Day 39- 42 – Pampas Jungle trip
We had booked a 3 day / 2 night Pampas Jungle trip. There are 2 types of trips available in Bolivia Jungles, standard Jungle trip and Pampas (river) based trips. We chose the later as there was more promise of seeing animals by the river and the conditions and ease of the trip was better. This turned out to be a good decision as I came down with a bad cold during our trip.
To get to the Jungle there was an option of a short 30 minute flight or 18 hour bus ride. No prizes for which we choose! The flight was on a small 50 seater plane. when we landed in Rurrenbaque we could see the airport was very basic with a hut as the terminal building. We were surprised and pleased to find our tour operates Masquipe waiting for us to take us to town and our hostel. The Hostel had been recommended, it was a cheap youth hostel. After being shown to our room we could see why it was cheap. A lot of paint was flaking of the walls and the shower looked dangerous. We had booked 2 nights one before the trip and one after. Rather than move immediately we went for a walk and found a top hotel down the road and booked it for our return. We then walked around the small town and found a very welcome pizza restaurant.
We slept ok in our poor accommodation but were grateful to be picked up the next morning by the tour operators who took us to the office and meet our guide and fellow travelers. There were 3 other people in our group, a single girl, and a couple from New Zealand. The first part of our trip was a 3 hours journey to reach the jungle lodges. We traveled it a 4 x 4 vehicle along poor roads. We stopped a couple of time to see animals along the route and finally reached the river for our last part of the journey by boat to the lodges. We arrived at the lodge in time for lunch. Our accommodation was a a lovely lage hut with a double bed, single bed complete with mosquito nets.
After lunch we climbed back into the small boat and went downstream to look for animals. We sa plenty of birds, many capabarra, look like giant guinea pigs and caiman (crocodiles). We also saw 2 pink dolphins but they were difficult to photograph due to the murky water. We returned to the lodge for dinner and then to our cabin. As we approached our cabin we realised our mistake of leaving the light on as the the light was swamped with flying creature of all sizes.
Friday 09 Nov – Day 41 – Turtle Lodge and Rurrenabaque
At dawn, the light and sound of the forest woke us early. We had slept well under the mosquito net, and suffered no bites, but the floor of the cabin was sprinkled with the corpses of dead insects as a result of our poor insect management the evening before.
After breakfast, the six of us met at the boat and set off upstream – in the opposite direction as the previous afternoon. We motored along alert for interesting wildlife, with Ernesto usually spotting it before anyone else. A little way down the river, he spotted a colony of capuchin monkeys in a tree overhanging the river. Ernesto beached the front of the boat on the bank, and we spent some time watching and photographing the capuchins. The monkeys were very inquisitive and friendly and several of them came into the boats and jumped from person to person until they found someone they liked to sit on.
Further down the river we began to see more and more caimans of every size from 15cm up to a couple of meters. The morning culminated with a pool containing pink dolphins, but they were a bit shy, and again we didn’t see them very well. After about two and a half hours, we turned back and motored straight back to the lodge for lunch.
After lunch I was feeling ill with my cold taking hold so Barrie went on his own with our guide Ernestoe for a walk from an abandoned lodge. .
We climbed up to the lodge and had a look around, then we went inland through the woods. It was warm, humid and dark under the canopy. We heard and saw a colony of capuchins having a very noisy altercation with a howler monkey. We walked through an abandoned farm, and picked up an entourage of abandoned pigs who shadowed us for a while before deciding that we hadn’t come to feed them. The woods were also full of abandoned cattle who tried to stay a respectable distance from us, and would suddenly blunder off through the undergrowth if we got too close. All except the bull; a handsome graduated grey beast who stood his ground and pretended to ignore us. We saw several types of bird, including woodpeckers and toucans, and heard many more.
Saturday 10 Nov – Day 42 – Turtle Lodge and Rurrenabaque
As dawn broke, there was a terrific cacophony of weird and wonderful sounds of frogs, birds and animals led by the local howler monkeys. We lay in bed listening to it as the day got lighter. I tried to record the sounds on my iPad. The room was much more pleasant that morning because it wasn’t full of dead insects.
