Rurrenabaque and the Pampas

We've spent a lot longer in Bolivia than originally planned after deciding to go to the Amazon here.  It's the cheapest place to visit it in South America and there's no malaria here either.  So we left the van in secure parking in La Paz and got a flight to Rurrenabaque.

It's very hot & humid here and so different to La Paz.  It's not like any other Bolivian town we've been to.  It's very South East Asian, with motorcycles dominating - there are almost no cars here, apart from the 4x4s taking tourists around.  And at night there are street food stalls (although not of the same calibre as SE Asia - mostly chicken & chips and burgers) and lots of stalls selling tourist tat (cheap sunglasses and jungle essentials).

The first night we were in a hostel called El Curichal - recommended by the guide book, but it was actually the furthest out of town.  We only booked for one night as we intended to go on a tour the day after we arrived, but we got disillusioned with the number of tour agencies and the major difference in prices we were quoted, so we needed another night.  El Curichal let us down though by running out of breakfast early - the guy said they'd run out of bread and instead of offering a solution, like going to buy more, he just shrugged his shoulders.  A poor showing for an out-of-town hostel, so instead of booking in for a second night, we packed our bags and went to check out what else was on offer.  We settled on a place called Hostal Touristico Santa Ana, great location on the same street as all the tour agencies and stumbling distance from the two good bars in town.  Plus it was cheaper than El Curichal at 100Bs (£9) for a private double and with wifi that works in the rooms.  No breakfast, but it's across the road from the highly-recommended French bakery.

Then we spent ages trying to work out which agency to do our tour with.  Initially we were looking to do the popular 5-day, 4-night combo tour of the jungle and Pampas.  But the first place we went to quoted us 1000Bs, while another reputable agency wanted 2750Bs.  Such a big difference in price for supposedly the same tour - the only difference is meant to be the standard of food and accommodation.  

We spent a day investigating why the price difference was so big and found that some agencies had really bad tour guides who lied or handled the animals or weren't trustworthy.  We decided not to go for the cheapest we could get, and although the expensive agency consistently gets 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor, we didn't want to pay 2.5x the going rate, so we settled on a shorter 3-day Pampas tour with Indigena for 900Bs.

We really lucked out with our guide.  Luis not only spoke really good English so we got loads of information, he was really knowledgable and amazing at spotting animals in among the trees.  And he was happy to adapt to what we wanted to do.  We were also very lucky with our fellow tourists and got on really well with them.  We were a group of 8 - another couple from France, Bertrand and Justine; three French girls who'd just finished their studies, Charlotte, Marie and Appoline; and a Dutch guy called Arno.

L-R: Marie, Appoline, Me, Paul, Bertrand, Luis, Justine, Arno, Charlotte

On the first day, we had a 2.5 hour drive on that crappy, bumpy Bolivian road to the river, then a 2-hour boat ride to the lodge, spotting animals along the way.

Capybara, biggest rodent in the world.

Turtles

Crocodile

Monkeys

We stayed in a lodge on the banks of the Yacuma and did our excursions from there.

There was also a chillout area with hammocks and deckchairs.

Activities over the 3 days included a nighttime boat ride to look for crocodiles and alligators, shining torches to reflect off their red eyes:

Looking (unsuccessfully) for anacondas:

Piranha fishing (no luck with that either):

This was the bait being air dried at the lodge:

My fishing line complete with bait:

We also went swimming with pink dolphins, although we didn't strictly swim with them as they weren't feeling playful the day we went.  Here is Paul swimming in the Yacuma river in the rain at the same time as a pink dolphin.

There was also lots of chillout time in between.  It was quite warm and humid, so we swam in the river by the lodge.

All the tour groups were also taken to the Sunset Bar just upstream from our lodge at the end of each day's activities.

