Bolivian Amazon Jungle and Pampas Tour (27/03/16 - 01/04/16)

Max Adventures Jungle Tour (27th - 29th March 2016)

We arrived at the Max Adventures office at 8am to meet Tereza, an amazing Czech woman, mother of five and running this business with her husband Feizar, whom is an incredibly hard working local man.  Together they built the business from nothing except a dream to show people the Jungle and his home.  It took them 7 years to get the licencing approved to access the Madidi National Park, and have been operating from the site for 3 years now. They have completed an incredible amount of work and have built a few Eco Lodges basing the designs off the natural flora around the area and used the jungles timber and materials to build some beautiful buildings. Tereza said that they only employ local indigenous people as guides because the Jungle is engrained into them, their knowledge of the area, animals, plants and geography is almost inbuilt into them. They have tried to train people but have failed, so they use the local people from the surrounding tribes.

As it was over the Easter period, we were fortunate enough to meet the family, children and extended family as they were using it is as an opportunity to have a family holiday together. Our tour group is just us and another guy, Christian from London, UK - the small group is quite good as it means more interactive time and less dawdling. We piled into the boat and made our way up the river, Rio Beni (the river is 6,045 km in total length) alongside our guide, Miguel. The journey took just over three hours but it went quite quickly.  We arrived at the camp area and immediately went for a short walk and Miguel showed us the fruits that can be eaten, medicinal plants and how to use the vines as building materials. We then had lunch which consisted of hot rice, fried chicken, salad and fried plantain bananas.  

We were then shown our lodgings which are absolutely beautiful - luckily for us we got the "Eco Love Lodge", which gave us a private area near a stream and a very comfortable queen sized bed.

We enjoyed our night sleeping in the lodge, listening to the stream, the howler monkeys calling in the distance, frogs in river, pigs rustling through the bush and insects eating VERY loudly by my head during the night. We slept well in the beautiful tree house until 6.45am when the two small black bats, whom have taken residence in the hut, came back from their nights activities and noisily chatted to one another.

We went on a three hour mission hike through the jungle.  Some sections were incredibly dense jungle, which was very cool to see but really the only downside was the insane volume of mosquitos that are determined to eat you alive.  We had 98.5% Deet, which was excessive but we were still being attacked though I can't imagine not having any insect repellent on at all!

We were searching for some animals, there are heaps of pigs near the camp and where there are pigs - there are Puma!, so we saw a lot of paw prints and heard some pigs but didn't actually see anything.

Due to the 100% humidity and moist nature of the rainforest, everything is always damp and clammy feeling - doesn't seem to dry much especially since we were there still in the rainy season.

We got up at 7am, had a very extensive gringo/tourist breakfast from 8am (pancakes with caramel, pikelets with Jam, little biscuits, fruit salad, tea & coffee). We packed up our bags (we carried all our possessions with us and had one large pack with us, as we carried camping gear and food too - Poor Michael was carrying 30-40kgs in his pack which was ridiculous) then we set off for a hike through the jungle and to a new campsite for a night of wild camping in the jungle. We hiked for about two hours, stopping along the way so Miguel could show us the termites that they lick to reduce mosquito bites, a bush pig sty's near a water hole, puma and jaguar paw prints and how to make a fan from new palm frons. We made our way to the campsite, dumped our things down and walked to the river so we could try catch some catfish for dinner - Shahn slipped on her butt down to the stream as it was incredibly muddy. Not ideal especially since we didn't actually catch anything, though we had a delicious campfire dinner of pasta, hot vegetable salsa and deep fried plantain banana chips. We had a pretty comfortable night sleep in the mosquito nets under the tarpaulin tent - though it was insanely hot in the mosquito nets but it chilled off about 4am which was quite lovely. Lots of rainforest noises again; frogs, Capybara, fruit and branches falling to the ground, crickets, monkeys etc etc.

