Rurranabaque - the jungles and the Pampas - part 2

For the first part of the post about the jungles, click here.

Since the Pampas tour was much more popular than the jungles, we had to join a group. We went to a company that looked more or less professional and was quite recommended by others. Apparently this company worked a lot with Israeli travelers and their representative was very happy to inform us that he had a group of 6 very nice Israeli girls we could join. He was very surprised to hear that we preferred a more mixed group rather than all Israeli group. We had to wait for that mixed group for one more day, which most of it we spent in Oscar's pool, another Israeli colonial postal. It was located on a hill above Rurrenabaque and had a great view over the town and the river and also an Israeli music and Hebrew speaking owner. The regular way to get there, or anywhere in town, is by motortaxies, which can be quite extreme on the unpaved roads. There are almost no cars there. Only later we discovered that this wasn't the only pool in town, but that was the most popular among Israelis.

The next morning, after another sleepless night (see Tip 6 in the first part of this post), we met our new group. There was one Colombian\American girl, Becky, with whom we shared our cabin later on, a German couple Julia and Nicolay and 4 Czech guys, Lenka, Margarita, Michael and Michaela (I hope I got it right) that we got to know only on the last day. Big groups tend to be more closed to people from outside. It took us three hours drive in a jeep on a very bumpy road to get, all covered with a thick dust layer, to the river where we waited for our boat and more important for our guide. Negro, that was his nickname, was much older and more experienced than the other guides. He was a guide there for the last 20 years. The fact that on his first years only Israelis came to the Pampas caused him to learn Hebrew and, at least that what he said, to grow a lot of grey hair. After he found out that we are Israelis, he started shouting in Hebrew instead of talking, since he was sure that this was the only way we communicate. Taking into account most of the Israelis we met in South America, you can't really blame him for that.

Our boat was a 20 meter canoe with pairs of chairs along it, when Negro is driving it from the back. That way everyone gets to see an angle wide enough.

In the Pampas all you do is seat inside the boat and take pictures of all the animals seating on the riverbank, and there is so much to see! There are hundreds of alligators lying by the river, some with their mouth open, as if they are waiting for the prey to enter it. There are many turtles seating on brunches inside the water, leaning one on the back of the other, as if they are dancing. There are lots of different types of water birds seating on trees close to the river. Cormorants seating with their wings spread in order to dry them after another dive session. Curious and very cute Capibaras (the largest rodent in the world) watching us as we pass. The whole experience looks a bit like a "drive-through". There are few boats just like ours going up/down the river, one after the other, stopping next to another animal, waiting that all the tourists picture it from every possible angle.

Our campground was very different from the one we had in the jungles. Maybe it's because it was meant for 10 times more people. The food wasn't great either. But there were monkeys... Behind the cabins there was an area were the cooks threw away the leftovers. Naturally, all the monkeys from the area came to eat there 3 times a day... Not very eco-friendly, but that gave Oren a great opportunity to take lots of pictures from really close, and it allowed the monkeys to get to know SEMPA.

On the second morning we went searching for Anacondas. Usually they hide inside swamps. The deeper the swamp, the bigger the Anaconda. We went to a very shallow swamp. In order to walk inside the swamp, we had to wear rubber boots. The swamp was so dense that my boot got stuck inside, while my foot continued on, what made my sock change from white to black. After about 40 exhausting minutes in the swamp, and after almost stepping on a medium size alligator, Negro found a small Anaconda, just 3 meters long. He grabbed it by its tail and brought it to a place where everyone could see. Then the poor snake wasn't left alone until every tourist took a picture of himself holding its tail. At some point I was sorry we found it in the first place. The only thing that was asked by the guides was to touch the snake only after "washing" the hands in the swamp, so our smell wouldn't stick to their skin.

Since we found the Anaconda so quickly, we had some spare time so we went swimming in the river, not far from the alligators, that showed no interest in us. The water was quite brownish, so we came out dirtier than we came in.

After lunch we went fishing for piranhas, in order to do that we sailed on a smaller river. On the way there we stopped few times to watch the strange pink dolphins that swum next to us. Not like regular dolphins these showed very little interest in us.

