Matt is the research man of the trip and is doing an absolutely fantastic job! While we really wanted to go to the Pantanal in Brazil it turned out that it was almost impossible to book online and was also very expensive. So we opted to do the Amazon jungle and a Pampas trip instead where you see a lot of the same wildlife but on a much smaller scale.
So after a heap of research Matt found a trip to Rurrenabaque an hours flight out of La Paz in Bolivia. That hours flight was rather amazing… for Matt… and flipping freaky for me! I’m definitely getting soft in my old age!! We boarded a 19 seater plane which you couldn’t even stand up straight in (no flight attendants here ladies). There was also no secure door over the cockpit so you could see the crazy young (okay I’m exaggerating in my old age also) pilots and everything they had to do to fly the plane. You could hear the little beeps and see the lights going off and wonder what the heck was going on! 🙂 So we take off and as is the case with a smaller plane you can feel every bit of movement it makes… and then we start heading towards a lovely Andean mountain range and the mountains are looking pretty much…. big and low!!! So then we start turning…. are we going along the mountains? No… we’re heading back to the airport now (oh crap there’s a problem)… No…. we’re heading back to the mountains! What the??!! Oh… right… our teeny tiny plane needed to just do a bit of a loop to get enough altitude to MAKE IT ‘THROUGH’ THE MOUNTAIN RANGE! ARRRGHHH!! Every plane I have ever been on goes OVER the mountains… when we looked out the window of this plane, the mountain range to our right was HIGHER than the plane!!! hahahaa…. Ahhh.. there’s a first for everything! I’m sure people do this all the time right?
I must say it was most entertaining watching our steep decent and landing onto the tiny runway through the cockpit window from our tiny seat on the plane!! We arrived at a tiny airport too!!! So all was in order.
The cool thing about this trip was that we just booked it all via email and paid NOTHING! We got our plane and everything without a deposit. So we were a bit like “How…? Why…?” but when we arrived at the airport there was a guy from Mashaquipe the company we booked with who was holding our names up on a sign. We took off with him and he took us to sort out the trip and arrange accommodation for the night. Next day it was off to the jungle for 3 nights and then the Pampas for 2!
The next morning we jumped on wooden canoe type structure with a small motor on the back and headed up the Beni River. Our guide had his girlfriend and 2 sons on the boat. The boys were gorgeous! 3 and 1.5 years old. The 1.5 year old was very shy but the 3 yo was really inquisitive and interested in getting Matt’s attention (which lots of kids are!). Our Spanish is probably slightly less advanced than the 3 yo so we quickly found out his name was Emer. Or “Emmy” for short. His dad (our guide for the next 5 days)’s name was Eber (spelt Ever but v is a b sound in Spanish).
Turns out Eber’s dad was the boat driver, and we also had another lady on the boat we thought was his mum but she was our cook for the next 3 days. It was a bit of a family business though as later we found out that Eber’s grandparents started the company and his dad and uncle were some of the family working there.
Our next stop was a small community in the jungle. They were self sufficient building their own homes, church, school and growing their own pigs, chickens and plants to eat. They were also a 30min boat ride from Rurrenabaque and got alot of supplies from town everyday. The community was Eber’s girlfriend (Rosa’s) family community and we thoroughly enjoyed walking around, saying hi to people and seeing how they lived. It didn’t feel too obtrusive or like we were gawking at them which was good. We watched a game of soccer where the local girls team played a team that travelled from another community. Inter community sports I call it. The kids were gorgeous and were all in love with Matt’s camera and seeing photos of themselves. It’s so funny how a kid you can’t talk to and who doesn’t even know you will just come up to you and sit on your lap. It was so nice and so cute. We loved the simplicity of the place… perhaps we’d get over it and make our lives busy again but everyone seemed happy and content here living the simple life!! Very refreshing!
Next it was off to see our accommodation in the jungle! An eco lodge setup about 2 more hours from the community. The cruise up the river was really relaxing and beautiful. Each of us nodded off slightly out in the fresh open air, the sound of the small motor humming along.
We arrived at our accommodation which was nicer, fancier and cleaner than some of the hostals we have stayed in! And we were in the middle of the jungle! Very cool! We had an hour to relax in some hammocks until a nice Bolivian lunch.
Middle: Coconuts the wild pigs eat, our boat, monkey skeleton, the view from the Macaw lookout at dusk
Right: Matt and Emmy the guides son, a big old tree
Our chef was amazing! We’d get home made chips made from plantain which is like banana but savory. Always rice or a rice and bean concoction, a stir fry, salad, dessert and a freshly squeezed juice. I always finished everything on my plate because a) it was yummy! and b) it was healthy so easy to eat and not feel like crap after…. And um… well, Matt and the Scotish girl Shona (I forgot to mention her, she joined up for the same tour as us and we met her in the morning, a nice sweet Scotish girl our age who I called Shauna all morning until I corrected Matt calling her Shona and was corrected by her telling me he was right… embarrassing!!) Alrighty then, where were we… I got lost with the side story in the brackets…
Oh… the food was good and I finished my plate. End of story. Let’s get back to the jungle.