We woke at daybreak and got up at 7.45am to prepare campfire breakfast which consisted of a yummy deep fried damper with cheese, hot vegetable salsa again, bread & jam, sweet biscuits with coffee and tea. We packed up our campsite and our bags and headed back to the Max Adventures Camp, the hike was short back and quite beautiful as the sun was streaming through the rainforest, it has been overcast the whole time so it was cool to see the jungle in a different way. The boys went off and tried to go fishing again in the river and swimming, while Shahn relaxed in a hammock and wandered around the campsite taking photos and watching the wildlife of birds and lizards amongst the trees. We had lunch then headed out back down the river to Rurrenabaque.

On the 22nd March 2015, a very unfortunate event occurred at the Max Adventures Camp. A huge storm came out of nowhere unexpectedly, a new group arrived as we did and wandered down the path. A huge tornado like wind came through the jungle forest and knocked down a massive tree and killed a young British woman named Louisa. The night we arrived they had just finished completing a memorial shrine to her in the place she was crushed by the tree. They had a beautiful memorial service to her that we were very privileged to be a part of.

We booked into the same hostel in Rurrenabaque, we both had a glorious shower as we were very dirty and sweaty, got our laundry underway and went for a walk around the town, then relaxed in the hammocks at hostel while checking the internet and emails etc.  We had dinner at El Nomadico, an excellent restaurant run by a Australian guy from Sydney with his Bolivian wife. We had a chicken & quinoa lasagne and a Bolivian fish curry dish made with the local River Beni Catfish - it was absolutely delicious. Shahn managed to get the recipe from him so we hope to replicate it when back home!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in jungle, we found it a very peaceful and beautiful place, yes the mosquitos and other bugs are a pain to deal with but it's an incredible lifestyle. The indigenous peoples have such an extensive knowledge about the land and it's amazing to watch them.  Our guide Miguel, was born in the jungle, he is a trained chef and he also told us that he was a commander or captain for the military and had lead 40 men, was dropped into the Bush in Peru, for three months and taught them survival skills and only ate food from the rainforest. He was pretty much a Bolivian Bear Grylls!

Dolphins Travel to the Pampas (30th March to 1st April 2016)

We got up early to sort out our bags and laundry for our next three day tour. We arrived at Dolphins Travel office by 8.30am and were told to relax as not leaving until 9-9.15am. We went next door to the cafe for breakfast, Luz del Mar, where we had the best breakfast in Bolivia - toasted homemade wholemeal and grain bread with homemade strawberry jam, melon juice and a delicious granola muesli with chia seeds, fruit and yoghurt. So cheap for NZ$5 pp.

We piled into the Toyota Land Cruiser for the three hour drive to the town of Santa Rosa for lunch. Our guides name was Antonio, along with us in the truck was Daniel (IT tech) from Austria and Aya (teacher of P.E and a Pilates Teacher)  from Japan as well as sisters Claire & Helen and their friend Emily from England (all teachers). We then were put into a boat and went another three hours down the Yacuma River, stopping to look at many birds and cute yellow squirrel monkeys that were quite friendly and inquisitive. Our accommodation are lodges built on the river to accommodate the rising water levels for the rainy versus dry seasons. We dumped our stuff, had a snack of popcorn and lemonade juice then into the boat again for some night time spotting of crocodile (caiman), monkeys and birds going to roost at sunset. 

Black-capped squirrel monkey (Saimiri boliviensis) is a native species to the upper Amazon basin in Bolivia, western Brazil and eastern Peru

Of course, there is always a stall in the middle of nowhere to sell you treats you don't need as well as, beer & wine available so we part took in a few sunset beers.

  Dinner was over the top and huge, the cook, her name was Fatima - she does an absolutely amazing job of cooking a crazy amount of food. We played a game of UNO by candlelight and drank local red wine.

The second day of the tour we got up at 7am and prepared ourselves for the day, again was fed a very large breakfast of fruits, pancakes, empanadas and little handmade donut sort of things. We went off the boat in search of anacondas, boa constrictors and capybara that live near a land island in the Pampas. We didn't see any snakes but instead saw many lizards, iguana, wasps and capybara poo. 

