Rurrenabaque aka the Jungle

We couldn't come all the way to South America without experiencing some of the Amazon jungle, so we decided to book a 3 day 2 night Pampas tour. It's based out of a little town in NW Bolivia, just on the other side of the mountains, called Rurrenabaque. It's 18-24 hours by crammed bus on sketchy Bolivian roads, so we opted for the 45 minute flight instead. However, upon reaching the airport, we were also a little surprised to realize that the plane for this short journey was a 2 propeller, 20 seater plane, in which the pilot enjoyed drastically turning from side to side as we passed over the mountains from what seemed like a mere 20 metres up, so we could "see the views". Definitely an experience! We landed in Rurrenabaque very shortly after take off onto the recently paved runway (previously grass) and got out at the airport - one single building with a shuttle waiting to take us into town. As soon as we stepped off the plane we were hit with heat and humidity again, which was a welcomed change after spending the past few weeks at such high dry altitudes.

Nervous plane ride on a 20 seater plane

The town itself is small, scenic, and full of the most motor and dirt bikes per person I've ever seen in my life. Whole families were traveling this way - I think the the record we saw was 5 on one bike, although the 3 + one woman breastfeeding while riding on the back might be the winner! The tour didnt start until the next morning, so we checked into a hostel for a nice quiet nights sleep after the super loud Wild Rover in La Paz. However, not shorty after settling down, what do we hear? Yet another marching band. I'm not sure where the thousands of kids came from for this never ending parade, but it lasted well over 2 hours!

The next morning we headed over to the tour agency to start our journey. There is lots of controversy around which companies are Eco friendly and who is sticking to the correct practices, so after some research, we decided on Indigena Tours. We arrived at the office and hopped into the 4x4 Jeep with our tour group - an Irish couple, an Englishman, and 3 English girls who were just to be with us for the first day due to a crazy tight schedule. After 3 hours of being jostled around and covered in a layer of dust in the back of the Jeep (and getting stopped to let yet another marching band pass on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere!) we were let out at the mouth of the Yacuma River where our motorized canoe was waiting. With the gear loaded up, we were off into the jungle!!

Right off the bat, we started seeing tons of animals and birds - crazily so! In the first 5 minutes we saw a dozen caiman, alligators, turtles and more birds than Colin could keep up with. This continued for the rest of the 3 hour journey, to the point where cameras went away as we were so used to seeing these foreign animals already. We also saw loads of capybaras, the worlds largest rodent, and stopped a few times to say hi to the curious, super cute little yellow capuchin monkeys who hang on branches right over the river. This whole while there were so so SO many birds flying about as well, some the size of a little chickadee, to some of the biggest ones I've ever seen in my life, stork like birds that with their long legs stand at well over 5 feet tall. Cormorants, storks, eagles, parakeets, kingfishers, tiger birds, crazy ones we're not even sure of the names of yet - Colin was a happy boy!
At one point on the river where it opened up a bit, our guide, Sam, slowed the boat down and cut the engine. He asked who wanted to go swimming? Seeing the large black caimans chilling on the shore a mere 15 feet away, and knowing the river is infested with pirañas, we all looked at him like he was crazy. Then, we heard a spout blow and saw a fin - pink river dolphins!! These guys are the kings of the river, so when they're around, nothing else swims in the same area of water. Very quickly trusting this fact in our excitement, our whole boat jumped in to the muddy waters to have a chance to swim with the pink river dolphins. They were playing shy that day, so we cooled off for 5-10 minutes, hopped back in the boat and continued to the Indigena Lodge, one of the furthest lodges up the river.

We arrived at the Lodge locate right on the bank of the river, and barely had time to drop our bags off and shkoff the waiting snack of popcorn before we were back in the canoe to head up river a little further to the sunset watching spot. Up the bank from the river is all flat fields, a lot with farmland, so we had a perfect view. There's also a little hut here selling drinks and beers, as well as a soccer pitch, where the locals challenged the gringo boys to a match. With Colin in net, the game ended in a tie, and we all had a couple beers before heading back for the cover of the Lodge from the swarms of mosquitos who bombard you as soon as the sun goes down.

We got back to the lodge to find a delicious dinner waiting for us. The food they produce in the middle of the jungle with their limited resources really is amazing! We ate, chilled and chatted for a while by candlelight after the generator was cut after 9pm, then headed to our dorms to secure our mosquito nets around our beds and go to sleep. So incredibly glad I brought earplugs and sleeping pills, as the jungle sounds and numerous sightings of arañas around this place were unreal!

