As we were planning the South American part of our trip, we heard about this thing called the Amazon Rainforest. It turns out that this forest is pretty important, and big too. It is 2.1 million square miles, touches nine countries, makes up over half of the world’s rainforests, and has about 390 billion trees of 16,000 different species. Well, that is if you believe Wikipedia. We decided to check it out for ourselves. We flew to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia which was our launching point for two different excursions. The tiny town is on the Beni river, whose water eventually ends up in the Amazon River, thousands of miles away. This is extraordinary since it is much closer to the Pacific coast. However, the massive Andes act as the continental divide, so water has no choice but to head east to the Atlantic.
Our first excursion which was to an area called the “pampas”, which are flat lowlands, next to, but not covered by the rainforest. I suspect that these areas are not forested because they are flooded with each rainy season. The only way to get to these pampas is by boat on the network of small rivers. After a hot, cramped, and bumpy two hour journey by car, we reached the boats. Before we even got in the boat, we saw the famous Amazon River Dolphins (more commonly called "pink dolphins”) playing in the water. That’s right, dolphins in the freshwater river, who never set foot in the ocean. And they aren’t little either. Adult males can grow to 400 pounds. After loading the supplies on the boat, we set out with our guide, Antonio, and a nice couple from England, Guy and Sofia. The boat was very long and narrow, with just enough room to sit two across, but there were seats for 8 passengers, plus a lot of gear. It was powered by 15 HP outboard and expertly piloted by Antonio sitting in the rear. The journey upstream took almost four hours as we took our time to watch, photograph, and learn about the abundant wildlife. The first thing you notice are all the unique species of birds. Cocoi Herons, darters, and hoatzins (we and the locals call them stinkbirds) were the most populous. But we also saw egrets, toucans, tiger herons, Jabiru storks, vultures, caracaras, jacanas, yellow billed terns, macaws, paradise jacamars, and many, many more that I can’t identify.
Second only to the birds in number were the caimans. These close cousins to the alligator were everywhere. We easily saw more than 100 of them over the course of our 3 days. We mostly saw bespectacled caimans which are smaller and not generally considered a threat to humans, unless they are protecting their eggs. However, we also saw black caimans which can grow to 16 feet long and have no problem making a meal of a fully grown adult homo sapien.
We went searching for other reptiles, specifically anacondas. For this we all got a pair of rubber boots (“wellies” if you are from the UK, and "gum boots" if you are from Australia) and a walking stick (or snake poking stick). We walked through tall grass, shallow water, and mud on the hunt for the massive snakes. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), we didn’t find any. We did find a couple false cobras however. These guys look like the venomous serpents of Africa and SE Asia, but they are not poisonous. One of the guides attempted to handle one of them, but it was a bit too feisty, so we let it be. I think that was better for everyone. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience baking in the sun, laboring to pull your boot from the mud with every step, worrying about stepping on a snake, and trying to avoid water deep enough to go into the top of your boot.
There was no shortage of mammals either. We saw a sloths, squirrel monkeys, howler monkeys, and capybara (the world’s largest rodent), and of course, the pink dolphins. One of the activities was swimming with the wild dolphins in the river. Yes, the same river with the caiman and piranhas. Oh, I forgot to mention there are piranhas. I know because we caught about eight of them fishing for an hour (When I say “we”, I mean Jesslyn, Guy, and our guide. I just fed them.). We were assured it was safe to swim, so I jumped in. We didn’t have masks or snorkels, which wouldn’t have done any good because the water was an opaque dark brown anyway. It was cool, but the thought of no longer being at the top of the food chain was always in the back of my head. We survived without a scratch, which was all I was really hoping for.
Camp was made up of several cabins, and we paid a little extra to have a private room and bathroom. There were flush toilets, but no hot water. There was electricity only after 6pm. We slept in a comfortable bed under a mosquito net. Meals were communal with a couple other groups. The food was decent and plentiful. There was not a lot of meat, but a lot of rice, potatoes, and fried dough. The accommodations were pretty good considering everything that can’t be gathered from the jungle has to be brought in on small boats. We really enjoyed our Pampas tour, especially because of all the wildlife. I think I took over 500 pictures.