We then headed back to camp for lunch then prepared for swimming with the Dolphins. It was incredibly humid and scorching hot in the sun, the boat ride to the Dolphins living area was nice. The water is brown/orange from the tannins and river vegetation, also why the Dolphins have a pink colour to their otherwise grey skin. We were desperate to jump in the water to cool off, it was an excellent afternoon.  The dolphins would circle around you, nibble and bite on your toes, bunt into you and would play around. There were a couple of babies that stayed close to the adults and in total about seven dolphins. We spent two, almost three hours playing around in the water before they got bored of us. So we ventured on to see more animals and birds.  We saw a Toucan, brown and black howler monkeys, a sloth and many different birds. We watched the sun set over the water and headed back to camp with a few more mosquito bites and sunburnt bodies than we would have liked.

The best photo we took of the "Pink" Amazon River Dolphins (Inia geoffrensis)

Toco Toucan (Ramphastos toco), the most common Toucan

Black Howler Monkey (Alouatta caraya) - the males are black, females a goldy brown colour.

Our final day, we awoke at 5.30am to watch the sunrise, which was stunning as it has just started showering as we left in the boat. A quick 30 minute snooze in the hammocks and breakfast at 7.30am. We had a morning spent fishing for Piranha, the river was very full after the rainy season so the chance of catching a fish was quite low - thus we went back to camp empty handed. Antonio told that the River system we were using is 225km long approximately and that you can go up and down it in many directions, the pink river dolphins use it as system to gain maximum food opportunities.

We had another massive lunch before we packed up our gear into the canoe/boat and set off back down the Yacuma River to get back in the Cruiser to go back to Rurrenabaque. There was a very fast 2.5hour ride on the rough dirt roads back to the town. Upon arrival we managed to get our bags back in some order and sussed out our flight to La Paz.  It was incredibly hot that day so most of us had patches of sunburn where we had sweated off through our sunscreen.

Beautiful Bolivia

* Copacabana - 17th to 20th March 2016 *

We took an overnight bus from Cusco to Puno, Peru which left at 10pm.  We were absolutely knackered from the Machu Picchu trip and the day wandering around Cusco that we had a relatively good bus trip.  We went with Tour Perú because they told us we would go direct to Copacabana, Bolivia on the same bus and only stop at Puno to pick up new passengers.  All for S./70pp... They lied! They didn't have enough passengers to fill the bus from Puno to Copacabana so they booted us off the bus at 5am and told us to wait for the next bus which was at 7am, bleary eyed and struggling with life we got some coffee and waited for the bus to arrive.

The biggest issue with many of these South American countries is the corruption and bribery.  Everyone seems to be in each other's pocket.  We stopped at a little place before the border so we could toilet, get food and exchange money "at a better rate than in Bolivia".  We didn't have much Peruvian Soles left so we didn't bother.

The Peru immigration was pretty chilled, no questions just hand over your passport, a forms and stamp away.  We crossed the border on foot and spent our remaining Soles on snacks and headed to our bus parked in Bolivia.  Again, no issues with the immigration there and just had to wander to the bus to take the remaining 8kms to Copacabana.  The U.S. Citizens appeared to have issues with paperwork and had to pay US$50 pp, from which everyone else (non Americans) is exempt from.

Shahn at the border crossing between Peru and Bolivia with the biggest bag of popped grain we had ever seen.  It is a stable snack and cereal for the Bolivians, we later found out.

Arriving in Copacabana, a small and really chilled out town, we went in search of Wi-Fi and breakfast so that we could find a hostel room - conditions were that it had Wi-Fi, hot water in the bathroom, a bed and a lock on the door (for B.100 about A$20). For some reason they like to charge per person instead of for the room, so prices reflect this and can be confusing. We aren't huge fans of the haggling and find it embarrassing to barter prices.

We found Hostel Wari, in the main tourist street (Avendia 6 de Agosto) in Copacabana and were absolutely shattered, about 4pm and we went for a walk around the town, looked at the markets for a bit and enjoyed the sunshine and the view of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest navigatible lake at 3,800m above sea level.  It is famous for its' crystal clear and calm waters. We didn't even bother having dinner, we had a shower and were asleep by 7pm!

