Bolivia: Rurrenabaque. First steps into the jungle.

Since it´s been a while that I don´t get to update the blog, I guess I will have to backdate my posts to explain a bit what´s been going on and why have I been so busy these days. I finished work with the children at Para Los Niños and felt the urge to leave La Paz for some "peace" actually. What better place than the amazon jungle north of La Paz? So, no hesitation to take a plane to Rurrenabaque....that was just before I knew what kind of planes they had and the kind of flight that was expecting me!

What you see above is the view from inside the plane. Two rows, one on each side and barely 20 passengers. The plane was really tiny and it was impossible to even stand up on the inside. The worst thing was taking off and having to gain altitude really quickly to go through an area of really high mountains and strong winds. It goes without saying, this plane is shaken by the wind like a fly would be. Luckily, I made it alive and we landed in the middle of a jungle area, cows in the runway of the airport included, and a strong humidity gave us a "warm" welcome.

Rurrenabaque is a nice small town where everyone (and I mean ABSOLUTELY everyone) rides a motorbike. Despite the motorbike traffic is a really quiet town with a really laid back feeling to it. Surrounded by hills, a wide river and lots of green all around, it was the perfect place to escape from the chaotic and polluted La Paz. I just wished I´ve had more time to spend there.

The time I had there was well spent doing one of the Pampas tours along the river Yuca. The tour consisted of three days in the Pampas area sailing the river on a small boat and seeing all sorts of animals, mainly caimans, strange birds and a really strange animal from the same family as the rat, but as big as a pig. Crazy. Special activies included:

- sailing the river at night to see how the eyes of the caimans reflecting the light of our torches; nice and fun, bit scary though when getting to a distance of 1.5m of them!

- hunting anacondas in the swamps, with rubber boots to avoid any accidental bites if stepping onto one of them, and water up to our knees; the weather wasn´t the best but we managed to find one and a so called "fake cobra". Impressive.

- fishing for piranhas with....of course, meat! as dangerous as these little carnivorous fishes canbe, they are actually really pretty and can be found in different colours: green, yellow, red.

- finding unexpected bugs, like a cockroach looking one the size of half my number 44 hiking boot (proof below!). Nasty.

- ....a Bolivia-Argentina football match on TV that never took place. That is just another proof of Bolivian people´s organisational skills.

All in all, it was an incredible experience. As oposed to the high mountains where all is peace, there is a constant feeling of uneasiness in the jungle. You never know what´s around, especially at night, and danger is present at all times if you don´t know the areas well and where to walk. The positive aspect was that the weather was fairly cold due to a cold wave coming from the South, and mosquitoes were quite absent. I survived the jungle with only one mosquito bite, and that is a huge achievement for someone like me!