During all our stay there, our heads were high in the trees, looking for sloths, but our eyes didn't stand a chance when compared to Negro's hawk-eyes. In the middle of the sailing he stopped the boat and shouted "Atslan!" (A sloth in Hebrew). The sloth was on the top of the 40 meter tree that was far from the riverbank. It was so small that we had to take a full zoom picture in order to see if it was actually a sloth. I wasn't that excited since Chelsea took the championship. After few minutes Oren spotted another sloth on the same tree. According to Negro, it is really rear to see two sloths on the same tree, it must have been the mating season. Few hundreds meters after that we saw another sloth, much closer this time. Three different sloths in less than half an hour! From that point on everything looked pinker to me. The grey skies became sunny, the alligators smiled at us from the riverbanks and the Capibaras waved with their ears and tails. When we finally got to the fishing part I was already walking on clouds. Actually it should be called Piranhas feeding and not fishing. We used fresh meat as a bait/food for the fish. Since the fish saw that we are inexperienced gringos (foreigners), they ate most of the meat without getting caught. I managed to catch two very small fish, so small I had to release them back. All together, the weight of the meat that was spent as a bait was greater than the weight of the fish that was caught. In the evening we had the fish for dinner, good thing we had other dishes as well.

The next morning we woke up early to see the sunrise and after breakfast went to take pictures of the same animals over and over again. In addition to all the "regular" animals, we also saw a monkey hunting and then trying to eat a big snake. Unfortunately, because of all the audience, the monkey accidentally dropped the snake back to the water, and was left without lunch. Then we said goodbye to Negro and had another "joyful" ride back to Rurrenabaque, where we spent another sleepless night, and then flew back to La Paz.

At the beginning of the first part of the post, I mentioned that I wanted to see wild Aras flying free over the jungle. I didn't write about that, but don't worry, we saw plenty of them. Aras, or Macaus as they called in South America, mate for life, that is why they always fly in pairs. We never saw a Macau flying alone. That makes seeing them alone in captivity even sadder. At some point I even saw 10 couples of Macaus flying over the Tuichi River. So as you can see I have accomplished all I planned just on time.

Rurrenabaque - The Jungles and the Pampas - Part 1

Different people have different concepts about South America, before going there. Some go there to "find themselves", some to "loose themselves", some go there to trek, others come for the good food. There was only one picture in my (Lilya) head when I was planning my trip to South America. I wanted to see the Amazon basin, to float on a wide winding river, to see many big Ara parrots flying free above you, and maybe to see a sloth. A sloth is my favorite animal, ever since I was a kid, even though I never saw it in person. The chances to see one weren't great. It is a very quiet and shy animal that hides in the canopy of very high trees and doesn't move much. We searched for it all through Brazil instead of working on our tan, but there was no luck there. Amazingly enough, my dream vision of South America came true big time less than two weeks before the end of our journey in this continent.
The Amazon basin is located at the northern part of Bolivia. The Amazonas river itself doesn't pass through Bolivia but its main tributary, Beni does, so the views are pretty similar. The main town in that area is called Rurrenabaque. In order to get there from La Paz you can take a bus that goes through the Death Road, which is considered to be the world's most dangerous road, since around 200-300 travellers die yearly on that road. Somehow we didn't find it's name appealing enough, so we decided to take a flight. There are few daily flights leaving La Paz in that direction, so we took one of them. The plain was quite small, about 15 passengers, which is actually an advantage. Because of its small size it was able to fly really low between the mountain tops while crossing the Andes. The flight could have been much more extreme had it been windier that day, but it wasn't. After crossing the Andes, the amazing Amazon basin, with its vast jungles and wide rivers, reveals itself. We landed just like in an Indiana Jones movie on a tiny landing surface in the middle of the jungle. From there a small bus took us to Rurrenabaque where we met Yolene (our friend from previous posts). Together we had a great lunch (a huge and fresh fish from the Beni river) in one of the many good restaurants in town. The town is very different from other parts of Bolivia that we visited. It is very relaxed and much more resembles Brazil. Another important thing about it is that it is very worm, humid and doesn't suffer from lack of Oxygen. Very refreshing after almost two months of dry and cold climate and very little air to breath.
The funny thing was that Oren somehow lost his voice, so all the talking and all decisions were made by Lilya and Yolene, which was quite refreshing for them, but somewhat frustrating for Oren. Every time he wanted to say something, he had to whisper it to Lilya's ear, so everybody else though he was really shy.

Later we went searching for a suitable tourist agency in order to book a 4 day tour to the jungles. There are many different agencies in Rurre. One of our most important criterias was that the company will be eco-friendly. That means that our tour will have minimum effect on the environment. All the companies say that they are, but in a lot of cases you can easily see from the pictures on their walls (for example someone holding a baby alligator in his mouth) that they care more about the fast satisfaction of the tourists more than the well being of the nature. After checking few companies we decided to go with the one that costs more, but offered a more special experience. Since it is owned by indigenous people, they have a permission to go to more isolated areas of the jungle. Most of the other companies campsites are located within one-two hours sail on the river Beni. Our campsite was on another river, Tuichi, the one from the "Back from Tuichi" book. Actually, our agency was founded as an initiative of the Israeli writer of this book, who got lost in this area few years ago. It took us two hours sail in the amazing Beni river and another 4 hours in the shallower Tuichi river just to get to the campsite, from which we made all the walks. The closest village was 3 hours away (by boat). This tour was practically private. The three of us, our guide Pedro, our cook Candy and the boat driver were the only people in the campsite. It took us almost the whole first day just to get to our camping site. First we sailed through the very foggy parts of the enormous Beni river, which was very mystic. After we turned to the Tuichi river the water became shallower, so the boat got stuck on the rocks once in a while. In one part it got stuck so hard, that we had to go inside the river and to push it, you can imagine how excited that made us.

