Pampas
Trip Start
Apr 20, 2008
1
21
70
Trip End
Ongoing
Rurrenabaque,
Bolivia
Saturday, June 21, 2008
The boat we were to travel on was much the same as in the jungle. It was even warmer here than the jungle and I was sweating in t/shirt and shorts. This time there were 6 of us on the tour. A swiss couple, the woman was a teacher and the man was a food engineer at the Lindt chocolate factory in Switzerland! He told us all about chocolate making and how the ladies in the factory whose job it is to put almonds on the pralines have to do gymnastics for 10 minutes every two hours, with music and everything. They had some companies come in to design a machine to do the job but it would need the technology and precision of a space robot so it would cost too much
Capybara
. The other three on our tour were recently graduated engineers from Belgium who had been on a bus all night and all looked a bit worse for wear. The conversation revolved much around the linguistic similarities between Flemmish, Swiss German and official German, some European politics and the Eurovision song contest.It was not long into our cruise along the much smaller, calm, peaceful and densely vegetated river that we began to see signs of life. Infact we did not go farther than 50m without seeing something new. Alligators, caimans, turtles crowding on rocks trying to warm themseves. A myriad of amazing river birds and a unique animal called a capybara which is part of the rodent family, and the largest I have ever seen. Amongst the wldlife we saw is the elusive pink dolphin, whilst we saw many and often they are nearly impossible to capture in a photograph. The river is murky and it's impossible to know where they are going to pop up next. Quite strange looking things they are too, very very pale grey with a pink twinge, much uglier than their salt water relatives!
The lovely cruise down the river lasted 2-3 hours before arriving at our accommodation, the Dolphin 2. It was much the same as the huts in the jungle except here we actually had electricity
Capybara
! Well until 9pm anyway!! In the evening we cruised further down the river to a mirador (lookout) for the sunset. It was infact much more of a social hangout. The essentials could be purchased (beer and chocolate) and the nighly soccer game was underway, Bolivians versus foreigners.. guess who won?? After the sun had gone down we cruised back slowly shining our torches to the river banks spotting alligator eyes which light up red!The next day we got up at 6am and went out to another mirador to watch the sunrise. We returned for an amazing breakfast and then went out anaconda hunting. Adorned with long gum boots we spent the next two hours walking, wading, trudging through long grass and swamps in the hope of spotting an anaconda. We saw two cobras, one which another guide stupidly picked up and started swinging around. We also found a baby anaconda which was harmless. Looking for anacondas was fun for a while but the novelty soon wore off, especially as one of my boots had a leak and was full of water! We eventually returned to camp for lunch and a siesta. We lay in some hammocks overlooking the river and saw the occasional dolphin jump out of the water.
The setting we were in was amazingly tranquil, not a car or a road for miles. Behind the huts we stayed in were tall trees with hundreds of monkeys living in them
Alligator
. I stood there for ages watching small monkeys jumping huge distances from tree to tree, they are so small they walk right out onto small twigs and swimg from the leaves, it was amazing. After our rest we headed out piranha fishing. As usual I didnt catch a thing but it didnt bother me. I wouldnt want to touch the fish if I caught one anyway. I felt like I was just out there feeding the fish as I was constantly losing the bait off my hook! Brack, one of the Belgians caught the only piranha of the day and it was tiny!! Infact all the fish we caught were tiny! Taht didnt stop us taking them back and having them fried up to complement our dinner. That night we went to the pub, well it was a hut that sold beer... we sat there and played cards until midnight.The last day we were granted a sleep in until 8am!! After breakfast we went swimming with the dolphins... well sort of... we were able to swim in the same river that the dolphins live in... I decided as swimming with the dolphins also meant swimming with alligators and piranhas.... that I would watch from the boat! We headed back after lunch and had another even more hideous jeep ride back to Rurrenabaque. We were all absolutely covered in dust when we got back!!