The shower at our hostel, live wires to the shower head which was quite unnerving.

The following day we took a passenger  ferry on Lake Titicaca to Isla del Sol, it takes 2hrs to get there is they overload the boat with passengers and use a small outboard for the boat size.  Beautiful green hills of Bolivia are seen during the ride over to the island across the stunning still water of the lake.  We went to explore the island for the day, hike to the different Inca Ruins and wander the island.

We started the hike in Challa Pampa, went to the museum and paid the enrrance fee to start the walk. First up was the ruins of Roca Sagrada, Chinkana hill and the Cemetery of the Inca. We walked up the hill further along the Willka Thaki route walking from the northern section of the island moving south.

The most hilarious part of the hike from North to South was that at every "town" that is close to the hiking track adds a toll booth for using the trail, the money is used in maintenance and supports the community. We don't mind paying but stopping three times to pay was a bit ridiculous considering how small the island is.  We were back in the boat by 3.30pm. We were suggested a place for dinner and are there, but unfortunately got quite sick from there and the following day we couldn't bare the thought of the 4-5 hour bus with feeling so poorly. We went for a walk around the town and found a shop that had handmade rugs and blankets which were of good quality but she was wanting over US$300 but we decided it was out of our budget.  While there we met a lovely German lady who lives in Canada with her husband, later that night we bumped into them walking around so we went for dinner with them.  Renate and Garth were good entertainment for the evening telling us stories about their life, kids and grandchildren, where they have lived and visited.

We got up early and made mission to the top of the hill which was a cemetery, as we had to check out of the hostel at 10.30am so we boosted up the hill, puffing and blowing our way up.  

Stunning view so that was worth cardio!

As you can see, we travel very light! HAHA! 

After we packed up our stuff and checked out, we got our well deserved breakfast of "muesli" (actually puffed wheat or rice as a cereal) with yoghurt and fruit. We did a full morning of research as best we could with the terrible internet connection.  

We caught the bus at 1.30pm to go to La Paz, the bus had to stay within Bolivia borders so this involved a ferry crossing - Bus went across separately to the passengers.  All up the journey ended up taking 5 hours.

* La Paz - 20th to 24th March 2016 *

We arrived into La Paz close to 6pm, and fortunately we had booked a room at York B&B for AU$33/night (expensive for Bolivian standards, but the cheapest we could find in La Paz) so we didn't have to roam the streets and figure out where we were, if it was safe or what we needed to do. We met a French couple at the bus station and shared a taxi to our accommodation because they didn't have anywhere planned. After we dumped our bags and sorted ourselves out we went with Francois and Maria our for dinner, beers and pool at a pub near the hostel.

View from our hostel window, the power line cables are pretty classic.

The following day we ventured out after the hostel breakfast of bread & jam with cereal, yoghurt and banana. We needed to find some tour companies that would give us comparative prices for the Salt Flats, Amazon Jungle and more pressing, the Death Road Biking tour.  While on the tour finding mission, we wandered the La Paz historic center, see the Witches Market - complete with lotions, potions and dead llama feotus (they are dried out and buried under house foundations for good luck), as it was a Monday there were no Museums open so we missed out on those but fortunately we have been through a few in the past few weeks. We also missed the El Alto markets due to them being on a Thursday & Sunday, they are huge and take up the middle of the main street for many kilometers.

After much investigation we decided we would go with "Ride On", a newer company that charges Bs. 450 pp (they were given glowing recommendations from Rob & Gilly, Machu Picchu tour couple from England). We were picked up the next day for the tour complete with 7 women and Michael.  The girls were awesome, they rode very well despite the earlier nerves and we all had an enjoyable day.  The tour was well run with driver, Hugo; two guides, Damien and Joel - all three were incredibly professional, knowledgeable and well trained.

