Bolivian Pampas

Day 1, June 23

9:35 Walter, a Peruvian I met last night and his Argentine friend were sitting in the breakfast area finishing off a fifth of vodka having not yet gone to bed. Whether it was there first or not I don't know but for people finishing off a twelve hour drinking marathon they were remarkably sober. We chatted out their experience in the Pampas, in which they had seen a plethora of animals and in the jungle which they pronounced beautiful despite the only fauna that was observed was poisonous snakes.

One of the french girls came down to the breakfast area and the Argentine left us immediately to give her his attention. Walter just laughed and said the attractive charming person with whom he was travelling was securing his objectives once or twice a day with different people here. I am afraid those days are past me now.
The tours depart at 8:30 but the cook who prepares the promised breakfast didn't show until 8:00 which oddly enough is her scheduling starting time. No regard was given to who was going on a tour and who was just hanging out for the day. I had been promised a breakfast of omellete panckakes, bread and coffe. I finally got two pieces of bread and didn't have time to finish my coffe.

We were transported to Amazonia via 4x4, put our un-needed bags in equipment storage and waited while the driver fetch several more loads to repeat the process. My daypack screams computer pack and I have some misgivings about leaving it here where everybody self claims their luggage. Finally at 9:14 my fellow adventurers, eight Israelis, and I boarded our 4x4. I am sure I have said this before but the proportion of travellers that are Israeli is huge. Over two thirds of the tourists in this town are Israelis, all 21 years of age, fresh out of the army travelling before returning to attend university. Fortunately and predictably I am riding shotgun, the others sit on benches that face each other with their backs to the side windows.

We have been told that this would be a three hour drive; we have been in the car for 15 minues, made three drops and have only travelled a couple of ticks.

10:47 The vehicle carrying the other group from our tour company was broken down on the side of the road. The fuel filter is repeatedly flushed with gas and profoundly rust colored fuel is flushed in the process. We exchanged drivers many times, the original driver of our 4x4 apparently more experienced in coaxing fuel starved engines into productivity. Finally, with the original driver from the other car we left out companions and drove down the road for a while. When we neared a cell tower our driver tried to make a phone call and starting climbing the tower to get better reception. Maybe you should use a different carrier. After half an hour he figured out that his phone was never going to work here and borrowed one from the woman who ran the concession stand nearly attached to the tower and made a phone call. Within an hour an alternative vehicle should have reached the other group to carry them the remaining two hours to the river. Our rescue purpose having been accomplished we took off again down the dusty road.

12:32 A hawk sits on the lines on the side of the road every kilometer spaced as if by agreement. Slightly further the road turns to mud and then fine dust. Every vehicle kicks up a huge plume that stays suspended in the air for minutes until carried off to the side by the slightest of winds. The vegetation on either side of the road for a hundred meters is dead, choked by the dust.

12:20 We have reached our first check point and the road is blocked by a square tubular bar welded out of rebar with a triangular truss like pattern. Two upright boards have support the fulcrum, the counterweight is an engine block and several rocks secured to the bar with rope. To block the road a rope is pulled down and lashed; when released the counterweight raises the bar.

1:00 We bought our tickets to the park, 150 Bolivians and headed off to lunch. For the first time I spoke with another member of our group, Gal asked if I spoke English and when we sat at the table we all introduced ourselves. Each time I was given a name there was a round of laughter as I attempted to pronounce it. Gal let out a scream and jumped out of her sit as a pig tried to brush by her leg to lie under the table. A four foot tall bird walked by inspecting us.

At Camp During our three hour boat trip we saw hundreds of Capybara, thousands of Caiman, one black caiman, thousands of turtles of the same specie egrets of all types, kites, paradise birds, vultures, brown egrets, white egrets and ??? yellow bird that cleans the caimans teeth. A boat filled with people with cameras and 200mm and 400mm lenses all obviously ready to avail themselves of the wonderful opportunity to engage in nature photography, one of the key selling points of the trip. The cayuca never slowed and animals were not identified except upon strong urging.

We arrived at our camp, put our gear in our dorm and met in the dining room. Ten minutes after we arrived our companion group arrived. As they were an hour behind us waiting on their rescue van they blew by the fauna even faster than we. I chatted with Omer, the personable Israeli that booked his tour immediately following me and was staying at the same hostel. We inquired as to whether hot water was available so we could make coffee and were informed that coffee was a morning drink and would be available with breakfast. Omer's group had a South African couple and a couple from New Zealand. Everybody conversed in English. As I sat with them to juice up and eat some popcorn, Niegro, our guide insisted that I sit with the group with which I had travelled. So I sat with eight other people who conversed solely in Herbrew though they all knew English. Are we having fun yet?

