BOLIVIA: Copacabana/Isla Del Sol>Rurrenabaque

  Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Monday, July 17, 2006

 Yo.

So England were unlucky in the world cup by failing at the painful penalty stage (once more aaarrgh - not that I could see the match or anything). Heard there were big riots in Jersey too *ouch*. Thought France actually deserved to pip Italy to the title though - that is sport!

Back on the trail.....................we resume accounts from Fri 30th back in La Paz after my incredible Salt Flat journey right?! *testing, testing* memory

Well.........I could have been dining at the Ritz (one does actually exist here in La Paz believe it or not!) : the meal on the 15th floor of this skyscraper five star hotel was fandabdibidosi - felt like royalty but obiously not dressed up to the nines neither paying out ridiculous amounts for a main meal.. lamb grilled steak plus trimmings. yummmmmeeeeeeeeemooo. We were lucky to get served booze since like in Peru, all say of any alcohol is strictly forbidden in prep for compulsory election polls a couple of days after whenever the deadline is.... crazy...(methinks one needs to introduce a similar policy in UK to combat binge drinken lol)... Then went separate ways from final Tucan Tour II tour mate , Welsh Jess.... so back on me tod again in the short term so it appeared..... bovad?

1st July: escaped the city whilst I could for pastures more green, quiet and warm..... Copacabana was the destination - small bustling over gringofied port town 3 hours north of the capital, leading to the Island of the Sun and Moon on the huge Lake Titikaka I mentioned before whilst in Peru on tour..... Planned to spend 2 nights on the actual Islands to both relax and avoid the shitty absence of all public transport on the election day , Sunday... So I happily jumped on a minibus shuttle with mostly locals including 1 hysterical, unconsolable poor mid-aged woman who had just learnt her teenaged daughter with a child had caused herself harm via drugs or injections or whatever...so she was crying non stop on and off for the whole journey desperate to arrive to see how her daughter was.. potentially suicidal for all she knew.. just received a bleak mobile phone call first thing that morning...she was a nurse as well to make matters ironic....shouting at the driver to stop doing their traditional hang around until the last minute when no more pasengers can be crammed in...stopping at every opportunity to hail more aboard etc.. taxi fares are extortionate and there is no air route you see..... Enough of the morbid stuff....also aboard was an American family of 3 and a crazy Slovenian woman, Tina, with almost Bolivian citizenship now.....

More on that character to ensue. Right so after haivng to cross a narrow strip of land at San Pedro de Tiquina via speedboat whilst our bus was carried across on a flat boat, we arrived in plenty of time for the second and final boat crossing to the Island an hour and a half on the Lake.... Copacabana was very rowdy with world cup followers glued to screens everywhere...the views were really nice from the windy good-conditioned coast road leading down to the hollow.... silhouettes of the Peruvian side, the pretty coastline and port town fading in the distance and the shape of the Islands we were appraching, slowly emerging......sat up top and absorbed the sun which I had sorely missed for a goood week or so (especially hearing of the short but intense JUNE heat wave in Jersey SO early for us normally).

When we landed the other side, I teamed up with this Slovenian girl and together, we had to climb the very steep Inca Stairway to reach the headland from where the Illimani mountain was very vivid, pale white amongst a few clouds and bright blue sky...... lake sparking and all that.....then searched for AGES for suitable accommodation.... good price but basic...... knew was gonna be cold so had to brave outdoor toilet and shower at night. Eventually after looking round loads rooms and bargaining we came up trumps at the first place one passes on one side of the Isle. Great view and warmish room so no complaints. Little restuarant next door to take refuge in if need be. The local kiddos were on 2 week "winter holidays" so were following us round like the plague demanding photography with llamas or donkeys, purchases of products, sweets or pencils to offer... very persistent... ended up tipping a few cents for showing us to our hostal nicely.... Adults around? no fear.....out working or inside catering etc... wouldn't see that back home. very clever little things the youngsters are with such responsibility but it seems normal to them I guess...

After walking around to get bearings, we just caught sunset from our side ...faint bluey movey pink sky with mountains a little misty. idyllic.... peaceful as. Then we found a recommended resturant and sampled fresh trout from the lake, probably caught thqat day or the day before..that or kingfish are specialities really..... was nice and huge portions. also had really nice natural cocoa. yum.... promptly retired to bed after a long day travelling...