After breakfast Ernesto offered us the opportunity of going looking for anacondas snakes. I was feeling a bit better so decided to go along. The anaconda hunt required wellington boots for undisclosed reasons, so after breakfast we went behind the dining room hut to an area where many pairs of upside-down wellingtons stood on a frame. We searched for pairs that were a reasonable fit, Barrie ended up with a pair of white ones looking like a surgeon.
After returning to our rooms to get our stuff, we met Ernesto at the boat. He motored quickly downstream barely slowing to look at wildlife; past the ferry; past the abandoned lodges; past the dolphin place; until just beyond the extent of our cruise on the first afternoon. He grounded the front of the boat under a huge banyan tree which grew on top of the embankment, to which he moored the boat, and we climbed out. The embank was steep and high, and we had to use the horizontal roots of the banyan as giant steps – Ernesto went at the front, and Barrie stayed at the back to help me up.
We walked through the belt of trees lining the river for a few minutes, then we broke out into the sunlight. Before us lay a large area of semi-dried-out wetland – in the foreground pampas grass, and in the distance large muddy pools surrounded by many water birds huge. We equipped ourselves with walking sticks, from a stock of them kept at the edge of the woods, and then we set out across the pampas. The sticks, according to Ernesto, were to help you walk, test the ground, and flush out the snakes. Even though we were following a path, of sorts, through the pampas grass, it was dense and tall making it difficult to walk, and it grew hotter as we walked away from the river. Ernesto, who was aware that I was still not 100%, said to shout up if we wanted to return to the boat.
As we progressed, the ground became softer, and the pampas grass began to make way for water hyacinths with large pink flowers; and as we approached the bird colonies, they seemed to we aware of our presence and took to the air more frequently. Needless to say, there was no sign of any anacondas (thankfully), but we were really enjoying the landscape and the birdlife. As we drew really close to the pools, we were walking on a layer of vegetation over sucking mud, and had to take care not to put a foot through into the deep mud and loose a wellington. Oddly, now we were much closer to the birds, they seemed less concerned, maybe because they recognised that we were not predators.
I was feeling hotter and asked to return to the boat we as we turned around and walked back it had become very hot, and as we reentered the pampas grass belt, it was like walking into a furness. By the time we returned to the banyan tree, we had been on the pampas for about an hour. We were very hot and tired. We returned to the lodge for the last time to pack up and have lunch.
At 13:30, we met at the boat, and motored the short distance to the ferry, where we left the boat and the three of us boarded a waiting car with driver. The drive back to Rurrenabaque was rough – we went much faster than the outward journey, and the driver made no concessions to comfort over speed, neither did he stop for a a toilet brake. We arrived at the Mashaquipe office about 15:45 feeling a bit roughed up . We reclaimed our main luggage and documents, and then they gave us a lift to our new hotel. the Maya Hotel. We were so glad we had cancelled the El Curichal hostel and booked this little oasis of peace, especially after the drive from hell.. We checked in to a nice upstairs room, opening off the internal gallery which overlooked the pool. After a bit of a rest, we went down to sample the pool and relax after our busy few days.
As we sat in the garden, the peace was progressively shattered by neighbouring children screaming; boats fighting their way up the river against the flow; the hotelier mowing the grass, and finally the sound of a very unskilled band rehearsing with a ridiculously loud PA. All this noise made my headache worse so we retired to the room with ear plugs.
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Sunday 11 Nov – Day 43 – Rurrenabaque and La Paz
We woke surprisingly OK after the shattered evening before. We had an adequate breakfast in the Maya Hotel, and then packed to fly back to La Paz.
Good old Mashaquipe picked us up from the hotel at 09:15 and took us to the airport for our 10:30 flight. The airport was tiny and rustic. We hadn’t really seen it up close on the way to Rurrenabaque because, apart from picking out our luggage, there was nothing to do there. But now we got a better look at it, as we had to check-in, pay airport tax, and go through security. Everything was carried out efficiently, if a little peremptorily, by them. The terminal, and only, building was a small single storey hut, with enough room for 60 people to wait for their flight. When the incoming plane arrived we all went out and stood on the tarmac and watched while they unloaded the passengers and luggage, before they boarded us and our luggage. The flight, which lasted about 40 minutes, was uneventful, without the amazing views of the outward flight because of cloud.