Jungle tour
Trip Start
Jan 28, 2008
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61
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Trip End
Sep 18, 2008
La Paz,
Bolivia
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Jesus was our guide, he spoke only Spanish and his native dialect, but Cameron and I were ready for a challenge. In fact, we found that we could communicate quite well, and that our level of comprehension has improved a lot since we first started learning back in Spain. It is easy for us to understand information that people are giving us if it is in context, and not abstract. Jesus spoke slowly for us too, which helped. Even more exciting, when we had a question about a plant or animal, we could ask the question and even understand the answer!!!
David Attenborough watch out!
Cameron started out our trip to Madidi in bad shape. His stomach was churning from the chicken meal the previous night, plus he was in the middle of a head and chest cold. Cameron threw up during our 3 hour boat journey up the Beni and Tuchi rivers to our jungle campsite. (I am sure our Irish tour companions were pretty grossed out). Jesus, very astute, dissapeared into the jungle as soon as we arrived, and emerged with some tree bark, which he explained was a traditional medicine for diarrhea and vomiting. He made Cam drink a disgusting tree bark brew twice that day. Cameron was almost 100% after his jungle treatment.
Jesus was very entertaining and knowledgable. He showed us lots of different plants that the Tacana people (his tribe) used for medicine, construction, decoration and story telling. There were treatments for arthritis, muscle pain, kidney and intestine infections, and even abortion potions. Jesus also showed us a couple of hallucinagenic plants (mushroom and cacti of course).
We saw heaps of insects and heard lots of birds. We tried to see things on a night walk, but it is hard for 5 people to be quiet in the jungle. But the feeling of searching for animals was pretty exciting anyway
Madidi National Park HQ
.There was a slightly tame Spider Monkey that hassled our cook every time she started to make us a meal in the kitchen cabin. They called her Negra (she had black fur). She even went into our sleeping hut and started to check out our belongings.
On the last afternoon (out time was so short here) we made jungle jewellery. Jesus showed us how to make coconut rings and palm seed necklaces. It was quite funny to see our knife-weilding, jungle strong man morph into an artist. We had a very relaxing afternoon creating ornaments that we hope we can get in through Aussie customs!
Our last surprise was a trip further upstream and a visit to a breeding site of Madidi Macaws, the wildlife emblem of the park. These massive parrots (blue and red) live in pairs and make homes in a sandy cliffside, surrounding by thick rainforest. We sat and watched them for about 30 minutes before it was finally time to head back downstream, to Rurre. We wished we had more time to enjoy the rainforest, but it is comforting to know that the tourist dollar has meant that this ecosystem has a chance at being preserved for the future. We do know that there are still many problems in this park, including poaching and logging, but there are many local and foreign people trying to make the Bolivian Government take more action.
Our last night in Rurre was our last in a tropical climate for another few weeks, so we enjoyed wandering around the main streets in our thongs and TShirts.
Our flight back to La Paz the next morning with Amazonas Air was again breath taking. There was no cloud cover, and the pilot detoured right past the summit of Hyuni Potosi, a glacier covered mountain visible from La Paz. Tourists pay big bucks to climb this mountain, but we enjoyed the view from the comfort of our 16 seater flying sardine can.