A bit more info on this mysterious Slovenian girl then ay.... well she studied crazily back home in Europe for many years doing Psychology and many lingos, but one day felt suicidal and ended up following the tales of an acquaintance by coming to live in the depths of the Bolivian jungle amongst the indigenous families for a whole year to look for THE TRUTH..... She eventually found peace in her heart and claims to have had a personal meeting with Jesus etc so now she is very religious and gives blessings for all meals and happeneings plus reads a lot of the bible at night etc.. so I was a little put off at first not being acquainted with such a lifestyle, but really she was very sweet and charming and not imposing at all. Has been in Bolivia for 8 yeArs in total, working 4 years as the director of an organisation which feeds 100s of poor kids around the area every weekday.. now she is spreading lifestyle improvements by theatrical works in the nearby towns eg aboartion, contraception, hygiene, smoking...... good on her. is happy here in short term at least. completely fluent of course.. so i was glad to have company of someone with inside out knowledge of the region and people...

Sun 2nd: awoke fairly early for our 2 1/4 hour walk along the north pass of the isle running through the middle more or less....

paths were tough but not too steep but the sunshine was beating down loads so went overboard on protection etc.... so many photos were taken of the natural beauty both of the lake, the islands, the rocks, the bays with little beach like coves, and also the small settlements.. basic of course but sufficient..... well we got to the northern point (Santiago Pampas) 11km ahead, and hada brief tour of the ruins (Sun Temple)... labarinth, sacrificial table to Pachamama - god of the earth (anciently virgin girls, now just llamas every 21st june).... also saw small carvings of sun and moon and of a puma body in rocks..... nice.....

Afterwards, we carried on at a good pace but took back the windy and steep coastal route, passing through two towns at one of which we had lunch - Challa'pampa. set neatly at the foot of the land with its own private little cute bay and limited buildings.. Luncheon: the only thing left on the "menu" at this household type inn place was spaghetti in homemade tomato sauce.. hilarious but our hungry stomachs and weary minds took that gratefully of course. There was also a small museum about ther area but we only did a quick once over thanks goodbye jobby. The heat really tempted us to dip in the lake but the salty smell and marsh made us decide against. Then we plodded on around lowdown and came across Challa where the locals were congregating to vote...with limited transport on the isle, many had to walk form the other end or else got a small boat across in the early morn bless. This was a bit bigger as there was a school, more lodgings and places to go, but still rather desolate..many random animals were roaming the beach eg PIGS of all colours. donkeys, chickens, sheep... And after 2 3/4 hours of climbs and descents and pauses to catch breath at high altitude, we eventually got back an hour before sunset.......saw it from the other sie of the lakethis time and it was proper bright red - orange - yellow tint, stretching for miles...... bumped into the American family at their hotel so we went for a civilised dinner altogether.. free bottle of VERY COLD red wine on them too so didnt do so bad.. food was great for how they live - diced beef, soup and nana split... all in candlelight this time. A bit achy from all the walking (10 miles maybe in total), we slept for hours oopsie....

Mon 3rd: We caught our morning boat back to Copacabana - completely over-piled with gringos and a couple of locals... really shocked the thing didn't sink as the motor was struggling ........certainly wouldn't pass health and safety regs back home. Back ashore, I only had an hour or so to quickly look around the town before lamentably returning to La Paz again due to time pressing issues. Left Tina behind to continue her holidays but promised to meet up again on my next tour in the Rurrenabaque savana lands. Finding myself in the capital once more, I promplty sorted my travel on to Rurrenabaque (Rurre)....Opted for a scenic domestic flight in lieu of a hardcore dodgy 20 hour local bus journey passing via the world's most dangerous road in daylight etc. Whinced at the cost difference but felt a lot more secure and thought it would def be worthwhile..... Btw there were no problems to report regarding rebellions in the elections! So, a day of admin really not too exciting so will leave at that eh..

4th: arrived at the airport at 5:30am for my half an hour flight to Rurre... the plane was so weird - just 1 seat aisles 10 seats long... looked like a tunnel inside and headroom was more targeting dwarves I sware... Bolivians are generally short, but not THAT short like. I mean even the Aurigny yellow Joey planes take the mick on that front! Nonetheless, the flight itself was awesome.. smooth, confy though cold.. and had incredible views of the mountains seemingly a few feet below us, then swiftly changing to the jungle and grassland type. Met an English couple of the flight and decided to join forces with them and spontaneously pay for a tour with their agency via a rep who was waiting to collect them at the airport.. Cushty no work involved package....3 days tour of the "pampas" ie low wetland grassy savanas....all inclusive eg basic accom food, ativities, transport...

