Rurrenabaque - Pampas

Day 129 – Pampas and Pool

Today I was up only a few hours after going to sleep, as the electricity had cut out (meaning no more roof fan) and there was not a drop of water in the room… resulting in a trudge down the street to replenish supplies!

Our only job for today was to book out next trip out of Rurrenabaque and into the Pampas region.  The Pampas has lots of the same things as the jungle, monkeys, spiders, pumas!  But with the added bonus that the area is more marshy and the bush less dense, meaning the area is only accessible by boat but animal sightings are easier.  Matt and I weren’t that keen on the overall very standard and extremely touristy itinerary that every tour operator in the area seemed to offer, but the chance to swim with pink river dolphins (on the last day) was an opportunity that just could not be missed.

We had such a good time with Wilman in the jungle that we were happy to take his recommendation and book with Donato Tours, a rare operator that claimed to act with the eco-sensibility we expected (the Pampas region operators having an even worse reputation for their attitude to their environment than the jungle operators). 

With that chore booked it was off to the local swimming pool and that was that!  No photos sorry!

 

Day 130 – Bait and switch

Up bright and sparky (only one cocktail each last night) we were breakfasted and ready for our pick up at 8.30am.  We waited and waited at the agency and it wasn’t clear until about 9.30am, when a Dolphins Tours 4X4 showed up what had happened… the standard tour operates with 8 people and accordingly it appeared our booking had been on sold to another agency to merge groups – apparently common given the same itinerary is offered by every agent. 

We passed our bags up to the roof and crammed into the two small bench seats in the boot for our 4 hour journey to Yacuma River where a long boat would take us a further 2 hours up the river and through the marshes to our accommodation.  Before we even got on the boat, a dolphin surfaced nearby and we saw more squirrel monkeys, a capybara and a variety of birds along the way.

Team Pampas: Gerard and Jack, Maaike and Hanneke, Tif and Eric cruising up the Rio Yacuma.

 
A heron of some sort.

 
A group of squirrel monkeys came down to show off for the boat when we drove near their tree.

General Pampas scenery.

With nothing else on the itinerary that afternoon and an hour to kill before dinner, we popped upstairs to the roof top bar to watch the sunset and try and cool ourselves with a lukewarm beer or two.  The mozzies were so bad though we didn’t go back after dinner!

 
Shiny Hanneke and me!

A hairy legged friend was waiting for us just outside our room when we got back…

 

Our very basic accommodation – thin lumpy mattresses in a room built on a platform over the swamp.  The mosquito nets were more like hessian than net and so not much sleep was had in our claustrophobic cells [photo courtesy of Hanneke].

 

Day 131 – Anaconda hunting, piranha fishing and a quick dip with the caimans

This morning we took the optional wake up time of 5.30am to cruise up river to watch the sunrise, as did the rest of our group.

Returning to our hut for breakfast about an hour later, a new friend was waiting for us… a 3 metre Caiman!

  
Our little joke – we figured the caiman was hanging out waiting for the cook’s little two year old son to fall off the platform for lunch one day!

First up on today’s agenda was hunting for anacondas.  After breakfast we piled back into the boat and set off for the area where they frequented, which turned out to be not-so-frequent given our guide said he hadn’t seen one in 4 months.

We saw lots of “big birds” along the way.

Trudging in our wellies through Anaconda country. 

Despite our lack of interest in finding an anaconda, our guide was very enthusiastic, so much so that at one point he had trudged so far ahead he lost us all in the tall grass and the boys had to climb a tree to try and see where he went.  Needless to say after an hour and a half out in the hot hot sun and no anaconda, we were pleased to hop back in the boat and continue to our next activity.

Equally enthralled with piranha fishing, and only Maaike being able to hook one small one, we pleaded with our guide to take us for a swim instead. Finally giving in he drove us to a spot where he thought there would be the least chance of caiman’s having us for lunch! 

Circling and revving the engine to scare off any potential predators, we think the guide may have actually been happy that we wanted to vary the itinerary and was one of the first in the water.  Seeing him dive in, most of us were happy to get in too!

The crew – safety in numbers!

A turtle hanging out in the sun on the way back.

Our stilt hut on the swamp.

