We spent three days in the middle of no-where in the upper, upper Amazon. We were along the Beni River, which eventually flows into the Amazon and the Atlantic, a few thousand kilometers away. Here Andrea points out on the official "Yellow Fever" map on where we were heading...The area was pretty much what we had expected/hoped for regarding the Amazon ecosystem, however we were in the “pampas”, rather than the jungle which meant less rain and therefore not quite the same rain forest, “jungle look” to it.
In general, we were quite surprised that the bugs weren’t worse, either. That said, from the moment the sun went down at about 7pm until 10pm, if there wasn’t a strong breeze, it was pretty much unbearable. So as soon as we finished dinner we showered quickly and jumped into our mosquito net covered beds. (Note, it is really quite dangerous to shave your legs while trying to keep the mosquitoes from biting your bum - I obviously need more practice multi-tasking with a razor in hand.) Luckily, there were many very large bats flying around to deal with the bugs...The only other time the insects were really bad was while we were walking through the swamps – surprise, surprise. Trying to minimize our exposure as much as possible, we wore the recommended long sleeved clothing and were pretty liberal with the bug dope. For some reason which we haven’t been able to figure out, a number of the youth on the tour with us had no insect repellent and chose to wear shorts and sleeveless t-shirts into the swamp. Even after we had shared our bug dope, one girl c
ounted 163 mosquito bites which seemed to worn as a badge of endurance – I could never quite understand that, apparently my age is showing in more than just the wrinkles on my face.
ounted 163 mosquito bites which seemed to worn as a badge of endurance – I could never quite understand that, apparently my age is showing in more than just the wrinkles on my face. It really was a great trip though. We spent one evening in the canoe searching for alligators and (the much larger) caimans with our flashlights, (we saw many) and the better part of one day wandering through the swamps in search of giant anacondas (we only saw one). We also fished for piranhas and swam with pink dolphins (native to the Amazon).
Everything that we had read or viewed about piranhas seemed to be accurate. They are nasty little fish that swim in large schools, and have great appetites. As a result, they are fairly easy to catch. A little piece of raw meat and a piranha is on the hook almost before it hits the water, the trick is to jerk the hook into their mouth and haul them out of the water before they get the meat off the hook. While they are boney, they are tasty, and although we wouldn’t be likely to order them any time soon, lunch wasn’t too bad.
Everything that we had read or viewed about piranhas seemed to be accurate. They are nasty little fish that swim in large schools, and have great appetites. As a result, they are fairly easy to catch. A little piece of raw meat and a piranha is on the hook almost before it hits the water, the trick is to jerk the hook into their mouth and haul them out of the water before they get the meat off the hook. While they are boney, they are tasty, and although we wouldn’t be likely to order them any time soon, lunch wasn’t too bad.
Pink Dolphins, on the other hand, are not what we had expected. I’m thinking of a cute little
pink “Flipper”. While they did jump, play, and swim with us (and an empty water bottle), these completely wild dolphins had a mouth full of sharp teeth and a nasty habit of “nipping” at your fingers and toes (this was NOT mentioned in the brochure). While they do have a very “soft” Golden Retriever type bite, they still had very sharp teeth and drew blood on a few of us. It wasn’t until the last day that we discovered that the “swimming with dolphins” area in the river and the “fishing for piranhas” area weren’t actually very far apart. Hmmm, might be something to ask the guides about in the future. The award for "First to Realize that Dolphons Bite", goes to Ian. He was to first to be "nipped" out of the group, and when you can't see a foot in the water (literally), it's only a guess whether it is a dolphin or a parana...
Although our flight back to La Paz was delayed by a day because of a severe tropical storm, it was hard to compare the “extended” bus trip heading in with a 40 minute flight out – I kid you not, only 40 minutes! That said as they bused us to the next town to catch our flight because the runway in Rurrenabaque was too wet, I began to question our decision. The “airport” was an open air adobe building sitting in the middle of a large grass field, and, you guessed it, the “large grass field” was the runway! No control tower, no lights, and most definitely no pavement, not even a boy on bike attempting to move the cows off the “runway”…
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