After one night back in town, we headed out for the three day jungle tour. After a long boat ride up a wide, but shallow river, we hiked a few minutes into the jungle from shore to our camp. This camp was just as rustic, but much more quaint. A lot of thought and care went into making it blend into the environment, and was built mostly with materials gathered from the jungle. We had a private accommodation again (well, semi-private, we shared the space with a bat). Like all of the buildings, our room was built around a large tree trunk. Everyone that worked for this tour company were indigenous people who grew up in the jungle. Our guide, Jimmy, learned about the medicinal properties of the plants, how to hunt, and fish, and generally how to survive by his grandfather. He wears a neckless with the teeth of the first wild boar he killed with a poisoned arrow at the age of nine. His necklace helps to keep the bad spirits away.
We did a lot of walking as Jimmy tried to impart a tiny bit of his knowledge on us. We found a large vine, that when cut looks just like a piece of wood, but when held on end starts to trickle fresh, drinkable water. We chewed on some leaf that makes your entire mouth numb for about 10 minutes, which is used as local anesthesia. We smelled the bark of the garlic tree, which smells just like some herb, but I couldn’t put a finger on it. Not only is it used for cooking, it is rubbed all over one’s body before hunting to mask the human scent. We saw the tree that excretes the poison used for the arrows. We got our faces painted with the purple liquid that magically appears when certain green leaves are crushed and mixed with water. We got temporary tattoos from liquid resulting from soaking a certain nut in water for about an hour. The blue tattoos on the back of our wrists lasted a few weeks!
We learned about the different animals that live in the jungle. We didn’t see many (except for mosquitos), as they are very shy, but we did see many signs. We saw fresh prints in the mud of jaguars, tapirs, and wild pigs. We saw howler and cappuccino monkeys. We saw green macaws and red macaws. Most people are afraid of the jaguars, but I was more concerned with the pigs. The previous day, we had asked if they are dangerous, and we got the same response we have heard so many times before... “depends”. Normally, they steer clear of people, and will run if they hear or smell you. However, like most animals they defend their young with great zeal. Not only can they be very aggressive, they have the advantage of numbers, traveling in groups of a couple hundred. Jimmy told us of a time when he and his tour group had to climb trees to get away from the pigs after one of the young cried for help by clattering its teeth. It was unfortunate for a couple of the tourists who chose trees infested with fire ants.
We only slept at the main camp on the first night. The second night, we trekked deeper into the jungle and slept on the ground under a tarp and mosquito net. We didn’t have any luck fishing in the river, so we ate pasta for dinner, cooked over the camp fire. After dinner we had a little ceremony for paacha mama, or mother earth. Many Bolivians, especially the ones who live in rural areas have both Christian and native beliefs. We had participated in a paacha mama ceremony previously in Sucre as well, which was a little more elaborate, as expected. But they both involved an offering of cigarettes and alcohol. Evidently, mother earth has a couple vices. Jesslyn wasn’t too excited about sleeping on the ground in the jungle, especially since we had just seen a tarantula the size of a dinner plate. We, I mean she, was pleasantly surprised in the morning to still be alive and unharmed when we, I mean she awoke in the morning. There was just one problem, we were awoken by the sound of the wild pigs, very close by. We could hear their snorts, but what I didn’t expect was the loud clattering of their teeth. Was it a reminder that they have giant incisors that can tear flesh with ease, or was it a battle call to attack the gringos? When we heard the noise, Jimmy said, “pigs!”. We didn’t know if he meant, “wow, neat-o, pigs!”, or if he meant, “oh shit, climb a tree immediately, pigs!”. Luckily it was the former. On our walk after breakfast, we were able to get up close enough to the pigs to see a few of them though the dense vegetation.
We escaped unharmed with a few souvenirs; our tattoos, bug bites, and photos. While we enjoyed the jungle, two nights were enough.
- Jake
Pampas Photos
The squirrel monkeys were not afraid of us.
This guy didn't seem too concerned either.
What the stink birds lack in pleasant aromas, they make up for in exoticness.
We saw so many herons, but only this one had this strange pose.
Jungle Photos
Not what you want to see before heading to sleep on the ground.
The amount of water that gushed from this vine was unbelievable.
Jimmy applying my war paint.
Our accommodations for night 2.