Amazon Jungle

We travelled north of La Paz to a small village called Rurrenabaque (Rurre for short). Rurre is a small village on the outskirts of the Amazon Jungle.

We spent 4 days in the Amazon Jungle near to Rurre that included a visit to the pampas and also time spent in the Amazon Jungle itself with indigenous communities.

We capped off our time in the Amazon with a severe bout of gastro.

Accessing the Amazon

The Amazon can be accessed through several different countries; Bolivia, Peru, Columbia and Brazil, to name a few. We chose Bolivia due to its proximity, ease of access and cost. Each country provides different flora and fauna.

The process of getting to Rurre by bus is notoriously bad. The route follows the same Death Road route (new road, not the old) and takes about 16 hours. However, that is on a good day. Most of the time the buses either break down or the roads are closed due to landslips. Every person we talked to and every review we read warned this route was one of the worst and also the most dangerous. There were accounts, historically (but not that historic) of buses plunging off the side of the road in the middle of the night. No thaaaanks.

So, taking a 45min flight at 10am was an easy choice for us. By contrast, our friend Tim summited Huayna Potosí with us, starting his day at midnight before returning to La Paz and getting on a night bus to Rurre at 6pm that night, arriving about 8am the next day. Tim also said the bus didn't have a toilet, so the bus just stopped every 2 hours for everyone to get out and go if they needed. If you missed the 2 hour mark, you would just have to wait. This would not have worked for us on the return journey...

I managed to be first in line for the bank to get cash out before racing up the hill on the gondolas and making it to the airport with minutes to spare before check-in. We had an easy flight with great scenery and arrived relaxed and ready for the Amazon.

We were again validating in our decision to fly from La Paz to Rurre rather than bus after bumping into Tim at the cafe once back in La Paz. Tim was part of our Huayna Potosí and Amazon tour groups and left Rurre on the 7pm bus after the Amazon tour, to arrive in La Paz at 8pm the following day. His bus broke down not even 15km from Rurre and after the bus made it to the mechanic and was advised it could be repaired, by 6pm that evening, all the passengers jumped into taxis for the final 8 hours of the journey which Tim described as a very scary experience. Validated.

Pampas Tour

Pampas is the area of glass lands and waterways that precede the actual forest. The pampas is where you find a lot of the wildlife most easily.

On the 2 hour drive to get to the pampas from Rurre, we saw from the roadside a sloth, capybara family, tucan, a caiman and plenty of bird life. After lunch we started our journey on the boats. Our boat driver, Elvis, took us up the river for about 3-4 hours passing by an array of incredible wildlife, and had a great eye for it pointing out all of the various animals.

One of the biggest highlights was seeing the pink river dolphins. These are amazing creatures that have a beautiful pink complexion. these dolphins anre friendly just like at home and like hanging around the boats and people. The dolphins are mostly blind, relying instead on echolocation.

We also got to see cayman, alligators, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, turtles and plenty of bird life.

In the evening we went out spotlighting, searching for alligators and caiman. It was quite confronting just how many we saw lurking in the neighbouring waters. We even came across two 4-5m cayman just behind our accomodation. Our accomodation was built on the riverside atop an array of stilts and boardwalks, giving a strong incentive to not fall in the murky waters below.

We woke early for sunrise and listened to the howler monkeys at dawn and the rest of the pampas come to life.

Thereafter we went fishing for piraña. I seemed to have the knack for it, managing to reel in 5. We dropped in some capybara meat and watched as they fish nipped back and forth tearing tiny shreds of meat off each time until there was nothing left. Out of the water and up close, the fish themselves are very small and their teeth don't look as menacing, but I still wouldn't want to test it.

After breakfast we went swimming with the pink river dolphins. Despite having toured around these waters the previous day admiring all of the deadly animals, the guides assured us that "this" was the swim spot. No piraña, caiman or alligators. Aha - sure.

Safety in numbers; we all jumped in and started swimming about, staying very close to the boat. A great reprieve from the humidity, sun and mosquitos. After a bit of time I got a HELL OF A FRIGHT as something bumped my leg. Every single deadly animal we had seen the day before came to mind and I thought this was the end of me. The guides just started laughing (probably from my scream) as a pink river dolphin crested the surface just behind me. Amazing - but an incredibly stressful experience.

