La Paz, Travis, Jungle

So much to say............................................................................................

Our bus ride from Uyuni to La Paz was long, cold and bumpy. Our bus was probably built in the late 70s and had a horrible time shifting into reverse. It was supposed to be a 12 hour ride, it was more like 15. We had two flat tires, and at some point after the bumpy road ended and the paved road began, there was either a fire, car accident or a protest blocking a road (chances are all three). Since the road was closed our fearless bus driver decided to take an alternate route that entailed taking our very old bus into riverbeds. It was quite exciting to be in a large bus while it lurches steeply to the left and then steeply to the right, kind of like a roller coaster.We got to La Paz in one piece with our bags, thanks to the bus and luggage gods.

It was quite a shock to our senses when we arrived. La Paz is a huge city, the buildings and traffic start in the out lying city of El Alto, and seem to go on forever. The city is jam packed with people, cars, and animals, all trying to cross the street at the same time. There is smog and noise and all matters of insanity taking place....and then you look up and you see steep snow covered mountains to the north and east. The mountains are breath taking and it makes the city seem so much more peaceful and tolerable. We spent our first day wandering the streets, booking tours and getting clean. We were really restless because Travis was due to arrive the next day and with only 18 hours to his arrival we could hardly contain ourselves.

The next day we woke up early (5am!) and got a cab with Juan One (apparently there are at least two Juan´s here in Bolvia). We got to the airport only to learn that Travis´plane had been delayed. We waited, the plane arrived and then we waited, and waited and waited......and then I overheard someone say that a bunch of people had lost bags, and apparently the luggage gods decided to take the day off because Travis´ bag was one of the lost bags. We had another problem though....we had tickets to leave early the next morning for the jungle town of Rurrenabaque. We spent the next few hours arranging to have the bag brought to the hostel that we would be staying at when we got back from the jungle and buying Travis the essentials (underwear, socks, one long sleeve t-shirt and a toothbrush). And then because Travis is a saint and a good sport we let the whole thing go, and just wandered around the city. It felt soooooo good to have Travis with us, we had been anticipating his arrival for a long time. It was 11 before we all finally fell asleep.

We woke up to a cold dark morning, which felt even colder because we were dressed for the jungle. We met with our friendly cab driver Juan I and headed to the military airport, where they do not check your ID to see if it matches your ticket and you do not go through security so it´s totally cool if you are carrying a knife or gun. It was a spectacular ride, we flew up over the mountains, and then down into the jungle. We arrived (with our bag, apparently the luggage gods returned from their siesta), were picked up by the tour company, checked in for the tour, ate breakfast and within one hour we were in another Toyota Landcruiser heading to the town of Santa Rosa. Our group contained six people, a young couple from Israel, a token Frenchman, and us. We drove for 4 hours, saw a sloth and eventually made our way to the entrance to the Pampas. Our car ride ended at the Rio Yacuma. It was then that I realized that our guide did not speak English, this annoyed me because we arranged specifically to have a guide that spoke English since it is not really relaxing for me when I play translator. But it seemed pointless to be annoyed in such a beautiful place. Once on the river there were capybara, pink river dolphins, cayman, alligators, monkeys and birds everywhere. It took most of the afternoon for us to make our way down to the rustic camp site. At night we went to look for cayman and alligators, and learned that the cayman in Bolivia are not as small or docile as those in Brazil, apparently they are known to eat people. I also realized that I know far more Spanish then I thought and can translate pretty much word for word as long as we are talking about animals and plants. We slept in a dormitory type room, each bed covered with a mosquito net, and fell asleep listening to the music of the jungle.