During the next days all we did was walking around in the jungle and eating. Even though there were only three of us, our lovely cook prepared a four course meal three times a day. We were still digesting the previous meal when we were already served the next one. All the stay there was pretty amazing. Imagine that all you hear for 3 days and nights is the sounds of the wild jungle. Since the vegetation in the jungle is very vast, you can't see many animals there, so for us the most important sense was hearing. You walk in a line behind Pedro, as quietly as possible and try to be lucky. There are a lot to hear in the jungle, lots of exotic birds, frogs, reptiles, sometimes even mammals, and if you are quiet enough, you can even hear ants chewing pieces of leaves! Our guide, Pedro, on the other hand, used all his senses in order to spot animals, even smell sometimes. He knew to recognize all the animals only by the sound they made, and he also knew to impersonate them.
What you can easily see in the jungle is an enormous amount of various types of vegetation everywhere you look. Plants that look as if they were taken from another planet. Vegetation so vast you can barely see any direct sunlight, not even at noon.

The Second day gave us more chances to see the animals. We walked for more than an hour, when the forest suddenly became alive. A family of monkeys made their way through the forest jumping from tree to tree. Pedro, who else, heard them first, when they were probably still on the other side of South America. By the time they reached us, it seems they were everywhere. We could see them jumping between the high branches making so much noise as if there were no predators in the jungle at all. And suddenly, they passed us, and the forest became quiet again. That wasn't the only interesting animal we saw. We saw an injured wild boar that day, that tried to run away when he spotted us, and a king eagle that flew just few meters from us when we walked by, interrupting its lunch, that included some unidentified scavenge.

We tried our luck again in the afternoon, when we went to the clay pools where the wild boars usually come at tea time. We sat there for more than half an hour, making almost no noise, but they remained hidden from us.

On our second night we went on a night walk. The fool moon couldn't help us there, so we had to use torches. Thanks to Pedro's sharp senses we saw few deadly frogs, big spiders, snakes and few hungry bats.

On our third day we were supposed to walk to another campsite, there to fish and then to go back by rafting. The walking part was good, all the rest was less successful. After more than two hours inside a very shallow river Pedro and the boat driver, whose name we don't recall, were able to catch 3 small sardines. Then we took the sardines to the main river, and used them as a bait for the big fish, while Pedro and the boat driver were trying to pump up the inflatable rafting boat. Both activities weren't very fruitful. Since Lilya and Yolene weren't really into catching fish, there were no casualties among the fish, and since the pump was broken there was no rafting as well. So we had to go back to our camp barehanded and un-rafted. Good thing they weren't counting on our fishing skills for dinner.

On our last day we spent the morning in preparing indigenous style handicrafts, which was more fun than we imagined, and then after another huge lunch we sailed back to Rurrenabaque.

The day after we returned we had a big farewell breakfast since Yolene had to go on with her journey and then went looking for an agency that will take us to the Pampas. All about our journey to the Pampas and how I finally met a sloth will be published soon, hopefully, in the second part of this post.

Tip 1: There are two companies flying every day from La Paz to Rurrenabaque: TAM and Amazsonas. TAM are a bit cheaper and have larger airplanes, maybe that is why they tend to cancel their flights now and then. If you don't have a lot of spare time, you better take an Amaszonas flight. You don't have to book in advance, usually one day is enough.

Tip 2: A very good but not cheap travelling agency: "La berraco de madidi". For details see this post.

Tip 3: A very delicious french bakery. Not as good as in Paris, according to Yolene, but that didn't stop us from eating there every morning.

Tip 4: Camila - a good place to eat local fish (the Tartar sauce is very good, but so are the other options).

Tip 5: Casa de campo, or something like that, is a very pleasant place to have breakfast. Its located in the garden of a nice senior couple, and they even have new copies of the "New Yorker".

Tip 6: During 5 nights we spent in Rurrenabaque we stayed in 4 different hostels and we couldn't fall asleep in any of them. Even though the streets look quiet, inside the rooms you somehow hear a laud music. In addition to that in the middle of the night all the dogs start to bark and don't stop until the morning. We heard that "Santa Ana" is nice and quiet, but they were full at the time.

Pictures

Pictures from the Pampas in Bolivia are now on line. This is probably the best album until now.