We went for a 2 hour walk through the jungle that afternoon. Parts of the walk I felt like Elma Fudd…creeping step by step through the jungle, trying not to make a noise… all the while I was saying in my head “be very very quiet… I’m hunting…” um… no rabbits here.
Eber showed us a true blue Tarzan vine and we all had a go… Here’s Matt’s attempt:
We stalked some wild pigs for a while that are spooked easily. Eber was a true jungle man! He was smelling the air (at one point we could smell them too they stink!), mimicking their noises and motioning to us to go this way and that. Eventually we caught up with the herd, there can be 60-80 together and when they get upset they can all run at you and nip at you… he said if that happens you have to climb a tree… Needless to say I spent a lot of time on our walks looking for trees I MIGHT climb in an emergency. When we saw the wild pigs I instantly saw a bunch of Pumbas running around in the jungle in the flesh! Pretty cool really! It’s like when you see a clown fish and you call it Nemo… 🙂
That night we were back at our Eco Lodge and chilled out until another great dinner (which I polished off). We then went for a night walk with our flash lights with Eber. We managed to find… oh just a friendly TARANTULA on the roof of our cabin!!! But thankfully Eber assured us that they don’t actually move more than 30cms or so from their original nest… Although we did see one later leaving his tree to find a new nest so explain that one!! Was best not to think about it… They were HUGE!! But kinda cool at the same time… They lived mainly in the big palm trees and the roof of our cabin being made of palm trees might explain his decision to make his home there. We also saw a couple of really cool tiny snakes moving around. When we shown the light on them they would freeze…. then when we moved it away they’d take off again. Very fun to do a few times 🙂
Next day was more jungle walks, looking for animals to creep up on before they would realise we were there and take off. I really secretly hoped to find a jaguar this way… but not as well. If you know what I mean? We did see a Jaguar’s poo… and he had eaten a Wild Pig for dinner which was cool! 🙂 We also found a monkey skeleton on the jungle floor. They are prey for eagles would you believe!! Poor little guys!
That afternoon we hiked into the jungle to camp the night on the jungle floor. When we arrived at camp we hiked up a hill close by called the “Macaw lookout”. At the top of the hill we found the most beautiful view!!! We were on the edge of a sheer cliff that looked out over the jungle, the river curved in front of us in a U shape and hundreds of these magical, colourful, bright red and blue Macaws flew between the trees (screeching… for a pretty bird they make an ugly sound! hehe). That view was so gorgeous we hiked back up there before breakfast the next morning to get the view at sunrise in a different light.
Middle: the Macaw lookout
Right: eating palm heart straight from the Palm, the entrance to a bees nest, Matt swimming in the river
The night in the jungle involved another great meal which was amazing because the cook hiked the food in and made the tastiest chips from the plantain!! We hacked up a palm tree on the hike and ate the palm heart which was cool and the next morning she made these yum as fried dumpling/sugar/lemon things!!! Again, a surprise for the middle of the jungle!
The night we camped in the the jungle we did another hike, it lasted at least an hour and a half… about 15 mins in, Eber stops suddenly (mind you we had no idea what he was doing half the time because he was listening, moving, stopping and listening and we don’t want to make a sound to disrupt this process). However this time he stopped…. listened…. looked… and turned off his light…. Then he quickly motioned to us to turn our lights off and muttered something starting with T…. (earlier that day he told me they call Jaguar’s “Tigre”… just saying).
There we were… standing in PITCH black. One minute I was in the jungle with 2 guys (Shona went to bed early that night as the Mosquitos were eating her alive and it was safer for her under her net), the next minute, they disappeared and I was on my own. That’s what it felt like anyway. So my mind starts to play games.. it tells me there’s a jaguar out there… and we need to hide from it… so don’t move, don’t breath, don’t make a sound. But then I’m like… hang on… they hunt at night, they can still see us… we’re dead!!
I moved my hand ever so slightly to touch Matt, to just check he was still there and hadn’t disappeared like the darkness suggested. After I swear 5-10 minutes (this is a long time to stand still, alone in the dark imagining you’re prey) Eber turns on his light and starts looking again… It’s not there… It’s gone… Turns out he heard a Taiper and was hoping it wouldn’t see us and would stay around so we could see it… apparently it was a big one. Here’s a google pic of one. I told the boys my thoughts and they had a good laugh.