Meals were cooked by Thomas, who seemed to live at the lodge, cooking for the daily arrival of tourists.  The food was really delicious (chicken, spaghetti bolognese, beef) but there was always only just enough.  As a table of 8, we seemed to get the same amount of food as a table of 6 and we were usually all still hungry afterwards.  On the second night, we asked for more and Thomas was able to give us more pasta, but no sauce.  It's not like we were starving, but we weren't satisfied, which was disappointing.

(Dinner on the first night and breakfast on the second day.  They're doughnut rings, not calamari.)

We're doing a separate 3-day jungle tour starting tomorrow (Thursday 14th) with Mashaquipe, the more expensive agency that gets really good reviews.

Car meets cow

We spent the last three days in the Pampas or wetlands in the Bolivian Amazon.  It's a popular tour spent riding in a boat on the Yacuma river during the day and sleeping in a lodge on the banks at night.  The memorable things you're meant to take with you are the animals and experiences, such as swimming with dolphins and fishing for piranha.  But for us, it will be the car journey back from the river to Rurrenabaque.  

The road is a stereotypical Bolivian road, with loose gravel, big stones and plenty of potholes.  This was our car when we got in it.

Yep, that's a smashed windscreen.  Most of the cars we've been in in Bolivia have had cracked windscreens to varying degrees, but this was the worst.  One of the suspension springs was broken too and we soon realised why - this driver drove fairly fast, even over potholes.  And there was lots of sudden braking whenever he realised a hole was bigger than he thought.  

What he didn't brake quickly enough for was a cow, which suddenly ran out in front of us.  Of course we hit it, and he was going quite fast, so I was convinced it was coming through the windscreen.  Luckily (if that's the right word) it came off the right side of the car.

That is a dent in the shape of the rear end of a cow on the bonnet, with evidence of the cow emptying its bowel on impact.  The cow survived, but stayed sitting on the side of the road looking shocked, so I assume it suffered damage to its legs and/or internal injuries.  

The driver presumably thought he'd got away with it because after getting out and picking up the light off the bottom left which had come off, he got back in and carried on driving.  About 20 minutes later though, the car started losing power and clunking, so much so we had to stop.  The impact had pushed the radiator back and we had leaked all the radiator fluid and overheated.

It had been raining, so after stopping another car driving tourists back and using drinking water from them, the driver filled the bottle with rainwater from a ditch on the side of the road and poured that in.  He cooled it enough to drive another minute down the road and then we had to stop again.  Impressively by then, about 30 minutes after we broke down, our tour company had managed to get another car to come and take over, so we were spared any more stopping to refill with rain water.  To our relief we also got a new driver, so the old driver had to sit on the handbrake in the replacement car.

Yes, the cow bolted in front of us suddenly, but he shouldn't have been driving as fast he was through a herd of cows in the road.  Wonder what will happen to him...we heard that if drivers crash, they are punished by docking of pay.

Given the state of one of the tyres on the car we had on the way out to the river, I wouldn't be surprised if this happens quite regularly during rainy season.

Well and truly bald!  Scarily, this is pretty standard in Bolivia.

Bits and bobs in La Paz

We hung around in La Paz for quite a while.  One of the good things we did was the free Red Cap walking tours.  Ther's no upfront cost, you just tip what you think at the end (a la Hairy Coo bus tours in Edinburgh).  Given the altitude, they take it easy - slow walks to interesting sites and then you sit down while they tell you a story about each place.  One of the stops is a market where we had the opportunity to buy a snack and drink.  The guides recommended 'super vitaminico' juice, so Paul ordered one of those.  They whizz it up right in front of you so you know it's freshly made - the first thing she put in the blender was a whole egg, shell and all!!!!  It made for a fairly gritty drink.....mmmmmmm.

One girl ordered mango juice from another stall and the woman put mango in the blender with the skin still on, so with every sip she was picking bits of skin out of her mouth!!!  Crazy.

We did better on the snacks though; these are 'papas rellenas' or filled potato - deep fried mash potato balls stuffed with a minced meat filling.

The tour ended on the 17th floor of the Hotel President for a view of the city.

