AspiringNomad

We arrive in Rurrenabaque at about 6am on Sunday morning. The heat hits us like a tone of bricks! It turns out that even after 3 days, I am still not used to the muggy heat that currently fills this area. We head straight to our hostel in the town and get into bed. Concerned about the mosquitos, I keep my leggings and jacket on as I try to drift off to sleep. After about 30 seconds, my clothes were soaked from the sweat and so everything came off (within reason). I didn’t manage to sleep this morning. I just caught up on Selling Sunset on Netflix for a couple of hours before Emily woke up. We both showered and instantly started to sweat again and then got a lift from the hostel owner into the town centre. He was dropping off supplies to the local school, which is where families were staying that had been evacuated from their homes in the jungle. We also helped drop some water off to the military who have been stationed in the town to help with the fires. I must be honest, a lot of locals and the authorities seemed to be fairly blasè about the situation!

Diogo then dropped us off at the market. He had recommended that we go to a local cafe for a cold drink and something to eat. It didn’t disappoint and the iced frappes went down a treat. Emily told me that, like a few other places, she would leave this cafè a good review.

As we sat there melting from the heat from not only the drought and heatwave but also the surrounding fires we decided to go to a swimming pool that sits on the top of the hill looking over the town. We just needed to be in a body of water! The pool wasn’t that cold, but it was better than nothing. We enjoyed a couple of cervesas, and the view from the mirador (view point) was spectacular!

We headed back into the town to get something to eat. Diogo recommended a place called Luna Lounge. It seemed fairly empty when we arrived, but we had high hopes! It seems ceiling fans or A/C don’t exist in this part of the world. I confidently ordered a large pizza, but as it was placed in front of me sitting at about 80cm in diameter, I instantly regretted my decision! My already sweaty face started to sweat even more and after 3 slices I almost passed out from, I guess the heat! I ordered a cup of ice and smothered it over my face! It was not my finest moment, but it did stop me from fainting! The questionable cocktails that we ordered probably didn’t help either. Not to self- don’t order a Pisco sour outside of Peru.

We headed to bed that night very excited about the prospect of going into the Amazon on Monday morning. I’ve certainly had worse Mondays!

We were picked up from the hostel and started our 3hr journey into the rainforest. We crossed the little river via the long boats and entered our Fluvial Tour Hostel. We were shown to our rooms by our tour guide, Yoyo. He was a character! We had lunch first and met the others in our group. Emily and I were in a group with 3 French people. It strangely felt close to home and they all seemed friendly and polite. We got to know each other over a delicious home cooked meal. Beefs strips with lots of veg and lentils. It was exactly what I needed.

We began our afternoon walk from the hostel and headed south. We first fed the cheeky squirrel monkeys that surrounded the hostel some banana by hand and I met the equally as cheeky hostel cat, Mika. She tried to come on the walk with us so we had to pick up the pace to leave her behind!

As we headed through the grassland and forest, we saw some beautiful birds but Yoyo was specifically looking for Jaguars. We walked slowly round one bend and Yoyo saw a Jaguar leap across the swamp. Unfortunately, the rest of us were going too cautiously to see it! On our return we saw the footprints of a smaller Jaguar crossing the same path. Although we didn’t see them, it was cool to know that they were in the same area as us and had probably been keeping an eye on us for a long while before Yoyo spotted it!

That evening we watched the sunset from the platform at the hostel. The sky was filled with pink and orange as the sun went down on our first day in the Amazon. Once the sun disappeared, we walked down to the rivers edge in search of Caiman. Our guide instructed us to turn all our lights off and proceeded to shine his flashlight down the river. The eyes of the Caiman lit up like the stars in the sky as the flash light reflected off them and there was more than I had time to count. As any sensible group of gringos would, we followed the mad jungle man towards the caiman along the river in the dark. There were so many of them I can’t even describe how it felt to be walking just a few feet from them in their natural habitat.

You’re probably not surprised to hear that my biggest fear of doing an Amazon tour was what kind of spiders I would have to encounter. This meant Emily would have to put up with me showering with the door open (in case I had to make a quick exit) and asking her to check my shoes and clothes before putting them on. As you can imagine, I was sceptical about sleeping in a building that was far from enclosed. In fact, Guillaume (one of the French guys) had already had his bag raided by monkeys that had gotten through into his room!

However, despite losing most of my body fluids through sweat, I had a fantastic night sleep and woke up naturally to the sounds of the Amazon!

