The River Wild

The River Wild
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

We had never heard of Rurrenabaque or the wonders that lay within the Pampas until we met some other travellers who told us about swimming with pink dolphins, piranha fishing, monkey spotting and seeing more cool animals than we could imagine. Needless to say there was not a chance that we were going to miss out on a tour here. After much research we decided that whilst we could go with any old agency for half the price, most of the tours are not very environmentally friendly, they have a cayman locked in a pond next to their lodges, they feed the monkeys to get them into the boats and the money made from the tours goes into the pocket of whoever gets it first. We found Mashiquipe Lodge after lots of hunting, which was much more up our street. No animals are held captive in the lodge, no animals are fed to bring them closer and the money made goes back into the community to help support them. Getting to Rurrenabaque we had a flight booked and when we walked out onto the runway my worst fears were realised. We had heard about these tiny little planes with just 19 seats that flew the route and whilst Tim was overjoyed about the concept of flying in this toy plane, I was less than impressed. We had to bend in half to walk down the aisle and there was definitely no overhead lockers and not a cat in hells chance of any inflight service. We could see the pilots at the front as there was no door or anything else separating them from us and mid-flight my heart sank as it seemed that the pilot was having a read of the instruction manual. Thankfully the flight was super smooth and the views were amazing, although I had the only middle seat on the plane with an old man who spent most of the journey trying to work his 1997 model Nokia, looking at the view was not really my priority. This would usually have been one of those kiss the tarmac when we landed moments, however Rurrenabaque Airport is more like a small wooden shack built alongside a dirt road. In fact they were laying the tarmac on the runway as we landed. Wow, this was certainly a special experience. We had to stay the night in Rurrenabaque before heading to the Pampas and starting our tour the following day. We had booked a quaint little hostel and made full use of the hammocks in the courtyard to while away the afternoon. The next day we set off, just us, our guide/driver and one slightly odd Swedish girl who spent the entire journey chewing coca leaves, I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that we were actually at sea level and there was absolutely no chance of getting altitude sickness here! The drive to the lodge in the pampas was a good 3 hours so we just relaxed and watched the world go by in the hope of seeing a cool animal at the side of the road. I could barely focus let alone see anything in a tree as we were speeding past at 60kmph however our driver/guide had some serious skills and suddenly pulled over and declared there was a lazy monkey. We thought that maybe he was just being a bit rude about our primate friends, but it turns out this is the local way of describing a sloth. Lo and behold just meters from the road hanging from a tree was a huge and beautiful sloth. How our driver saw that I have no idea especially as I was now on a mission to find one myself and just got dizzy and sick looking to no avail. We arrived at the Pampas which was actually just the end of the road and the start of a river and unloaded our bags ready to hop on a boat. As always on these tours it is down to mother nature what you see, and it seems that Mother Nature was being super kind to us as we were stood on the bank waiting to get in the boats there must have been 7 pink dolphins just swimming around, blowing air and chasing the storks hanging out on the river bank. The boat trip down the river to our lodge was only about 15 minutes and on the journey we had a pink dolphin following us, saw another lazy monkey, a few turtles chilling on a log and a ton of bird life, this was going to be a great tour. The lodge was absolutely fantastic, our room was a huge wooden hut with an ensuite bathroom, a big comfy bed with a mossie net and the grounds had plenty of deckchairs and hammocks to relax in. We had lunch and whilst the sun was shining set off on our first boat trip to swim with the dolphins. We were all a bit anxious especially as we had met one person who had been bitten by one of these very dolphins. Also the fact that this river had a large population of caymen and piranha all added to the anxiety. However we overcame our fears and before we knew it we were in the water with the dolphins. Sadly the dolphins were not feeling in the most playful or interactive mood so kept their distance from us, which I have to say I didn’t mind too much. They went round us, behind us, through us and that was enough for me, I can definitely cross ‘swimming with pink river dolphins’ off my list! The next few days we took boat trips up and down the river come rain or shine and sadly for us it was mainly in the rain. Luckily we had made the executive decision to buy cheap ponchos in Rurrenabaque and boy did we get value for money from them. Our first night there was a huge storm and the rain barely stopped from then on. We had planned on getting up for a sunrise boat trip but when we looked outside we thought better of it and stayed in bed. Piranha fishing was high on our to-do list and in the rain with most of the animals in hiding except for the trusty pack of capybaras who just hung out on the river bank come rain or shine, it seemed like a perfect day to tick it off our list. Whilst I am on the subject, I have an interesting factoid about capybaras, aside from being the worlds largest rodent, they also have the ability to hold their breath and walk across the bottom of the river to escape predators, like little furry hippos, how cool is that! So back to piranha fishing, we set up the boat in a little offshoot of the river and set about dangling our hand fishing lines into the river. I pretty much expected them to just start jumping in the boat to get the bait but how wrong I was. We waited, we waited, we moved and we waited some more, and then we moved again and waited some more. This piranha fishing malarkey was way harder than they make it look on the tele. Eventually our guide caught a piranha and after killing it he decided to gut it to try and attract some more fish, at which point the dead, disembowelled piranha bit him! He kindly shook his bleeding finger into the river for us and still not one of us so much as had a bite. We gave up and went and ate that one lone piranha for lunch, well Tim did. We made the most in the breaks in the weather and travelled up and down the river were rewarded with sightings of capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys, cayman, herons and a ton of other birds. Not one to be discouraged by our total lack of skill our guide suggested we try piranha fishing one more time, how could we refuse. I was feeling lucky bit it seemed that the piranhas were just not playing ball, we were all cold, wet and about ready to give up when I started to feel some bites on my line and as much to my surprise as the piranhas I pulled a little scallywag out of the water. Yessssssss, piranha fishing, done! Tim and the odd Swedish girl were more than happy to call it quits on the basis of my success and we headed back to the lodge. Our last day we managed to drag our lazy bums out of bed at 4am ready to head down the river to see sunrise and to see some more monkeys, yellow squirrel monkeys to be precise. Our guide had breakfast packed in the boat and we set off to find the perfect spot for sunrise and to see the monkeys. It turns out that there was no perfect spot for sunrise as there was not a single gap in the big grey clouds to see anything very much, but as the light appeared over the river and we pulled up on the bank we were greeted by about 8 li
ttle yellow squirrel monkeys all just checking us out. So worth the 4am start to get up close and personal with these little monkeys. We moored the boat up on the bank opposite and had the most awesome breakfast just sat in the boat. We had cake, we had hot tea (the guide forgot the coffee much to our disgust) and fresh oranges which you could just squeeze the juice from and drink. It was a perfect end to our trip. We may not have been terribly lucky with the weather but we saw everything we hoped for and more. As we took the boat back to the road to head home the capybaras were still lining the bank and the dolphins were flapping around saying bye bye. The trip back to Rurrenabaque was much more treacherous after the amount of rain that had fallen, but our trusty driver got us there in time for our flight back to La Paz. The runway was still in the process of being built and in true airport health and safety style we were all stood on the runway as our flight came in to land. Thankfully we had a real, proper, normal size plane for the journey home, complete with snacks and all. Farewell Pampas, you certainly won over our hearts. What an awesome, amazing, wonderful little slice of Bolivia. Next stop Uyuni and the Salt Flats…