We started the bike ride at La Cumbre at 4,670m above sea level and biked down to Yolosa which lies at 1,109m.  The total ride covered 64kms, the first section was on asphalt and pretty comfortable going down, we then went onward down the actual "Death Road" - known this because it is the world's deadliest road, between 1996 and 2006 there was an average of 230 people being killed on that road every year alone. In 2006, a new asphalt road was opened and now the main road is used primarily - though many locals still use the (Death) Yulnas Road.  We were genuinely impressed that they used the road for so long especially considering how vertical the cliffs are and how many landslides and slips cover the road, despite the fact it is still technically a functional road.  We really enjoyed our day trip with Ride On Biking Bolivia!

The fearless girls on the Death Road Tour: Alexandra & Rose from Quebec, Canada; Kal & Laura from NZ; Rose from Cairns, Australia and Nicola from England.

 Shahn all geared up down the first section of asphalt road.

The group on the edge of the cliff.

 Shahn in the pouring rain.

 Michael during a rest stop, putting on our rain jackets.

 Shahn biking through a waterfall over the road.

 Kal and Michael behind her going through the waterfall.

The weather wasn't ideal but it was still fun sitting with leg hanging off the edge of the cliff  

Shahn & Michael (far left) 

 Death Road complete - all smiles and thumbs up!

 Beers, biting midgies and a "free" t-shirt.

Guides with us at the end of the bike ride.

Next day we we were a bit tired and sore from the biking and we needed to decide what tours we were going to do, unfortunately that usually takes up a significant amount of time and research so we found a cafe with wifi and set to figuring out the game plan for the next week, especially since Easter weekend was falling right in between tours and flights to Rurrenbacque.  Fortunately we managed to come up with a game plan for the week so that we can see everything we need to in Bolivia.

* Uyuri Salt tour - 25th March 2016 *

We managed to organise a day trip to Uyuri with the help of a tour company, Adventure Wheels. The girls there booked us an return overnight bus from La Paz to Uyuri, the Salt Flat Tour, flights return to Rurrenbacque and the Jungle & Pampas tour (for AU$800pp for an 8 day inclusive duration).

We took the night Cama (160° reclining seat) Bus to Uyuri at 9pm and arrived at 4.45am (two hours earlier than anticipated) to hoards of people wanting you to book tours, hostels and cafes for breakfast - when you are barely functioning as you have slept poorly and in a foreign town, we were coerced into following a lady to her cafe alongside dozens of other bleary eyed tourists at 5am. We shared a breakfast table with a nice German chap, while we were given our breakfast and figuring out the rundown of the days events.
Michael went to the Expediciones Tres Gignates office to see if there was anyone about. An A4 note with our names in the window helped the situation. We met with the Driver and guide, José whom told us to drop our bags and go kill the 2.5hrs until the tour begins at 10.30am. So we wandered off to the markets and to the local museums which had several quite well preserved mummies in display.  At 10.30am we met back at the office and discovered our nice group of six - us, a Argentinean couple, Validia & Leo and a Australian couple, Erin & Carl.

After some fluffing about by the tour company, we left at 11.15am finally to explore the Train Cemetery, a local market and then entered the beautiful Sal del Uyuri (Salt flats of Uyuri).  We enjoyed the salt flats, the sunset was beautiful and the couples in the tour were awesome, it was a hugely long day as we climbed back into the bus at 8pm headed back to La Paz.

 We stopped at this dead train museum along the way, literally hundreds of trains and trainable storage that has been dumped in the desert.  Was a bit weird!

Eventually we made it to the famous Salt Flats, where it was hot and dry with crazy glare from the white of the salt.  

 A tractor literally in the middle of nowhere

Found a New Zealand Flag outside the Salt Hotel.

* Rurrebacque - 26th March to 1st April *

A forty five minute flight is meant to be the best alternative to the bus (18-48hrs in bus route, weather and traffic dependant). We booked our flights together as even though it is low season, it was Easter too and we needed the flights to line up with our timeline. The flight was delayed from 11.30am to 3.30am but we were also late departing. We were both allowed 20kgs checked baggage and 10kgs carry on but we didn't really need that much for 7 days so we left a few bags at the luggage storage at Airport, after a miscommunication dispute over the price for 6 days storage we managed to store half our stuff at the airport and take the other half with us.