We concluded the pampas tour with another boat cruise back down the river, admiring the scenery, wildlife and enjoying the sun as we rode along with Elvis pointing out all of the wildlife. No singing was provided, unfortunately. Once back to the main town, we jumped back in the car for a quick transit back across to Rurre to jump on another boat on another river and head into the Amazon Jungle itself.

The Amazon Jungle

The second 2-days of our tour were with indigenous people in the Amazon Jungle itself. This was a real highlight.

After a very noisy 50min ride up the river by boat, we pulled into the shores of the river and soon entered into the local indigenous community. We were welcomed to their beautifully hand-built village and navigated the dogs, cats and chickens to find our accomodation for the night. We treated ourselves to a nice refreshing cold shower and engaged with some of the locals.

We woke the next morning to severe rain and booming thunder. The boom of the thunder was nothing like I had ever heard before and I guess we were learning why the Amazon Jungle is a rain forest. We had a slow morning listening to the rain, reading and milling about until the rain cleared.

We then went to a local house to make chocolate. We roasted the cocoa, removed the shells and then ground the beans into a paste. A little bit of milk and sugar and we had chocolate! Laura requested caramello, but her wish was unfortunately not granted at this time.

We then squeezed some sugar cane juice using a piece of industrial equipment that was 40 years old. Sugar cane juice is delicious, and it tasted even better with some freshly squeezed lemon

Once the rain had cleared, we headed off on an overnight expedition deeper into the jungle with our guide. We learnt all about the flora of the jungle including plants that are poisonous and those that have healing or medicinal qualities. Important distinction, and we didn't test our understanding as we were not 100% on our espanõl translation. We also came across plenty of spiders and and giant snail.

After 3-4 hours of hiking we arrived at our campsite; very basic but expected. Laura and I weren't too bothered by the setup, we thought it was great because it came with a tarp, thin foam mats and a camp fire, but some of our European friends were shocked there was no refugio. We whipped up some pasta and veges over the wild fire and debriefed from our experiences over the last 3-days. I was beginning to really feel the effects of my first bout of food poisoning and couldn't stomach much.

Our guide then offered us to go spider hunting. Laura IMMEDIATELY declined (fear of spiders) but the rest of us joined forces and followed our machette-wielding guide into the darkness, being very careful not to place our hands anywhere we weren‘t sure about. We came across tarantulas, venomous spiders and a baby alligator, which really helped us get to sleep that night on the ground under our tarp...

We slept surprisingly well and woke to breakfast already made. Instant coffee and Dulche de Leche (IYKYK) spread with bread and crackers. Gourmet by jungle standards.

After another 3-4 hours of hiking through mud, thick bush and dodging bugs in the humidity, we arrived back to the community.

We spent some downtime after lunch making bracelets before jumping back aboard the river boat to head back downstream towards Rurre. The river level had risen about 1.5m in the day that we had been there and the river, about 150m wide in parts was a large rushing, swirling, angry brown mass. While our guide assured us the life jackets were optional because the authorities weren't around, we all strapped them on tightly.

On our way back we stopped into explore a canyon, which turned out to be one of the highlights. We crawled down through the narrow winding passage for about 20min following the groves formed by the water coming across turtles, lizards and ducking to avoid the bats flying by overhead.

Back to civilisation with a parting gift from the jungle

We arrived back in Rurre on Sunday afternoon and got to catch the hustle of the local markets. All of the indigenous Amazonian communities travel up and down the river to attend this weekly market, selling their local produce from their lands at the markets; chocolate, fresh fruit, coffee, hand-made crafts. It was cool to see the local economy in action.

We showered and finally felt clean again after our time in the pampas and jungle getting hammered by the heat, humidity, bugs and dirt.

We went out for a great meal of burgers at a Western restaurant, treating ourselves after 4-days of jungle food. But, we awoke in the middle of the night to a severe bout of gastro (I had only just recovered from my first bout). Everything was flying out both ends and our stomachs were in knots. We laid low on our final half-day, lounging in the hammocks and trying not to move before boarding out flight back to La Paz.

The Amazon was an incredible experience and we were so fortunate to get to see so much wildlife as well as experience and learn about the indigenous Amazonian communities.

Back in La Paz after the Amazon for some R&R for our final few days in Bolivia before we head into Peru.