Getting back for a late lunch, the rest of the afternoon was spent trying to have a siesta (but with no luck due to the heat and mozzies) and a read in the hammocks, followed by a return to the roof bar once it hit 5pm.

The crew at dinner – no where near as delicious as our jungle food, but edible! And poor Astrid (red top on the right), a travel agent from La Paz that had been sent on this trip by her work so that she knew what she was selling.  She was clearly miserable almost every moment of the trip, but tagged along on all the excursions anyway and was a good sport.

 

Day 132 – Swimming with pink dolphins!

The moment that we had all spent the last two days waiting for – a chance to swim with pink river dolphins!  After breakfast we were bikini ready and back in the boat to cruise up to “the spot”.  Upon arrival at the spot, we were reluctant to get in at first (understandable given the black water!), until we had seen our first dolphin surface.  Apparently, if there are dolphins around it is safe to swim as other potentially nasty swamp creatures, such as piranhas and caimans, don’t like the sonar that the dolphins emit and so they stay away. 

Our first swim was largely unsuccessful due to lots of splashing and laughing, but after cruising up the canal a little, and with not everyone in the water at once, we were much more successful.  At one point, one surfaced right in the middle of Matt, Hanneke and I and two came right up to me as I was swimming away from the group – very special.  Knowing that dolphins like to play, the guide threw a water bottle into the water for them to bat around!  Despite the waterproof camera, we didn’t manage to get very many good shots – too busy enjoying the moment.  Apart from their more jaggedy shape and shorter nose, the river dolphins looked very similar to normal dolphins as the pink was on their underside.      

 
Yes, the vague grey lump surrounded by ripples is a dolphin and the two blurry white things are our heads, use your imaginations.

We managed to spend almost two hours on our own, but when two boat loads of noisy Israelis pulled up to our spot we knew the moment was over and so it was time to head back to the hut and prepare for the long journey back to Rurrenabaque.

The boat ride back was much more eventful than the journey out and we saw lots more birds and caimans, a capybara, turtle families hanging out on logs, another visit to the squirrel monkey tree, a near capsize (and subsequent bailing out of water) when the guide tried to take a shortcut and crashed, a point where we all had to get out to get through a shallow canal and a raging thunderstorm twenty minutes out from where the jeep would pick us up!

Naughty monkeys trying to steal things!

 
Just cruisin’

(Poor Astrid is hiding under the yellow tarp!)

Our jeep was at least an hour or so late picking us up, but the four hour journey back saw us get out twice to see a sloth in a tree (with binoculars, so no photo) and for the jeep behind us to have an anaconda cross the road in front of them! 

Back in Rurre, showered and changed it was immediately out to Moskito Bar for some well earned cocktails!  And we shall leave this blog post here…

 

Day 133 – The next day after 132 days of doing stuff

Up again at 6am (I’m still not very good at sleeping in…) it poured constantly until about 9.30 and stayed overcast for most of the day.  We wondered if some of the guys who had a flight this morning were able to take off given the dirt runway situation! 

Tasks for today were an awesome breakfast at a place we wished we found a week ago, booking a flight back to La Paz, a LOT of internet time, the pool and blogging.  Never quite made it to the pool given the weather and no blogging done either, but a much needed maintenance day complete none the less.

Rurrenabaque - Jungle

Day 123 – It didn’t rain…

… so the plane could not only take-off, but also land.  Before we headed to the airport we enjoyed another pancake breakfast, this time accompanied by a couple of Dutch girls Maaike and Hanneke, that we had first met in Pucón a month or two ago, seen again at dinner in Sucre and now breakfast!  They too were heading for Rurre but not until the next day, so we agreed to let them know what we found out in researching our jungle tour.

We got on the bus to the airport but managed to catch it going the wrong direction, meaning we went back past our hostel about half an hour after we first left it.  Nonetheless we made it to the airport with enough time to check in before our seats could be given away to the other inadequately ticketed people arguing with the airline staff.

Our little 19 seater plane aroused a fair amount of scepticism from our fellow passengers, not helped by the fact that the pilot had to gun the engines before we even hit the runway just to get enough thrust to get into La Paz’s thin air.  The plane then threaded its way between a couple of 6,000m peaks before dropping rapidly down to Rurre, some 4,000m below El Alto.  There was also a fair amount of hysterics from the Israeli girls on the plane when the guy (to Erin’s left) decided to receive a mobile call mid-flight!