We spent the next morning walking around looking for anacondas. This seemed a bit ridiculous since every other tourist there was doing the same thing, and it was a thousand degrees out with 90% humidity. But it was fun, and funny since many of us ended up falling into the mud in the swamp. We walked to a beautiful pond with the biggest water lilies and lotus flowers that I have ever seen and saw a lone spoonbill bird scooping it´s lunch out of the water. During our siesta after our lunch we watched howler monkeys and these other cute little monkeys play. In the afternoon we went to swim with the dolphins. It was awesome, there were alligators on one river bank, a capybara that I named Patrick on another river bank and dolphins everywhere!!!!!!!! They swam around you, next to you, bumped into your legs, and played near you. Alligators and cayman are afraid of the dolphins because of their high pitch sounds, and groups of dolphins have been known to kill either reptile when they feel threatened. The guide said that people believe that the dolphins protect all mammals that swim in the water and when people swim in the water the dolphins congregate there intentionally. One dolphin even mouthed at Travis´foot!! On the way back to camp we saw a few capuchin monkeys. We were lucky and had a national geographic monkey moment. We watched a baby capuchin climb to the edge of a branch which bent down into the water and watched the monkey drink water from the river, it was incredible. It then sat down in the crook of a branch and it watched us intently with it´s head tilted sideways. That night we watched a beautiful sunset, cheered as Travis played a ridiculous game of volleyball, took a magical boat ride under thousands of sparking stars, and again fell asleep to the music of the jungle.

We woke up super early the next morning to the sounds of the howler monkey bellowing to one another in the trees, climbed back into the boat, and watched the sun rise. We saw at least three spoonbill birds, two toucans. Then we went back to camp, ate breakfast, stole a banana and went to see if we could coerce one of the small monkeys to take a bit from our hand. These little monkeys are everywhere, and they eat all the leftover fruit from camp so they are kind of like feral cats. It was a blast, the monkeys would timidly climb down towards us, watch us and then once you reached out your hand they would quickly snatch the banana piece from your hand. Their little fingers were super soft and they used their tails to anchor themselves to the tree, so even if they fell forwards they did not fall off the tree. We finished by going piranha fishing, which was silly because the fish were small and difficult to catch, but we did see two more toucans. We made the long journey back up the river, then back on the road (where we spotted a huge iguana), arrived back in Rurrenabaque, checked into our hotel, and took much needed showers. We went out for dinner to a super cool bar, stayed up late, met cool people and wandered back to our hotel and fell asleep.

The next day we headed out for a two day trip into the selva (aka the rain forest). We met our guide on the bank of the Rio Beni. Watching our guides get ready for this trip was a bit of a circus, and it was more like four Bolivian´s were going camping and decided to bring along a few gringos for fun (I am not sure why three people needed four guides but that is besides the point). While we waited to leave, we watched someone run down to the bank with a wheelbarrow containing a boat motor. Eventually this motor was attached to our boat. We headed out, and drove about an hour down river before we parked the boat. Our guide said that the cook (his wife) would be making lunch, that we could swim in the river, and that he and his friend were going to set up camp. I could not just sit there and watch so I offered to help cut the vegetables. After lunch we brought our bags up to camp, which was a tarp tied up with vines to bamboo posts with mosquito hung from additional bamboo posts, it was way cool. For the next two days we walked through the thick jungle and learned about the medicinal uses for many plants in the jungle. Our guide literally had to cut his way through the trees and vines with a machete (he said that after about 15 minutes the plants begin to regrow). This time our guide knew a fair bit of English but because he realized that my Spanish was pretty good he only spoke in English when I seemed to fumble on a word. He and I even made jokes in Spanish!! We drank fresh water from a vine whose core filters toxins from the water, ate fruits from palm trees, tasted milk from a tree, learned about all sorts of horrible ants, saw the biggest and most beautiful butterflies I have ever seen, burned termite homes to keep the mosquitoes away at night, and fished in the dark while watching millions of stars and listening to the animals sing to mother earth.

Today as we packed up camp it began to rain, it cooled the air and made the boat ride back quite pleasant. By the time we reached Rurrenabaque the rain had stopped, the air returned to it hot humid state and we needed showers!!! We arrived with barely enough time to get our packs together, and check in for our flight back to La Paz, as filthy but content traveler. The flight back was as spectacular as the flight out, and we arrived safely in La Paz with our bag (thanks to the luggage gods).

We are now clean, fed and just about ready for bed. Travis´ bag is here in La Paz but for some reason it never made it to the hotel so we have had to read the riot act to American Airlines. Hopefully tomorrow in the morning though we will have his bag and be setting off for a few more adventures!!!!

Miss you all!