Into the jungle
Trip Start
Dec 30, 2007
1
32
50
Trip End
Jun 22, 2008
Rurrenabaque,
Bolivia
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Madidi National Park is one of the most biodiverse regions on earth. But everyone told us that trips to this piece of the Amazon would not be rewarded with many animal sightings. We found this hard to believe. We'd been to other, less renowned, patches of rainforest and seen a lot. So we thought perhaps it was just that the standard tour spent all of one evening in the forest, with a couple of walks. It would be easy to miss things in that kind of trip we told ourselves. So we took what we thought was a private tour, just the two of us plus a guide, for a four day trek into the jungle, although a third person joined us. It turned out that everyone else was right. I am still confused though - how can there be more on a simple day walk in Panama or Costa Rica. Nor did it seem simply that the jungle was too dense to see the animals. It was also very quiet.
We had been prepared for the worst, the trip from La Paz to Rurre takes 16 hours or so by bus, and is said to be horrific. we were told that of the few tourists who actually take the bus, none return by bus. Also, it meant taking the bus down the road infamous for accidents. Our fears were misplaced. The death road as it is affectionately known has been replaced and we descended down an excellent road allowing us glorious views of rocky mountain sides without fear of death. The trip is certainly slow, for the road is narrow and unpaved for much of the way, but it is not particularly uncomfortable. We took the return trip and wondered what all the anguish is over.
We arrived at 6am and spent that day relaxing at our hostel with a playful dog who harassed the tame spider monkey, completely unaware that the monkey did not enjoy the game too.
The next morning we headed three hours up the Tuichi River to our camp for the first night.
The Amazon
This is the main base camp and we had our afternoon walk but did not see much. Our tally came to ants, some tarantulas including the shed skin of a baby, a bird with a red breast, and some fruit vaguely resembling papayas. We returned to camp thinking that things were bound to improve, but I was miffed that we couldn't go out for a night walk, because our guide was only supplied with enough batteries for two nights. As it turned out it was only enough for one. Waking at about 4am I listened to the night noises. Some animal was making deep booming noises; and another was making a low grunting cough. Could that be a jaguar? The next day posed some problems, as none of the three of us had brought a bag big enough to carry all our supplies. There seemed to be a great deal of food, and as my bag was biggest I seemed to end up with most of it. We did manage to get everything on in the end, including the two tarpaulins and the ground sheet, the mosquito nets and bedrolls. It was a pretty uneventful day's hike though, with the only excitement being stumbling across a great herd of wild pigs who were soon scampering making a curious clicking noise with their teeth in alarm. We reached camp, had lunch and were off again, but spotted nothing more exciting than some ground dwelling birds that looked a bit like turkeys. We went fishing that night. At least, some did. Nancy slept and watched the others not catch anything. The night hike was equally fruitless, though fun. We saw a rat and heard bats swooping through the night.
Next morning we hiked for about five hours.
weird spider
Our reward was a troop of light brown monkeys with black manes called chachilos (or similar), a bit like tamarins, and a macaw. There were lots of spiders too and a tortoise. It rained. When we got into camp our resourceful guide Jose immediately started rigging a shelter for the fire with thick palm fronds. Jose was certainly a master bushman, though a little free with the machete for my liking. He could whip up shelters, get fires going and strip bark for use as ropes in no time flat. Soon it was pouring torrentially but the fire was safe and so were we. I placed a water bottle under the tarpaulin. It was a bad spot as the water would not for a concentrated stream and most missed the bottle, but we still collected almost two liters. We slept most of the afternoon. Fortunately the rain cleared and we had another night hike, starting at 3am. We haunted the clay licks but saw nothing. Another rat. Lots of bats, wings beating like flapped paper, and a frog. Very late in the piece we caught some eye-shine that Jose said was an ocelot. But I only saw the eyes reflecting in the dim torchlight. Does that count? He also claimed to see a night monkey, but I could make nothing out.The last day was short and uneventful. I saw a toucan. We passed the time until our boat arrived making rings out of some kind of nut.
I enjoyed the experience, and it was great just being in the Amazon. But the wildlife was certainly disappointing. I can't complain abut a shortage of ticks though. On our return we found that we had three each, and a couple of days later I found another two. One on my leg was now so fat (with my blood) that he came off with barely any effort at all. No one had warned us about ticks. There were plenty of sandflies too, but far fewer mosquitoes than I had expected.
