Welcome to the Jungle

So after we got back from the Pampas (the flatlands, see the two posts below for details on that), we had a night in Rurrenabarque and then headed out at 9am on the back of a motorcycle to the nearby river where we got on another, bigger boat that headed a different direction and took us into the jungle of the Bolivian Amazon basin.

The ride was fairly non-descript, except for beautiful scenery (including colorful macaw parrots that live in holes that the dig into the sides of the hills that line the river), until we reached a low part of the river where everyone had to jump out of the boat into rushing current and actually PUSH the boat upstream by hand...wasn´t expecting that. So the rest of the ride to camp was very wet. We arrived on shore after about 3 hours and then carried all of our stuff to the camp that was about 15 minutes walk from the river in the middle of the jungle.

Whereas the Pampas was all about seeing animals, this was mostly about seeing crazy jungle plants. It rained very hard a lot of the time so there was a cool dripping sound almost the entire time we were there. On our first hike around the area our guide showed us all kinds of cool things. At one point he stopped and chopped off this vine that he then tipped into our mouths...the best water that I have ever tasted flowed out into our mouths...nature`s water bottle. Another plant he grabbed and mashed up in his hands and after a while a blood-red juice came out and he painted our faces with it...natures face paint. At another spot a gigantic tree had a huge vine hanging down from it that we took turns swining on like tarzan...natures playground. Another huge tree he showed us apparently is filled with a sap that is toxic, the natives used to gather the sap and then would go ¨fishing¨ by just throwing the sap into the water and gathering the dead fish that would float to the top...nature´s version of dynamite fishing. Another tree bled this white sap that is a very effective glue which natives would use to bind wounds...nature´s bandaid. You get the idea. It was cool stuff, just not as amazing as the wildlife of the Pampas tour...UNTIL

UNTIL, we did a night hike. We walked around for about an hour with 3 other people. Two of whom were the most whiny, complaining people ever and all they did was bitch. We had a great guide who had a great sense of humor, he didnt speak any English, but was always making jokes in Spanish about how he didn´t know where he was and how we were going to die. Anyway, after an hour he was like ¨lets drop the crybabies off and I will show you something crazy.¨ So we left the whining couple at camp and set off on another trail. After about 5 minutes we got to a tree where lived the largest F-ING spider I have ever seen in my life and will ever see...this was out of Harry Potter 2...freaking huge. It was hiding in the roots of the tree, then the guide put a bug in front of it and it came all the way out...pounced all the way out was more like it. This thing was like a small football...a taranchula, but not the brown kind. This one was jet black and had 10 legs instead of 8. These things dont make webs because they are fast enough to just hunt their prey straight up, and their prey includes BIRDS. Needless to say, I was pooping and peeing in my pants at the same time. Although I think this actually helped my arachnaphobia because every other spider I will ever see just looks so tiny in comparison. It made the whole trip to the jungle worthwhile just to see this thing.

This trip was much shorter, just two days and one night so it was over before it began but it was worth it. The flight back to La Paz in the tiny 10 person plane was great until the last 15 minutes when mountain winds hit our plane at full force and we were thrown around the sky like a toy...I have never felt turbulance like that and the guy in front of us lost his cookies. Laura almost did but we made it down ok and after a few shaky minutes were back to normal. Between the Pampas and the jungle though, it was an incredibly memorable adventure.