So Day 1 of tour: left bright and early at 9am from the family-run agency in town (incidentally, I instantly warmed to the humid, dirt track based village town whih seemed to boast in character.) We were joined by a French couple to make 5 people in addition to the guide, a 4x4 driver, an assistant guide, a cook and assistant cook........that's it.... all squeezed into this old banger of a jeep but it was authentic for sure... very bumpy 3 hour drive to the shore of the river Yacuma from where we would start our tour... On the way, we spotted a few stray wildlife eg 2 sloths which were a lot smaller than the ones I saw in Costa Rica...also stubborn and hid in the trees.. camouflaged due to beigey brown complexion.. hmmm...We passed through a couple of villages en route and entered into the National Park area at lunchtime... By the time we arrived at the port, it was incredibly humid and beating with sun.. a pleasant but abrupt change in weather from the altitudes of the capital and lake islands.

All boared the wooden long slim boat and we made our way along the river to our lodging. The crew were a great laugh and we spotted many animals on our way - chiefly turtles and alligators, not forgetting many diff species of birds... Lunch was a feast - sort of beef stew with ice, yuca, veg and goregous fresh grapefruit juice. As for the accom: well yes it was very basic indeed.... wooden hut for communal bedroom consisting of a bed, mattress and mozzie net each with candles for illumination.. Dinidng rooms was a separate hut, very spacious... food cooked on a stove with wood burning and all that... The toilet was a bit disfuntional in that there was this familiar white basin randomly stuck in the ground with a wind-breaker like enclosure to keep business-doing a little private. Twas seatless with paper to be chucked in a pit in front to be burnt when it sufficiently accumulated beyond acceptability in terms fo size and smell.... Water to manually flush came in the form of bucketed fresh but murky river extractions lol so all in all a bit silly... may as well of had a purely bush toilet procedure... Showers - no sir.. shortly to be installed but I resisted jumping in the river unlike the guides!!!!!

Our first activity was a 3 hour observation trip along the river.... pink dolphins,macaws, herons, turtlees, eagles, vultures, capivaras (world's largest species of RODENT - like rat stroke pig stroke otter type thing...


webbed feet an body adapted to water..a little shy but they roam in groups and look knda cute.) The guide seemed very knowledgable and enthusiastic with good humour...and spoke nearly wholly in spanish which I wasn't complaining about....We would turn off the motor and get close up to the animals before explanations of how they live and that. Nice.

The day ended with a docking at a prime sunset viewing point up on the boggy marshlands...Dinner came in the form of a garlic spag bol (a recuring staple diet in Bolivia methinks.) Pallllenty to go round amongst the tourists and workers alike. Night-time outing was a caiman/alligator eye reflection spotting with a short walking tour after.....

Not that exciting really, probably due to the fact I had recently done a similar thing in the Peruvian rainforest. A few intriguing specimens of frog & nocturnal sleeping birds were seen in addition to many alligators lurking around the boat and in the distance....in fct a lot of time was dedicated to explaining star constellations. With nothing better to do and limited light, we all went to bed early, sticky and oily from the excessive repellent and sun screen dosages (still managed to get bitten on hands an elbows even with 100% deet sensibly applied at intervals.. bah)

5th: slept surprisingly well and ready to go on our day 2 mornign activity - anaconda hunting. saw just the one youngun measuring about 1.5metres, happily weaving through teh mashland... Guide Freddy grabbed it for us and dropped it on the floor for photos and chit chat... was friendly and non poisonous so happy days......Was chuffed to see that one due to the chances....spent the remainder of the morn walking parallel to the river spotting more birdslike woodpeckers and stalks. In the aftee, we all tried our luck at piranha fishing off the ide of our boat with small basic rods...

Apparently we would have to eat our catches for supper that eve.... had great fun and ened up catching a couple of babies which had to be put back in the river. Between the group we got 2 big ones in addition to the 3 the guide caught with ease......On our return to camp, we saw our first group of monkeys... howlers....tiny ones so hard to observe...

Dinner: thankfully we were treated to a normal spread as well as trying our fishies.... once the head had been dicapitated and the big spine bone and teeth removed, what was left though succulent and tasty, was very scarce haha... not salty or tangy so I enjoyed picking...


The following morning would be our sunrise moment so once again, no partying......