Meanwhile, Matt told me his thought process at the time which wasn’t too dissimilar! He was recalling how he’d just read about Pumas and how they were intrigued by humans and would follow them at a distance for a while to check them out…So he was imagining Pumas stalking us in the dark and us standing their helpless, waiting for the call to climb a tree from Eber (mind you I would have knocked myself out on one, not climbed one!)!!!
Meanwhile, Eber was just looking for a Taiper… haha!
Our next part of the adventure was a boat ride back to Rurrenabaque and a 2 hour bumpy bumpy drive to Santa Rosa where the Pampas National Park starts. Our time in the Pampas was really cruisey and mostly involved just chilling out in the boat riding up and down the river (ba boom ching). There were caiman galore on the river but most were spectacled caiman which are only dangerous at night because they hunt in the night. Apparently they’re fine in the day and will just stay away from you.
The coolest thing we did here was find the Pink Dolphins that live in the river. Because it wasn’t the rainy season the water was quite low and they didn’t have room to jump out of the river like normal dolphins. Apparently they do that a lot when the river is higher. But we saw them and Eber told us we could swim with them because they scare away the caiman!! Especially the black caiman which are dangerous all the time which we just saw 100m up the river!
I asked Eber if he would go in and he said yes. So the 3 of us got in the river and Eber said see you later and motioned to leave us… funny guy!! Matt was freaking out! 🙂 He hates water he can’t see into! It was also a little disconcerting that the dolphins would go up the river a bit when we got in… When we got back into the boat they came back… Shona and I got in again and they went up the river.. Perhaps they were keeping the caiman that were up that way away from us!!! Who knows!!! Anyway, we got back into the boat and Eber told us our next stop was fishing for piranhas!!! So we drove to the bank of the river where we were just swimming and got ready to fish!!! We got our hooks and meat and chucked it in and sure enough, straight away, 10 piranhas were chewing off our bait!!! Our heads were spinning! We just swam with these guys!!!! OMG!!!! haha…
They were tiny little guys and very tricky to catch! They take tiny bites so you have to yank on the line when you feel a bite which was EVERY TIME we put the line in the water!!! I think we mostly fed the piranhas. But we kept 4 good size ones to fry up at dinner that night. There wasn’t much meat on them but they were tasty. And it was really fun playing with our food that night!!!! (Imagine the fun we had opening and closing their crazy razor sharp mouths at the dinner table!!)
Our last day was a trek to go and find, (yes find) anacondas in some wetlands close by. Eber said he finds Anacondas everytime he goes in there, except on days when it’s raining. And it was a day were it was raining. Spew. We went anyway and you could tell he was determined to find one! We donned our rain clothes, some ponchos provided by Mashaquipe and headed off to find Anacondas. The water of the river was super warm. Warmer than outside. So all the animals were keeping warm in the water. And that’s where the Anacondas were, so we couldn’t get to them. We spent the morning walking around in knee deep mud, searching for massive snakes. Which was thrilling enough as it was! But no go. It was fun trying though.
Middle: Sunny times on the river and in the jungle
Right: Wet rainy times on the river, and getting my pampas, river and rainy outfit on
As you can see! So many stories from the jungle and pampas! We had a fantastic time here. We loved our accommodation, the staff of Mashaquipe and the locals were wonderful, we learnt a lot especially about the jungle.
Eber was a lover of Jaguars and had grown up in the jungle until he was 15 so he knew heaps about them and had seen them once a year. He did trips with tourists taking them to see jaguars in the wild. He had taken people on 20 day trips far into the amazon. He said that the further you go the less the jaguars know people, so it’s more dangerous but also more likely you’ll see them as they’re not scared of people. One trip he saw 5 jaguars. He makes a raft from wood and takes people up the river on it, camping in tents along the way. Tents and not just mosquito nets because you don’t want them to find you at night, you also can’t be a snorer because that attracts them, and you can’t be too afraid because they’ll smell it in your footprints!! Now that’s an adventure!! Eber had also eaten jaguar and every other animal you can think of!! We found this out because Matt’s questions through the trip where “Is it dangerous?”, “Can you eat it?”, “What does it taste like?”. We thought this was hilarious and would ask them for him by the end of our journey!
We packed a lot into the 5 days and it was definitely a highlight of our trip… Night night!
Timeframe: Friday 27 September – Wednesday 2 October 2013
Here’s some videos we took of the animals we found in the jungle:
The male howler monkey
Eber mimmicked the howler monkeys call and sent this guy wild! The howler monkies are territorial and so this guy was letting Eber know it was his territory and to BACK OFF!
A Macaw takes flight out of the tree:
Macaws flying too and from their nests in the side of a cliff:
Leave a Reply