Sealed inside our flying Pringles box.

The Fairchild Metro III sitting safely on the “tarmac” in Rurrenabaque [photo courtesy of Hanneke].

After settling into our room surrounded by lush gardens at Hotel Santa Ana we set off to interview a selection of the town’s 29 tour agencies.  After walking into a couple of random choices that fell well below the bar, we retreated to the internet to do some research.  Armed with a few recommendations for tour agencies that don’t feed sweets to monkeys, pass around caged anacondas or arm each tour participant with their own machetes, we finally settled on a jungle tour and headed back to the internet to inform the Dutch girls of our plan.

For dinner we headed to one of the fish restaurants along the river where we had delicious fresh catfish from the river in a garlic sauce.

Some kind of political rally set up in Rurre’s main square.

Day 124 – The sweatiest run ever

When we got up in the morning we had a message from Hanneke and Maaike enthusiastic about the plan, so we headed off to book our trip leaving the next morning.  Chores done we decided to go for a run before the weather really heated up.  The humidity had it’s effect anyway and we were still sweating a couple of hours after we got back.  We spent the afternoon in the hammocks in the hotel’s lush garden before catching up with Maaike and Hanneke that evening fresh off their flight from La Paz.  After dinner at the local gringo bar, Moskito, and a couple of colourful cocktails we headed to bed early ready for our departure up river in the morning.

Erin’s chocolate shot.

Day 125 – Beetles and juice

The tour we’d chosen was run by San Miguel del Bala, a community on the edge of Parque Nacional Madidi.  The itinerary we’d opted for included a couple of days of activities in the vicinity of the community and a couple of days inside the national park.  The community had been running an eco-lodge on the outskirts of the village for a few years and this is where our boat whisked us to first thing in the morning.  Down near the river level there was a dining room and large ‘relaxation area’ with hammocks and books.  A couple of minutes up a steep staircase were our cabins, with a nice little balcony (which the mosquitoes dissuaded the use of), a really comfy bed with mosquito net and a nice natural stone bathroom.

Once we’d settled into our cabins our guide, Wilman, took us for a walk around the community’s medicinal plant trail.  Explaining which trees could be used to treat stomach upsets and headaches, which leaves to dull the pain of ant and spider bites, which vines to cut for fresh water and which trees not to touch because of ants or vicious spikes.

Along the way Wilman spotted this Puma footprint, a couple of hundred metres from our cabins.  Alas we never saw a Puma or Jaguar in the flesh.

After the first of many delicious meals prepared by the local women we headed out on our next excursion to visit the village of San Miguel del Bala.  Our first stop was at Wilman’s house, where his kids fetched us fresh grapefruit and oranges from the trees in his garden while he explained the differences between the local roofing materials.  

Sucking the juice out of a fresh grapefruit.

 
Wilman’s house on the right and his kitchen on the left.  The roof of the kitchen only took a week or two to make but will only last 5 years.  The roof on his house took nearly two months but will last 20 years or more.

 
A couple of the locals.

 
Working for our refreshments – fresh sugar cane juice.

 
Feeding sugar cane through the press, quite an intricate piece of machinery to  say it is only made of wood.

As there were no puppies around Erin had to settle for chasing piglets instead.

Day 126 – Into the jungle

Early in the morning we packed a small bag and got in the boat to head up river into the national park.  On the way to San Miguel’s camp in Parque Nacional Madidi we passed a family of capybaras resting by the river’s edge.  We also passed a cliff where a variety of parrots nest, unfortunately without my (stolen) zoom lens we weren’t able to get any snaps.

Dad, Mum and baby Capybara.

According to Lonely Planet, Parque Nacional Madidi is home to “44% of all New World mammal species, 38% of tropical amphibian species, more than 10% of all bird species known to science and more protected species than any park in the world.”  Quite a résumé!  The difficulty of course for us was managing to encounter just a fraction of the parks inhabitants, given the dense rainforest, vast areas and tropical heat.

The later problem was partly resolved by taking a long siesta after lunch.  Napping in a hammock I braved an interaction with some of the park’s not insignificant insect population, while the girls snoozed inside under the protection of their mosquito nets. 

