Okay dear blog, it has been a while but I really have been busy. I apologise and promise to try and do better! Anyway, last time I checked in we had just come back to La Paz from Uyuni and were planning on spending just one day more in La Paz while we waited to head to Rurrenabaque. Having enjoyed an evening of the nightlife offered in La Paz, the following day we headed out to enjoy an afternoon of wrestling. Yes, truly, wrestling in La Paz - the Cholitas. And what an experience this was. Indigenous women in their traditional clothes, men in various costumes and midgets (yes, I know this may not be the correct term but it is the word they used) and the grand finale 4 men, two dressed in black outfits and two dressed in butchers outfits, complete with big slabs of meat that they were hitting each other (and sometimes members of the audience) with. Difficult to explain how truly spectacular this was but hopefully the photos will do what words cannot. (Tim really should be working on the photos now but since we got in quite early this morning he is having a little rest).
Anyway, with the fun and frivolity out of the way, Monday morning we boarded a bus to Rurrenabaque to begin our exploration of the jungle. Now, before we boarded the bus we knew what was ahead of us given that the bus ride takes in the `most dangerous rode in the world` but my heart still stopped a few times when you looked down and could only see a sheer drop through the jungle several hunderd meters down. Shortly before I made Tim swap seats (I was by the window), we came to a pretty sharp corner and I began to wonder why the driver had stopped all of a sudden and started going backwards - turns out he had misjudged the corner and not all of the bus had remained on the road. What did make me giggle though, was the small house by this corner with the man standing on the verandah - I am sure his sole job in life is to report in when a bus driver doesn`t realise he had taken the corner to wide! Anyway, as I said, I made Tim swap seats, put my ipod on and hoped for the best.
We arrived (safe and sound) in Rurrenabaque at 7.15am the next morning (only 15 minutes behind schedule). What was surprising about this was that we had a flat tire at about midnight that needed to be taken off, repaired and replaced and then ran out of fuel that required another hour delay. I am just glad I slept through it all!
I will begin Rurrenabaque by saying that this was a very nice, small, jungle town. It was hot, humid, wet and full of mossies but had a really great feel to it - luckily. Morning 1 we joined a 4 day Pampas tour along with a Dutch guy (Ramco), a Swiss guy (Rafael) and two girls and a guy from England. Now, I know that theoretically anyone can read this so all I will say is that it wasn`t the best group ever but it probably wasn`t the worst ever. So, we began with a three hour `jeep` journey out to the river, taking in some quite ungraded roads (every jeep had at least one flat tire and some of the potholes required some fairly careful negotiation). Lunch was also in interesting affair, shared with a pig as a footrest and a monkey who enjoyed stealing our food. After lunch entertainment had us watching the monkey `play` with the puppies, who had little chance of escape from the monkeys very long arms, legs and tail!
The rest of the tour passed relatively uneventfully, but allowed us to experience seeing various species of monkeys up close and personal, swimming with dolphins, getting very close to the caimons (each accomodation area has their own resident caimon!), so many amazing varieties of birds that I lost count, including the biggest bird ever who makes its nest in highest tree it can find (the jabiru). Probably one of the most interesting experiences though was hunting for anocondas in swamp water that at times went over your knees. I am still not sure if I feel lucky or not that we didn`t find anything! After 4 days of the heat, humidity and bugs we headed back into Rurrenabaque thinking that we would head back to La Paz and continue our journery onwards to Peru.
As with all good plans though, this one failed to come to fruition. Having experienced the bus ride to Rurre, I was somewhat reluctant to make the return trip and so suggested to Tim that it may be worth giving some thought to flying back. The difficulty, however, with flying from Rurre is that planes don`t go when it is too early, too late, too wet, too windy ... you get the picture. After a couple of days of hanging around we decided that we might as well take off into the jungle for a couple of days and so, along with Ramco and Rafael, we loaded ourselves into one of the local guides boats and went and stayed with his family for a few days in the jungle. Sadly, we didn`t get to see much in the way of animals and other creatures, but we got to visit the local school, spend time with our guides family and sleep in hammocks and we did go on some jungle walks and saw some quite cool scenery.
Arriving back in Rurre we again took our chances on the plane and were again thwarted by the pouring rain. Finally, several days later just as we were down to our last rations (there is no bank in Rurre) we made the last plane out. And back to La Paz. Unfortunately our time in La Paz was again extended for an extra couple of days as I seemed to become affected by altitude sickness. Slightly odd as we had been at altitude for some time and the only thing we could put it down to was the quick assent back from sea level. Anyway, having spent several days in bed with a diet of energy drinks, chicken soup and fresh fruit drinks (La Paz makes the best juices in the world!) we finally made it out of Bolivia and welcomed in April in Lima.
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