested with pirhanas, just made the experience so much more thrilling.
We are now on our way back to La Paz, currently flying on the smallest passenger airplane I've ever been on - just a single seat on each side, no air hostess and you can see the the pilots and out of the nose of the plane (very strange!). It's been an incredible few days in the Amazon and I'd never have missed it for the world, but I know I speak for everyone in our group when I say I'm looking forward to the high altitude once more where the climate is cooler and there are no mosquitos!