The next morning we were up at 730 for breakfast, then shortly after we were being fitted with "Wellies" to head out into the swamp up on the river bank to go anaconda hunting. Yes, anaconda hunting. We tramped through all kinds of swamp, bushes, mud piles and cattle trails in the ridiculously hot sun, all the while poking in bushes and clusters of branches with our walking sticks to see if there was an anaconda hiding in there. After 3 hours of this, we were unsuccessful. Later we would learn the history of these Pampas tours and how for the 10 years they were unregulated, resulting in the mass slaughter of tons of anacondas a day, due to tourists with their loads of deet on them picking up the snakes and putting them around their necks. The deet sinks into the anaconda's porous skin, and the next day the guides would find tons of dead anacondas where they'd just taken a group. Sad for the snakes, and for us that we never got to see one, but yet another reason we went with the company who doesn't use those practices.

Once back at the lodge we had an amazing lunch with 5 different kinds of salads (yes!) presented like a fancy restaurant. We saw some different kinds of monkeys right out back of the lodge, then headed back into the canoe to head down river in search of the shy pink river dolphins. They were not shy today! We got to a very large wide, open bend in the river, and found a dozen of them splashing around and playing. We hopped in, and I didn't get out for an hour. At one point they got so close to me I almost could have reached out and touched them - although I didn't :) It was a crazy experience, as the water is so muddy you can't see anything, and the dolphins aren't small and are still wild animals, and you have no idea what else is swimming in there, even with the dolphins prescence. We got some amazing photos and videos of these beautiful creatures, and then after much reluctance, headed back to the Lodge for some much deserved R&R in the hammock room. After some monkey lounging, we headed to another beer bar/soccer field a little further down the river to watch the sunset. This time the locals "beat" the gringos, and a round of beers were bought for our hosts. Colin made some pretty amazing saves, including one with his face! Luckily no injuries, just lots of mosquito bites :) Back to the Lodge for dinner, and then our guide Sam brought us some Bolivian vino tinto to share by candlelight. Some more chit chat with our new Irish/English friends, then off to the mosquito nets for bed.

The next morning Sam woke us up at 530am so we could pile into the canoe and head downstream to the sunrise watching spot. It was surprisingly chilly at this time of day, and there was an eerie mist covering the river. The bird and insect sounds were amazing, and we got to experience the extremely tranquil vibe up on the river bank as the sun rose and the heat kicked in. Well worth the effort to get out of bed! We headed back for a quick breakfast, a change of clothes, then we were back in the canoe to head upstream to go piraña fishing. There are so many of them in the river that this is not a threat to the ecosystem. Our bait was little bits of raw beef, and as soon as you cast your piece of line into the water (no rods here) you could instantaneously start to feel nibbles. The trick was to wait for the real solid bite, then yank the line to set the hook and fling the lil bugger into the canoe. Colin was quite successful at this, catching 3 pretty quickly. After my 10th one got away, I finally managed to get one into the boat. Just as we were about to run out of bait, Colin starts shouting "Hey, I caught a stick... No wait, I caught a snake!!" Sam looks over to see what Colin has hooked on his line, and says "Woah woah, hold up!" and goes running over to grab the line and announce Colin has caught an electric eel! Needless to say, Colin won for catch of the day!

After our exciting fishing experience, we headed back for lunch, packed up, had one more hammock monkey session, then back into the canoe to start the journey back. We saw just as many animals and birds on this journey, including the dolphins showing up again, and one even waving it's flipper at us as if to say goodbye. 1.5 hours of canoe ride, 3 hours in the bouncy dusty jeep, and we were back in Rurrenabaque. As the 5 of us were all flying out the following day, we met up for dinner and drinks at the local hangout spot called the Moskkito, and had a fun night playing pool, drinking Harvey Wallbangers, and enjoying the last night of warm jungle temperatures. The next day we caught the 130pm 20 seater plane again, and after a scaring turbulent landing, made it safely back to La Paz and the Wild Rover. This was one of the best things we've done on the whole trip so far, and despite my initial reluctance to head into the araña infested jungle, I'm so glad Colin convinced Princess to go!

Turtle party

Capuchin monkey

Eagle (yet to determine name)

Capybara, the largest rodent in the world

Black caiman

Ginormous bird (yet to determine name) This thing was over 5 feet tall - largest flying bird I´ve ever seen!

Eagle (again, yet to determine name)

Sunset on the soccer pitch

Sunrise on the river

Colin´s catch of the day - an electric eel!

My first successful catch after 10 fails - a mini piraña :)