Following breakfast we started our hike. This time, we were looking for Anaconda. We saw a Capybara strolling through the grass very gently and it wasn’t too bothered by us. It wasn’t long before Yoyo found an Anaconda sleeping in one of the trees. We shone the light into the hole of the tree and all had a look. Yoyo thought this particular one was about 3 meters long and would easily eat a small caiman. We continued on and as we all rested on another tree in the shade, Yoyo saw that there was another Anaconda in the same tree! It was just as beautiful, but a little harder to see. We circled back to the hostel after a couple of hours for a rest and lunch. Two of the French people had to leave and we were greeted by 3 English people who were joining our group.

That afternoon we headed out on the boat to do some pirana fishing. It was during this journey that we realised how shallow the water was when we kept getting stuck and had to use the paddles to push us off the sand that we were getting stuck in. We soon made it to the area for fishing. I managed to catch a little sardine and snapped a picture before putting it back into the water. Guillaume managed to catch a tiny pirana and a little sardine and Yoyo caught a small catfish. They kept them for the chef at the hostel to cook up later. We continued down the river to another Mirador to watch the Sunset. We all grabbed a beer and sat together watching a family of Capybara down below as the sun set in the distance. Once night fell, we headed back into the boat and made our way back to the hostel. On the way, we saw even more caiman and some baby frogs (the size of my little finger nail- even Mum could handle these ones)

We headed back to freshen up and have some more delicious food before chilling out on the platform in the dark chatting away. Yoyo serenaded us with a couple of Spanish songs before he headed off and Emily, Guillaume and I continued to chat a bit more before going to bed ourselves.

Another lovely night sleep with only a little paranoia about spiders came and went and at 5:30am we were woken by Yoyo singing ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ at our door. We were getting up early to watch the sunrise. We quickly got our gear on and with our now, very familiar layer of sweat on our bodies, we headed out onto one of the plains to watch the sun come up. Even just on this short walk we saw an Ostrich and it’s baby wandering through the grasses.

Once the sun rose we walked back and waited for breakfast. Typically, I seem to get a migraine in the night, so I actually headed back to bed and unfortunately skipped breakfast to make sure I was well enough to enjoy my last day in the Amazon. By about 9am we were all ready to go. Heading on the boat again, we were sceptical about how much energy we were going to have to exert in the heat. It was a long journey there but we arrived in a stop so deep I couldn’t touch the bottom and as we swim in the river, pink dolphins surrounded us as they enjoy the deep water too! Pink dolphins are strange looking things and very rare to see, I felt so fortunate to be swimming in the Amazon with pink dolphins, squirrel monkeys and capybara chilling by the edge of the river, an amazing experience!

Unfortunately this amazing experience ended when we realised that we were going to be heading back to the hostel in the midday heat and barely any water for the boat to go through. At one point, we all had to get out and walk along the waters edge so the boat could get through. At another, Guillaume got out to pull the boat with a rope, and by the end we were so exhausted we were trying to help but we didn’t feel like we were making any difference at all! Let’s say we were more than ready to get off that boat by the end of the journey!

Once showered and clean we had our final meal with everyone and Emily, Guillaume I departed the Amazon.

Emily, of course, told Yoyo that she would leave him a great review. After spending just over two weeks with Emily, I’ve noticed she has told almost every tour guide that she will leave a review but it suddenly dawned on me that I am yet to see her write one! Like a strange kink, she proceeded to tell Yoyo that she had a great time and would make sure she would mention his name in this review. I told her that I can’t wait to read it!

Back in the ‘4×4’ which was actually a people carrier, Guillaume, Emily and I reflected on our time in the Amazon and what our highlights were. We were all getting the same night bus back to La Paz so stuck together before we boarded.

I am now currently travelling up a mountain in the Andes on the bus watching the sunrise at 6:20am. Unfortunately I can’t sleep because I need to go to the toilet and I have been told you can only use the bus loo for a number 1. The bus guy was very adamant about this as we boarded so I don’t want to risk it. Despite the slight discomfort in my bowels, watching the sun peak over the snow capped mountains and listening to music is extremely atmospheric and once again I feel so fortunate to be in this part of the world seeing all the things I have seen pver the last few days! Tomorrow marks 4 weeks before I intend to be home and I am going to make sure that I enjoy every second of it!

When we get back to La Paz we will check in to another hostel which is closer to the center. All our friends who we have made along the way are all congregating again tomorrow and so we plan to go and watch the Cholitas fighting (you might have to Google this one) and get a few drinks, of course! We feel like we deserve it!