Terrifying and horrifying flight with duct tape on the propeller blades, severe corrosion and we were a bit nervous.

Michael took some photos and sent them to his cousin, Matthew who is an aircraft engineer - his message back was:
"Ah the metroliner, or as others call it the "death pencil". Shit it's seen better days, props seem to have a bit of erosion, but you can see they have repaired the seal on the prop heat so I imagine they are at least doing a bit of maintenance, and Amazonas has never had any major incidents so it's probably OK. Hard to say without seeing it in person... From those pics I would probably be a bit nervous, that aircraft was built in 1993" - so as you can imagine we were pumped for the return flight!

We found a lovely hostel for the night (prices were cheaper than La Paz too) and got our laundry done because we were running low on essentials, then set off for a wander around town to see the river and how the town is set out.  We found our tour companies locations and had a chat with them to make sure everything was organised, La Paz had booked the tours the wrong way around so they fixed those for us.  We wandered to the Funky Monkey for a beer, some free Caipirinha's (because we had a referral from a tour company!) and played a couple of games of pool then realised it was 9pm and we should find some dinner! We found a local place and got some pizza, there were a group of street kids who were hanging around wanting food and money, there was a group of 6 kids there ranging in ages of 8 to 12. Quite sad.

 View from the hostel room (fourth floor)

The Bolivian Armada, actually though!! On a very fast flowing river.

We left the next morning for our three day Jungle tour in the Amazon Basin. After our jungle tour was completed we went back to the same hostel we had such a comfortable stay for a great price. We were absolutely filthy from the mud and general dirtiness from a couple days without showering, so we had wonderful hot showers and got our washing done again as we needed to wear the same things for the Pampas tour.

We were clean, wearing fresh clothes and feeling pretty good. Sent some emails and messages, went to a walk around Rurrenabaque then decided we would eat at El Nomadico, we had the most amazing fish curry based off a local Bolivian dish they had been tweaked. The owner, a Sydney guy whom had been living in Rurrenabaque for almost 10 years, was very chatty and he gave us the recipe for the fish dish that "keeps the business afloat, people keep coming back for it!".

We left the next morning on the tour for the Pampas, a collection of rivers which are home to many animals and birds but more famously, the pink river dolphin. We did the three day tour with Dolphins Travel Bolivia. After the tour we arrived back to the office at 3pm and our flight out of Rurrenabaque was scheduled for 5.15 pm.  I went to the Amazonas office in town to double check it was all fine with no delays.  The lady at the office was given our passports and said flatly and firmly, "Your flights are delayed".
I replied, "Oh, really? To when? It's the last flight of today right?"
She ignores my questions then picks up the phone, talks to someone in rapid Spanish for over 10 minutes, not acknowledging me at all, then puts the phone down while flicking our passports back at me.
"Flight is at 5.15pm, be there an hour beforehand." She says before looking back at her computer and ignores me from there. So we were fine to take the flight back to La Paz and we didn't lose an extra day. Winning!

Michael looking pleased with his coca leaves, baking soda and tree bark (Chamyro ?spelling), along with some nuts fresh from the market

Flight back to La Paz was uneventful thankfully, we were jammed in the back three seats of the same plane and pilots that flew us in.  We arrived to La Paz safely but almost instantly were struggling with the altitude, Michael was lethargic and very disoriented while Shahn was suffering from extreme flatulence from altitude (yes, it's a thing!) causing cramping with pain also while being lightheaded.

We collected our stored bags from the airport and then took a taxi to the bus terminal, in search of a night bus to head to Chile.  We found we couldn't do a night bus due the boarder not being open overnight, so we found a hostel nearby to stay and managed to get an excellent night sleep, hot showers and self serviced laundry. We booked our 1pm bus tickets to Iquique, Chile with Trans Salvador Bus (Bs 150pp) and then got a dinner, by 9pm we we exhausted from the altitude change and looked forward to a sleep in and a decent rest.