Lost in translation....and in the jungle.
Trip Start
Oct 13, 2010
1
6
12
Trip End
Ongoing
Rurrenbaque, Bolivia
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
As soon as we arrived, we booked our flight into the Jungle for the following day...Boo and I have decided that we are not big city girls, but prefer the slightly more chilled, but no less exciting smaller cities, towns and villages.
The following day, we boarded our tiny 19 seater prop plane and, much to my amusement, the pilots literally did a screaming half donut onto the runway and immediately took off! It was like we were in a bogan plane challenge to see who could get on the runway and take off the fastest! Classic. Shortly after take off we were bouncing up and down over the mighty Andes, which I enjoyed but Boo not so much. Then a sharp decent into the jungle and equally sharp landing on the newly tarmac-ed runway. No messing around with these pilots.
It was bliss to be in warmth again, and a cracking day it was. We bused into the small town called Rurrenbaque, gateway to the Pampas and the Jungle, and found ourselves a hostel with lots of hammocks...which became our sundowner location each evening we were there. Being the super organised chicas we are...we booked out Pampas 3 day, 2 night tour and our return flight to La Paz and then settled into our hammocks to enjoy the heat with some nicely chilled beers. Our tour promised us Croc, Monkey and Anaconda sightings amongst other things, whilst staying in a jungle swamp lodge. We were excited.
And then it rained. For 12 hours solid. Not surprisingly our tour was postponed as half the group hadnīt arrived that morning on their flights / buses, so, given we had already booked our flight back, we changed our tour to the Jungle tour for 2 days and one night. Still with promises of lots of exciting sightings. And sightings we got. I have to disclaimer right now, I have realised, I have recently become 100% pure chicken. Our first 3 hour afternoon dip into the jungle with our guide kicked off chewing coca leaves, sampling jungle whiskey made from the trees, with us almost walking into a giant wasp nest, stumbling over enormous fire ants and coming face to face with a rather large horde of very smelly (and I would assume rather grumpy) jungle pigs. Needless to say I was looking for the closest tree to scramble up, should they decide to take charge.
Then at the end of the 3 hours and after what felt like lots of walking in circles, our guide turned to us and said, quite honestly, iīm really sorry but we are lost! Great. I had had a hunch we were not on the right track and so (with dinner in mind and the unbearable thought of sleeping in the jungle with nothing but a plastic poncho and a muesli bar to share between 5 of us)...I went into action stations and started figuring out what our options were with the others. Only to their amusement when they realised before me that actually our guide was joking and we were 5 minutes from camp. Ha bloody ha! Not funny but thank god!
Boo and I were put in our own room with beds and mosquito nets which was great...until we got to the room after a lush dinner to find at least 10 giant cockroaches crawling over my bed....argh! We polished off our insect spray that night with furious fumigation and tight packing of the mosquito net around our beds. Thank goodness we slept minus creepy crawlies and woke up refreshed. Another tour into the jungle and a leisurely boat ride back and a much needed shower and sun downers in the hammocks.
That evening we made our way to the aptly named Moskito Bar for some celebratory cocktails for having survived the jungle (such chickens!) and yummy burgers. Until we were ambushed by 6 local Bolivian men who were on a quad bike tour from Cochabamba and decided that they wanted to come and join us for drinks. They were harmless and in fact it was quite funny deciphering the broken Spanglish between us. I, in my obviously ever improving Spanish, managed to tell them that Tessa was lunch rather than married and also managed to tell one of the guys that he was very slow instead of meaning very funny. Oh dear indeed! A funny night.
Now we are back in La Paz and about to board another lush semi-cama (bed) bus for a 12 hour overnight journey to Sucre - the governmental capital of Bolivia and where the declaration of Independence was signed so many years ago. Its apparently a stunning white washed colonial city so looking forward to bringing out the camera and exploring. Then its off to Potosi to see the mining and Tupiza if time for some horse riding / mountain biking before going on our Salt Flats tour....WOOHOO!
Any suggestions on things to do, companies to use...please do fire away!
Big hugs to your all...hope all is well in Western world...!
Steffi xxx