When the heat had subsided ever so slightly we set off into the jungle behind Wiman to see what we could see.  Every so often Wilmam would stop and try a variety of monkey calls, occasionally he would get a response from off in the distance and we would head in that direction.  Often the monkeys were rather more agile than us and we never caught them.  We did however manage to see Red Howler Monkeys, Brown Capuchin Monkeys and Bolivian Squirrel Monkeys.

 

Generally our views of the monkeys looked something like this, the monkey (quite a big Howler Monkey) is the tiny blip in the centre of the picture. [Maaike]

A close up of the same monkey, the only one in two days who stayed still enough to be photographed! [Again by Maaike]

Halfway through our walk Wilman made a few very quick steps backward, Hanneke did the same when she spotted the very large snake sunning itself in the path.  Wilman explained that this was a particularly deadly critter and we waited patiently for it to make its way off the path.

  
Random fungus.

After our walk Wilman pointed us in the direction of a nearby creek to have a wash (San Miguel are still installing the showers at their new campsite).  When we got down there we discovered a stagnant pool full of soap suds and already occupied by a couple of the guys working at the campsite.  Instead we opted to walk back down to the river for a wash.  I went for a swim to rinse off, which proved to be an excellent decision.  The girls opted to wash from the shore (not being fans of water they couldn’t see into), and as soon as they had washed off the DEET they got savaged by sandflies.

(I do have some photos of this excursion from Maaike’s camera, and although she didn’t expressly forbid me from using them, I think that might be pushing our friendship (though it might increase the popularity of this blog!))

   
The sandflies got Erin especially good – cankles!

That night after dinner Wilman took us for a walk through the dark.  Except for spiders and one very green snake we didn’t see a whole lot.  We did however hear a jaguar roaring off in the distance, Wilman disappointedly reported that it was some way away, around 200m!

After we had gone to bed Wilman came and got me back up, he’d heard a herd of peccaries right near the camp.  So dressed in my best jungle expedition gear, underwear and a pair of thongs, he led me off into the bush to get a closer look.  Down the bottom of a nearby gully we found about 30 of them, rooting around in the undergrowth for food.  When I returned to the camp the girls wanted to know why they hadn’t been invited, but I don’t genuinely believe they were disappointed about missing the little excursion!

Day 127 – More monkeys, snakes, spiders and don’t forget the mosquitoes!

This morning we got in the boat to go for a walk further from camp.  The monkey viewing progressed in much the same way, with us catching glimpses of a variety of species through the trees.

The group gathered at the base of a huge strangler fig.

Today’s snake, this time not poisonous, so we could get close enough for a photo [photo courtesy of Hanneke who made me take the photo anyway!] 

 
Wilman armed with a stick to check if the armadillo was home in his hole.  He doesn’t do this with older looking holes because snakes like to take up residence.

Just as we got back to camp the rain started and it rained heavily for several hours.  When it eased slightly we made a break for it and headed back to San Miguel before the river became too dangerous to navigate.

Waiting out the rain at the jungle camp.

Day 128 – Waterfalls and Canyons

Our first excursion of the day was a short boat ride followed by a 1km walk through the forest along a creek to beautiful pool and cascade.  The walk raised enough of a sweat to make a dip in the pool at the end well worthwhile.

Erin earning her swim.

 

Another short boat ride and we were at San Miguel’s ‘secret’ canyon.  This beautiful natural canyon is a about a meter wide and up to 15m deep.  The recent rains had resulted in bit of water flowing through the bottom.  As we waded upstream we saw butterflies, frogs, spiders and bats (or flying mice as they’re apparently called in Dutch!).

Big spidey.

 

 

 

Our final excursion was past a collection of traditional traps, including one called the ‘flatanator!’  Wilman explained that most were not used any more as it is simply easier to shoot animals with a shotgun…

Not the ‘flatanator’ but I reckon the effect would be similar.

 
For our final meal at San Miguel we were treated to catfish cooked three different ways: in a red sauce, wrapped in leaves and cooked in bamboo. [Hanneke]

Back in Rurre that night we made up for three days alcohol free by taking advantage of the lengthy happy hour at the main gringo bar.  The following photos are probably self explanatory, even the camera was getting blurry by the end [all courtesy of Maaike].

Matt with our bartender friend (we have been back there a few times now…)

First drinks…

Trouble makers!