Our first excursion was to the Sunset Bar, a place spectacular only in the fact that it is billed as a great place and has little of merit. The most amazing feature of the place was an observation deck which constructed of boards supported by a series of poles in single file; the whole structure swayed with every step. The left side had no rail, the one on the right offered moral support but undoubtably would have become detached had any felt any strong reason to use it. From this vantage people were encouraged to consume beer while watching the sunset. We could see over the tops of the trees on the far side of the river. Just beyond a very narrow strip laid pasture land for miles. I think I have to give up eating beef; I have seen tens of thousands of square miles from Panama to Bolivia deforested to make grazing land. After the sunset we returned for dinner and I took my place at the table of Babel. Shortly after dinner I went to bed.

Day 2

I woke up for the sunrise tour and met Niegro at the boat at the appointed hour, we were the only two on the boat. "Niegro are we going to leave or not? Can't change the hour of sunrise." The others of my group trickled in and by the time twenty minutes had elapsed the last of our party boarded the boad. Niegro looked more displeased than I. We headed back down stream for ten minutes, climbed a steep bank, walked for one hundred meters and found ourselves in another vast pasture, spreading to the horizon in all directions not bounded by the river. The morning fog hung low and when the sun appeared it was far above the horizon large and diffused through the fog. By the time we left the sun was three sun diameters above the horizon.

A little further down Niegro pulled to the shore, got out, repeatly smacked his leg, yelled "Miguel" and a 5 foot caiman came to the bank, opened his toothy mouth a bit and Niegro petted it from the skull, between the eyes and down to the snout. Members of the group got out to pose for pictures while petting a caimain.
We were then instructed to find some rubber boots from the rack in preparation for the Anaconda hunt. As I had feared and expressly conveyed to the man who sold me the tour, the largest of the boots did not fit me. More than a little perturbed by this developement I expressed my annoyance to Niegro in no uncertain terms. He assured me that there might be some at another camp. Might, to me is not assurance.
Breakfast consisted of batter fried in a variety of fashions, none of them like pancakes, all thin crusted and grease soaked, looking like failed donuts, hollow empanadas and collapsed hollow empanadas, a generous portion of mango and one banana sliced to split between the nine of us.

Finally the pancakes arrived, Gala took two of the fourteen pancakes served to a party of nine. As per last night, at the end of the meal everybodies plate was cleaned, excepting Gala's who had served herself disproportionately and then failed to consume what she had allocated. I noticed a peculiar eating style, her arms wrapped around her plate and she took food from the far side as though ready to grab the plate if someone attempted to grab it. As usual several people smoked without regard to where there smoke went at a table that had not been set with an ashtray.

Niegro appeared with a pair of boots he had retrieved from some unknown location and suggested that I try them on; doing so I had no difficulty getting my foot in.

In search of Anaconda

After a 15 minute boat ride we walked for 30 minutes across a scraggly pasture and arrived at a swamp. The distinct odor of non aerobic vegetable decomposition filled the air. Just a few steps in and the muck was up to the top of the boots. I had to show a couple of the women how to extricate a boot from muck, showing my example I bent my knee driving my upper calf forward over the toe of the boot leaving an airspace behind and then lifted my foot from the heel with a giant slurping sound. Two other women fell down within seconds of each other, landing on their asses, rapidly sinking in the mud to breast level.
Four separate parties searched. Our party went incredibly slowly, in single file, following the one ahead, who had demonstrated the water safe, like a mountain man following a mule, preferring to sacrifice his animal to any unknown perils. The appropriate approach for such a search is to walk abreast one to two meters apart which allows a large amount of land to be covered, single file there is no advantage over someone going solo.

Within minutes a small specimen was discovered by another group and this 2 meter youth was photographed like a star at a movie opening.

We returned for what proved to be the best meal of the trip, vegetable minestrone, broiled chicken, potato salad, white rice, beets, brocolli and cauliflower. It was time to hang out. The women of my group complained about the heat, about the sun on the Anaconda hunt, about the extreme ardour of the walking and in general lamented their sorry condition. The men were either much less bothered or more stoic.