6th (say 3): I was in charge of alarm clock setting so I settled for 5 30... we zoomed off zombified along the river to get a good view and on our way, we saw a dead, decapitated anaconda -seized by an eagle apparently then soon to be attacked by turkey vultures... this one was bigger so it is amazing how the bird swoops down ad kills it. The skies were bright and amongst the thin clouds, the huge sun slowly rose. After a gorgeous but stodgy brekkie of pancakes, cookies and fried stuff, we had our final group exursion.. Highlight! though none of us gringos dared to enter in the murky, alligator and goodness knows what infested waters, the guide did so... just to show us how it was swimming with the dolphins, which circled round in good numbers... spent most of the time trying to capture just one good shot or video of them lol...... had pinkish backs and were uite small but not too shy....Apparently they protect us humans agains the alligators when swimming etc.. hmm. On our way back, we had the delight of seeing a 3metre long caiman close up.... shot like lightening in the water though was highly amusing watching all the turtles and alligators jump and nose dive in to the water as our boat was passing.. We had a near miss whilst traversing this shallow patch where a tree had fallen down across our path.. the motor seemed to crunch and nearly conk out but we were fine.... oars were at the ready just in case, however... Following our last lunch we returned inboat to the jetty and then in jeep back to Rurre to spend the night... the ride was rough as but the cheesy US/UK popmusic was pumping aloud so we had a laugh...... Was glad to be back to civilisation once more and to have a shower..........managed to track Tina down who had returned from Copacabana so we all went out and ate together.

7th: After a bit of oohing and aahing about whether to hang around for an extra day in Rurre or not, I decided it would be best to leave and prepare for moving across to Chile as my funds were limited, had no bathing gear and restricted spare clean clothing plus I knew the bus ride back would be in the region of 20hours....sooooo, despite having a free accommodation offer, I had to think of reduced time in Chile thus upped and leaft..Missed Tina at the bus station as she rudely slept in so that wasn't a nice way to leave but c'est la vie.

Most interesting story to tell to date: Our bus was the first to leave at 9am..a dodgy local bus with 99% bolivians on it...was recommended this company from the tour agency boss due to pleasant longish food and stretch stops throughout the whole journey.... but Tina had recommended another one due its record of having the fewest (virtually none ever) breakdowns and falls off the death road............ anyways, the journey was hellish.... no air con, seats uncomfy and not v spacious, weather hot and sticky....lunch and dinner stops over an hour long each..... we broke down once in the afternoon and had to jump out for 45 mini whilst the "service" of the bus was taking place..involved 3 men climbing under the front and hammering away at soem part of the chassis and knowking things in place etc.. saw some wooden planks for support even.. one fat guy (driver) was standing on this crow bar thing wedged diagonally between the front passenger wheel and something else....funny!!!! lots of banter happening and passengers surrounded the action whilst others sat on the edge of the road eating fruit liek monkeys. .... eventually got back on track and all was hunky dory.....By this time, a couple of the other buses had caught us up and people were moaning at this lol....

After a late dinner, we revved on a few hours until something in the engine or petrol tank was iffy and the bus started to jump and jerk intermittently...got to a break spot where the crew revised the vehicle briefly before carrying on...... once 5am came the bus was jumping like a cat on hot bricks every time a gear was changed and by 6am, after stubbornly continuing on 5metres at a time, the bus came to a grinding hault and remained stationary...... did not find out the exact problem but after half an hour, the majority of passengers decided to gather belongings and get off...some angry, some seemingly little bothered, some indifferent...obviously such tings as spare busses, recovery services, passenger priorities don't exist in corrupt Bolivia let alone onward journey plans free of charge etc.. No, we just waited whilst the sun warmed our weary and cold souls up....and boarded this huge lorry sitting in the back in the open air on the floor lol...was typical hitch-hike style..completely safe since they stopped before we flagged 'em down and the dozen or so Bolivians easily got us a free ride to La Paz.... 2hour trip along dusty rocky roads.......DEATH ROAD for most of it lol.. broad daylight and birds' eye views of the steep high cliff faces as we weaved along the hills and passed the oncoming traffic giving was to us by law.... I sware the road can barely be a metre wide each side of this lorry...scary but exiting and a great laugh like...

got chatting to locals who asked where I was from etc then pursued to rant on about how poor the country is (planet's poorest??! not)and that it feels like a depressed US colony deprived and all that.....told me to spread the news in the media and all. quite patriotic lol......

(8th) So I safely got taxied back in to the capital at 10 am.... 25hours after initially leaving Rurre.. no sleep or shower and very hungry.....but relived to get back and still grinning at the adventure....all me stuff was stored in the same hostal as before so I was quicky clean and back to humanity....had no real plans for the day expect for chilling and poss cathing the 3rd place world up play-off match..... oh - walked as far as the posher hotel and shopping zone of the city and took in the sights.. many parks, footy pitches lined side by side, high rise hotels emerging from the mountains, a circus etc... very tranquil.......... dined at the hostal caf and attempted to recover lost sleep as Chile bus was leaving at 6am following day...