Aliens, jungle, snow and long long buses

The bright lights that illuminate the grand plaza, cathedral and restaurants of a typical well established (and affluent in comparison) Bolivian town like Santa Cruz were no more. The paved streets and expensive sandwiches were gone. The weird alien like people who were scattered across this town with their dungarees and weird alien/religious/evangelist look about them were no more (Terry was actually so intrigued by these people he asked one of them were they were from, they said from Bolivia but didn’t speak Spanish, only German and were also apparantly from from mexico…..work that one out!).

We travelled from the luxurious part of Bolivia, Santa Cruz with its palm trees and rich inhabitants through the night for 12hours by bus to the northern region in Beni, a town called Trinidad. A dusty town full of motorbikes and ice cream greeted us and with floors covered in beetles we immediately purchased our next journey to the Bolivian Amazon, a remote place called Rurrebaque.

A 10 hour journey on the dodgiest bus took us to San Borja where we were literally stuffed into a mini bus to head to Rurrenbaque, another 5 hours in the blistering heat with no windows and 3 Bolivian men sat next to us on a minibus jam packed with 16 people in total!

As our bags were loaded on top of this 1950´s rusty old mini bus we were asked to make 3 seats enough for 4, oh the chlosterphobia! Little did we know that the bus would fill to the brim with people and there was no quick exit if we needed to get out. It was a very bumpy ride and rocks were constantly bashing the side of the bus. I couldn’t help but wonder how some of us at home would feel if one small rock hit our cars, it makes you realize how important these journeys are for the drivers.

Several steamy stops along the way to resecure the luggage on the top from falling off and to regain feeling in our legs and we made in to the town. We hopped onto motor-taxis, with our backpacks on our very tired backs after a total of 34 hours (including waiting around in bus stations!) to a random hostel from the Lonely Planet. With no idea if it was still a hostel or if the motorbike drivers has any idea where they were we were off. Such a feeling of freedom when riding with no helmet or seatbelt and only a huge backpack to comfort any fall.

The wind finally in our hair (well mine considering im the only one with hair), after a full day of soaking in sweat we arrived to be greeted by Luis, a lovely Bolivian man who owns a little bit of paradise in the town, a beautiful hostel with the comfiest beds ever and cheap rooms.
We had spent all day and night surviving only on water and chrisps so our next mission was food. At the end of the 34 hour journey, we were finally fed, showered and ready for bed. As we retreated to our room and a cold shower, we were greeted with 2 large frogs and a huge moth by our door. We said Buenas Noches and shut our eyes.

Jungle Adventure take 3

The colours of Bolivia change with every city, the reds, yellows and greens of the Bolivian flag are starting to show their relevance. Yellows and reds for the sandy desert towns and vast landscapes and greens for the Bolivians share of the Amazon. Mix the yellow with the red to make the brown, the colour of most muddy towns and mix the green with the yellow to make the perfect blue sky, without a cloud to disturb it.

The heat has soared as we traveled down in altitude, over 30c in the Bolivian Amazon! It takes us by surprise and drains all of our salts and water. The shadow offers some respite but only a few degrees cooler. We booked a 3 day tour for 430Bs into La Pampas, a savanna area of the Amazon. We met our group the next morning and drove 3 hours in a mini bus along the same dodgy streets as before to the river. We had lunch (rice and yucca, nothing exciting), before heading on the river boat for 2 hours to camp.

Along the river, we were staggered by the amount of wildlife. We saw 389 alligators of all shapes and sizes (yes of course Terry counted, he was as excited as a 4 year old) in a 2hour journey on the river boat, tons of capybaras (huge hamster like creatures), lots of river birds, turtles and hundreds of monkeys, squirrel monkeys and howler monkeys. We stopped and were overrun by monkeys at one point.

By now our drinking water was hot enough to put in a tea bag and have some tea and our faces were burning when we reached camp. An opening in the trees, small buildings made from local wood and a row of hammocks overlooking the river. We spent the afternoon relaxing to the sounds of the jungle as squirrel monkeys came to play with us and the alligators made themselves at home around our boat.

We watched the sunset and took a night boat ride to see the Caiman. Even though we saw nearly 400 aligators that day, there were literally 10 times the amount on the river that night with their evil looking red eyes only visable with a flashlight from a river boat by nightfall!

Our guide stopped the engine at one point and we turned off our lights to freak each other out, was pretty scary considering it was caiman, alligator and pirana invested waters below. The night was hot and pretty scary, we spotted a poisonous snake before we went to bed outside the bedrooms so you can imagine I was freaked out a little.

We had material instead of mosquito nets over the beds that provided a free sauna service for protection. It was noisy and the nocturnal animals were playing around us, creating a beautiful midnight orchestra. The next day we trekked in the Pampas itself to search for, yes get this, anacondas and cobra!


I cannot actually believe now that I am writing that I agreed to go, but yes, upon arrival at a specific swamp like area, we were told to spread out and search for the 4 metre long snakes in the tall grass! Oh yeah, and if we found one...just dont annoy it our guide said! We walked for maybe 15 minutes, for me hoping we would be unsuccessful, and then our guide runs towards us swinging a giant snake around his head. He had found a 2 metre long Cobra. And yes thats Terry holding it!!

Everyone got a chance to hold the Cobra, apart from me of course I was metres away from it.

The rest of the day was relaxing back at the camp area. We swam with the pink river dolphins in the afternoon and then had a few games of dice and cards and went to bed. Nothing too hectic when you are in that kind of searing heat!

Our last day was spent Pirana fishing, Terry and one other vegetarian ironically were the only ones to catch one and it was served up for dinner. Tel felt extremely guilty he had caught one and wanted to release it but our guide told us it would be eaten by the other Pirana immediately.

Once we returned to Rurrenbaque we stayed in the same hostel and had a great night out with the group we met before jumping on the long journey at 11am back to cold, cold La Paz (sounded like heaven). We have literally just got off the grueling bus journey now. 18 hours of stopping and starting.

We had to move trees from the road that the locals deliberately cut down in protest of high fuel prices, fix broken brakes, and stop and wait for a protest to end. Pretty epic journey.

When we reached the protest our friends from the Pampas who took the previous bus the night before were there, they had been there for about 12 hours waiting for the Bolivians to end the protest already! Here we are at the protest and with our Israeli friend, Or.

It seems that it was over gasoline. We had to wait around for about 3 hours and then we headed for dinner of course (no logic in buying some dinner in the protest town the locals said, lol) and then up, up and away to the capital.

Tel decided to help out with the trees that were cut down throughout the protest and left me in the dark bus alone for half an hour. He didnt come back when the bus started to drive off so I panicked like crazy and was practically banging the door down shouting ´donde esta mi novio!!¨´....it was so scary i thought we were both going to be separated and stranded!! Luckily he was running towards the bus and i could eventually stop crying!!

This is me signing to leave the protest as everyone had to sign to say they agreed not that we knew what was going on! Also Terry made some friends on the bus!

We went from hot, hot, hot to freezing snow covered roads and mountains in one journey. Bolivia has it all in terms of scenery; it’s a constant surprise each corner turned!

Next we wait for our friends Sam and Ade to arrive from the UK (via Peru) where we will travel south to Potosi and Uyuni together before we enter Argentina! We hear theres not much for veggies down in this steak obsessed country...surprise surprise...no food for the veggies, lol.