As the rest of my group slept in hammocks I walked down the bank, found a cut into the pampas and explored on my own. The sun was high and hot, but certainly not as bad than a day in Texas in late June. Time after time I came upon a large number of capybara. The huge rodents, who calmly observed boats pass within meters of them on the river scurried with alarm when I came within 20 meters of them. I had either encroached on their zone of safety our they are seriously deficient in the senses of hearing, smell, and vision.

Piranha Fishing

Around 3:00 we headed upstream for about 90 minutes and arrived at the piranha fishing spot. Boats from every group and tour company were less than a boat length apart; I have a hard time believing there is a piranha hole in this one to two meter deep water, besides the fishing were biting within half a meter of the surface. We baited our hooks with little pieces of beef. One person from another tour group caught a piranha but no other fish were caught by any one not a guide. Within seconds of putting my line in the water I would get nibbles but I could never hook a fish. When I had the hook four inches below the water, half a foot from the boat I could see my hook and the bait. Fish came downstream and beneath the hook, took a bite at the meat and dashed off, in the muddly water I couldn't even see them, but I could see the point on my hook. If the point of the hook is never going into the mouth of the fish there is no way to hook them. Had I an option I would have traded the number four hook I had for something a couple of sizes smaller. How the guides caught them I'll never know. About an hour after we arrived we had all wrapped our lines around the little pieces of wood on which they were wound.

We stopped at the soccer and volleyball camp, just a mowed field with a one room wooden shack with a room divider. The foot of a bed extended beyond the end of the divider, into doorless opening; a dresser gave further evidence that this was the living quarters and the front served as the concession area. I bought Niegro a beer and had a chance to mingle with the other group and had a very interesting conversation for an hour or so and then bought Niegro another beer. By a quarter past seven it was dark save light from the full moon. We headed back down stream for an hour. Frequently the moon would be obscured by deep cloud cover or trees. I sat at the front of the boat, there were many obstacles in the river, usually branches the overhung the river or stumps that stuck up. Sitting at the front of the boat I was amazed that Niegro thirty feet behind me expertly piloted the boat around all.

We returned to a dinner of lukewarm unrinsed pasty pasta and bollognaise sauce.
One of our group produced some ganja procured from the moto taxi drivers in Rurrenabaque and the conversation that I could understand became to insipid to bear and I went to bed.

Day 3

After breakfast of rubbery scrambled eggs and various fried dough we left to look for pink dolphin. Just a few hundred meters downstream a couple of them would occassionally crown. People got out to "swim with the dolphins" who always seemed to be at least 30 meters away. The caimans watched the activity from the banks. Everyone who was not swimming was photographing the non event. The South African women said, "why are are they called Pink Dolphins?" I explained that they were dolphins and that they were pink. Perhaps now you can guess what a wonderful display we were observing. A dinner plate sized spot would occassionally near the surface as the dolphin came up for air, the rest of the beast obscured by muddy water.

On the return trip Niegro pulled over and we stopped beneath a tree for no apparent reason. When Niegro got out of the boat a small pride ??? of ??? monkies scurried over. Bribing the monkies with banana enticed them to scurry over the tourists who happily posed for picture after picture.

We had an unmemorable lunch and headed back to Santa Rosa. Even a golden eagle landing on a tree branch 3 meters from the boat and 2 meters above the water would not deter our guide from proceed with unabated speed to Santa Rosa, the need for expedience beyond my comprehension.

Santa Rosa

In Santa Rosa Niegro consulted with a local guide, per my request on an opportunity to do something a bit more my speed. I wanted to actually come to a stop on the river to do some photography and proceed to the lake. We had been fishing for red piranha, which are the size of a small woman's hand, I wanted to go for the two kilogram beasts in the lake and then look for the eight meter Anaconda in the surrounding swamps. When I find a big snake I want it to weigh far more than I do, not be smaller than the one's I have owned as pets.

Unfortunately the road is unpassable, but is being worked on. I took the guide's phone number and told him that I would check with him after my jungle trek.
We rode for three hours, due south, the sun beating through my open window and tailgated trucks to ensure that will inhaled the most amount of dust possible. After arriving at the Amazonia offices I got my bags out of storage and walked back to the hostel while the rest of my group waited to load up the van. I was back fifteen minutes before them. I cropped and culled the pictures, gave a copy to those that requested them and we had a few beers, dinner and played pool.