You can also abseil down the outside of the hotel.  We stayed behind after the end of the tour to see 3 people do it, one of them in a Spiderman costume!  This is her practising:

That evening was bonfire night, so there was a mini bonfire with a Guy Fawkes on the roof of the hostel we stayed at.

A couple of days later, Paul and I were in the San Pedro district of La Paz looking to buy a waterproof camera for our trip to the jungle and wetlands.  We didn't really have any luck on that front as electronics are really expensive in Bolivia and waterproof cameras don't seem to be in demand.  But we did try a typical Bolivian lunch.  There weren't many eating options in San Pedro so we just went in to a random little restaurant that we stumbled across.  I think they had two lunch options but one was sold out, so we had no choice - we got a vegetable soup starter and then a breaded pork fillet (Milanese) with rice and salad and a bottle of coke all for 10Bs (90p) each!!  And we didn't get sick or anything - double yay!

(The roof was made of corrugated yellow plastic so the room had an atmospheric yellow hue)

Surviving the Death Road

The old road between La Paz and Coroico is dubbed the World's Most Dangerous Road because it supposedly has the highest number of deaths per kilometre of any road in the world.  It's 60km+ of winding gravelly mountain road, in some places only wide enough for one vehicle.  An average of 27 vehicles a year went over the edge!!  In 2008, a new, safer road was opened, so now the old 'Death Road' is mainly used by cyclists who've paid to see if they can stay on the road at high speed.

Paul and I did this on Monday (4th) - which just happens to be the only day it has rained significantly in the week that we've been here!!  This was the fog at the top when we were getting our bikes sorted.

Now, my account of cycling the Death Road is going to be very different from Paul's.  I rode really slowly!  There were 13 of us in the group and I was always one of the last three or four to go, knowing that I'd be overtaken anyway.  We had 22km of tarmac at the start to get used to the bikes (really good full suspension bikes that went over uneven gravel with ease).  

Then another 40km+ of soaking wet crappy road, loads of blind corners and lots of big rocks in the way....oh and the odd car/truck/lorry.

Below is the site of the road's worst accident - it happened at night, a bus met a car at this single-lane section.  For some reason, the bus was forced to reverse, but the driver couldn't see where he was going and drove over the edge, killing more than a hundred people.

Stories like that made me ride slow!  The bus was always at the end of the group, and at one stage I could hear it behind me and I was worried I might be going too slow and be picked up by it (a la Aimee!) but they let me continue to cycle at my own cautious pace.  

The weather cleared up as we descended, so we could see coca plantations at one of the stops.

Apart from the low visibility and rain, it was rather an uneventful cycle, until the very last section.  As we were on the home straight, a dog suddenly ran out in front of one of the girls forcing her to brake hard.  That sent her over the handlebars and she landed on her mouth.  She lost one and a half front teeth right there and another tooth the next day.  Of all the bloody things that could've happened on the Death Road, a damn dog running out caused this!!!!  Couldn't believe it.  A taxi was arranged to take her to La Paz so she could get seen to properly, while the rest of the group went on to have our showers and food, but we were quite subdued for the rest of the day (including the 3 hour drive back to La Paz).  I felt grateful that my only pain was in my arms from gripping so hard!

(For info, we went with Gravity, the most expensive company at 750Bs (£68) but the best reputation and safety record.  Think the money pays for the bikes, which were fantastic.  Was a bit concerned that the girl who hurt herself couldn't be offered first aid on the spot by the bus driver though.  She had to wait 20 minutes until she got to the guide.)

Bolivian Cholitas Wrestling

Cholita (n) - diminutive form of chola, a woman of mixed Spanish and American Indian ancestry, characterised by traditional clothing including pollera (pleated skirt), manta (shawl) and useless hat

Exhibit A:  a cholita

Exhibit B: a wrestling cholita

Whoever came up with this is a genius!  Every Sunday afternoon, you can go and see Cholitas wrestling in El Alto, on the outskirts of La Paz.  We were picked up from our hostel at 3pm.  Our 80Bs (£7) ticket included popcorn, a drink, two trips to the toilet and a souvenir (wrestling cholita postcards).  Oh, and two hours of this:

At half time, we were allowed in to the ring!

