In the Amazon with our Pajamas on
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2010
1
70
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Trip End
Jun 16, 2011
Rurrenbaque, Bolivia
Saturday, May 14, 2011
As soon as we stepped off the plane the heat suddenly hit us, Rurrenbaque has a tropical climate and is not at altitude so it felt a bit like paradise compared to what we had been used to in the previous months. As soon as we got into town a guy on a motorbike approached us asking if we were looking to go on any jungle or pampas tours so we popped over to his office and had chat about what he could offer us, we walked around a few other companies then went back and booked onto a 3 night pampas tour starting the following morning.
The next morning we arrived at the office and jumped into the jeep to meet the other 6 people who would be in the tour with us, we all seemed roughly the same age but I was starting to think the similarities stopped there. In total there were us, a couple from London and 2 Israeli couples (who knew each other), Lindsay was in the front and the Israelis were just speaking between themselves so I started chatting to John and Angie, they were both very friendly and John actually seemed pretty nice but Angie really annoyed me and I wasn’t convinced the next 4 days would be plain sailing.
After our 4 hour jeep ride we arrived beside the river and met our guide then had a 2-3 hour boat ride upstream to our camp, on the way up the river we saw a lot of pink dolphins, I am pretty sure they were camera shy as every time I tried to get a photo the seemed to dive back under the water. We also saw a few other boats up against the shore and our guide headed over towards them where there were lots of spider monkeys going crazy. As we got closer we could see that the guides were feeding them bananas, we decided just to stay in our seats and not to encourage (bananas do not grow where we were so feeding them this was unnatural) and were pretty glad when 2 of the other couples in our boat followed suit but one of the Israeli couples thought it was amazing and were loving it. Another tourist on a different boat told us it was ok as they were fed bananas and they only got them 3 times a week – seriously! It is really funny how both of us have turned into nature and animal lovers on this trip, still no chance I would become a veggie but would do all we could to discourage non eco-friendly tourism etc., think a lot of what we have seen has been so cool and you just know it is not sustainable and it will be a shame that others will miss out on some the things we have experienced.
We headed to a bar on the river, it wasn’t really a bar it was some wood for you to sit on and a woman sold you beer, to watch the sunset then back to our place for some dinner.
That evening we headed out to search for Caymans (No Dave, not cars) which are really big alligator with white bellies, when you are out in the boat you just shine your torch at the river bank and you can see their eyes, they are like shiny amber marbles. I was the first to spot one and we headed over to get a closer look, this thing was massive and we got within a metre of it, I stood up in the boat to take a photo and it suddenly jerked up and turned to move away but everyone on the boat thought it was going to jump at us, needless to say we all crapped ourselves and afterwards were reasonably happy to keep a bit of distance between us, we saw quite a few more but none as big or scary as the first one. We (read as me Lindsay) also discovered how fierce the mozzies, despite wearing deet 100% and being totally covered up was bitten to pieces. I had also been wearing a stupid mozzie net over my head yet somehow my forehead had been bitten and swollen up, Kieron was sympathetic telling me I looked like the elephant man. They hurt so much, I had also been bitten all over my ass, the seats on the boat are made out of clothes line causing the clothes material to stretch and the ass and back to act like a perfect pin cushion.
The following day one of the girls in our group got ill so they had to leave us, no major loss as they were pretty annoying anyway and it actually meant the other Israeli couple that were left made an effort to speak to us. First thing on the agenda for this day was hunting for anacondas, supposedly they are pretty small as only 3-7metres, I am no expert but not sure I think that is small for a snake and even more so why would I want to find one! Hunting for anacondas consisted of walking through swamps for about 3 hours waist deep in water with nothing more than a wife for protection, well we had no luck in finding them but my legs proved we did manage to find quite a few mosquitos. It was so exhausting trying to walk in the heat, with water filled wellie boots and giant reeds wrapping around your whole legs.
After our disappointment of hunting for anacondas we were heading out in the afternoon to go Piranha fishing, we all decided we would not eat any of our catch and would return them all to the river, again to be kind to nature. I would kick ass at this as my dad took me and Liam (my brother) fishing quite a lot in Ireland when we were younger. Before I had even got my hook in the water one of the girls had caught one, I was already one fish down but not long after that I caught my first, it wasn’t the biggest but at least it was a start. A few other girls caught some and Lindsay’s competitive nature had already turned this into a girls v boys competition (she decided this when the girls were already 3-1 ahead). I decided to up the pace, caught my next one (another small one) and after taking the hook out of its mouth and was just about to put it back into the river I dropped it into the boat, in my hurry to pick it back up I forgot that Piranhas aren’t exactly friendly and it tried to chomp my finger off. I have to say I was pretty lucky it didn’t get its razor teeth over my finger and that it was small as it just bit it from the side which meant I held onto my finger. My darling wife’s priority was to ensure she got a photo, then I think she saw how much it was bleeding and started to worry and realised I may need stitches, we managed to get me patched up though and all was good – only regret was not eating the damn thing!
Final day was nice and relaxing swimming with the dolphins, unfortunately I wasn’t allowed in the water as my cut was still bleeding which meant more piranhas would bite me and I didn’t fancy that much. I decided I would try and get some decent photos, I reckon if you take every photo (about 100) I took and add them all together you would only end up with half a dolphin, I just got rubbish bits and bobs, very disappointing. On the plus side Lindsay quite enjoyed it, ok for some……
We headed back to town and went out for a few drinks that evening before getting our flight the following day. Rurrenbaque doesn’t have any banks but we had worked out our money pretty well (or so we had thought) to ensure we had enough when there. We arrived to get out flight home and were told that it was delayed by 4 hours so we decided to head into town and get a bite to eat and chill out in the hammocks in the hostel for a bit. Lindsay was being her normal stress headedness about spending the last of our money on food, "what if we needed it for the airport" etc etc, I told her just to chill out it would all be fine as the airport was just a hut in a field. As it transpired the hut also contained the woman who you had to pay departure tax to (that wasn’t included in the ticket price) and who confiscated your boarding card and wouldn’t let you on the plane unless you paid it, and no they don’t take visa! If you ever find yourself in this predicament with no money I strongly advise finding some lovely Australians and begging – I knew it would work out fine in the end……