I also learnt that it actually hurts to be dropped in the ring - it's bloody hard!  

Perhaps the funniest part of the afternoon was a bunch of guys from the audience really going for it in the free-for-all.  Will get Paul to upload that video as it still has us in hysterics whenever we watch it back.

Paul: And here it is. Perhaps even funnier than the amateur wrestlers is Christine chuckling away in the background...she was pretty amused...

Quinoa pops and dulce wars

We're in La Paz!  Amazing-looking city nestled in to a valley.  The highest capital in the world (3,660m). The streets are so steep we almost got stuck after getting caught at a red light before the crest of a particularly steep incline.  Thank god Paul was driving - with a little verbal encouragement we managed to coax the van over! 

When we were in Potosi, we had wondered if the body remembers altitude so you don't have to acclimatise again.  The answer is no - at the end of our stay in Potosi, I'd been able to walk more briskly without getting too out of breath.  Here, we're back to square one - it's knackering doing anything!

A good thing about driving ourselves is that we've been able to stop at good vista points.  These were taken from the side of the autopista in to La Paz.

On the way, we passed through a number of toll booths as usual.  You tell them where you're going and pay the appropriate fee, usually 4-6 Bolivianos (the total for Cochabamba to La Paz was about 16Bs).  Anyway, at one booth (in Confital) Paul had to show his driving licence and passport, which was a first.  Then the dude wanted to see that we had a fire extinguisher, which was unusual but we had one, so ok.  Then he wanted to see our warning triangle!  Again, we have one, but it meant climbing in to the back and opening the Cupboard Of Things We'll Never Need.  When we thought there couldn't possibly be anything else he wanted to see, he asked for our first aid kit!  It felt like that game show where they went to your house and asked you to throw certain items out of the window and if you had them all you won a prize (Paul says it was Don't Forget Your Toothbrush).  Luckily, Vix got us first aid kits before we left, so we had everything they wanted to see and they had to let us through!  I was quite chuffed about that - it felt like they were trying to catch us out and failed - not sure what we'd have had to do had we not had everything.

Now here are some other pictures of interesting things that have happened.  To get the van out of the hostel grounds in Cochabamba, we had to bend the spikes above the gate more.  When I say 'we' I mean one of the guys refurbishing the derelict building.

He was incredibly strong.  Paul says it was just because he had a longer pole.  Whatever the reason, he did the job and we got out without making any more holes in the roof.

(View from the roof of the van while walkie talkie-ing Paul through.  The vent just about went under!)

Food-wise, we got some interesting bread in Cochabamba, with cheese baked in - didn't taste too cheesy and gave it an interesting texture, so I like.  

We also found cheese made in Mizque - the village where we camped on a family farm.  Again, acceptable cheese to me.

We are also trying to start a continental South American war with the first annual Mabley-Liu Dulce de Leche competition.  Here we have (from top to bottom) Paraguay v Bolivia v Argentina.

Round 1: Argentina 1-0 Bolivia.  We've not opened Paraguay yet for fear of a dulce-tastrophe during a bad stretch of Bolivian road.  Stay tuned for Round 2.

Staying on food, here's one of the meals we had at the hostel in Cochabamba: chicken with all the carbs - rice, chips and noodles!  No wonder the van is struggling up the hills!

And finally on the food front, South American breakfast cereal: quinoa pops.

Texture like sugar puffs but not as sweet.

In other news, we had a new experience buying fuel.  At a station in Carracollo en route to La Paz, the dude said it was 9 Bolivianos a litre for foreigners but we could have it for 7 if we didn't want a receipt (factura).  We'd heard about this 'no receipt' clause but when we'd said we didn't want a receipt at the other fuel stations it didn't seem to make a difference.  So we got double price instead of triple this time. Woo.