Thursday, 22 September 2011

The Amazon


After the terrifying 22 hour bus journey, we finally arrived in the little jungle town of Rurrenebaque, where we jumped into a jeep for three hours across bumpy dusty roads towards the almighty Amazon. We were greeted by Juan Carlos Wolf, our tour guide and protection from all that is dangerous in the pampas. We hopped onto his little wooden boat and set off in search of animals big and small.

Within a few minutes we were face to face with alligators and caimans, which was a little scary at first but we soon got used to it. Although, when we saw an alligator viciously eat an anaconda two metres infront of us, I was more than a little scared.



After a three hour boat ride along the rivers of the Amazon, we arrived at our little wooden river lodge, where there were monkeys jumping from tree to tree and on our roof, completely unaware and uninterested in our presence in their home.


After settling into our new home for the next three days, we chilled in the hammocks and watched the sunset over the river, before eating a surpringly delicious dinner. After dinner, we hopped back into Juan´s boat armed with torchlights for some night-time caiman spotting. The sky was crystal clear and we were able to see thousands of stars and the milky way. Fireflies buzzed around us as did big bats as we searched for caimans. Their eyes lit up bright ruby red in the dark and from a distance it looked like the trees were dotted with fairy lights, until we shone our torch lights on them and their giant teeth.

We were up early next morning and started our day with anaconda hunting. Needless to say, I was more than a little apprehensive about this activity, but I couldn´t leave the Amazon without seeing one of the worlds deadliest snakes up close. Kitted out with heavy wellington boots we made our way to the muddy swamps. The technique for catching an anaconda is to stand on it whilst in the swamp and wait for the head to pop up, then just grab it. When we eventually found an anaconda, I was surprisingly calmer than I expected to be. Whilst us girls were not brave enought to just grab the head of an anaconda, the guides and some of the more adventurous were.


After a whole morning of searching for deadly snakes, we spent an afternoon in search of man-eating fish as we went piranha fishing.


Using Juan´s homemade fishing rods and raw meat as bait, we watched as the piranhas flocked to the boat. Within 2 minutes, I had caught one. As I reeled it in, I got a little nervous as the piranha jumped around the boat with its sharp teeth chattering at my feet. It wasn´t long before we had all caught some of the nasty-looking little fish, which we later barbequed. Tasty!


We spent the rest of our evening playing jungle volleyball, football and watching another beautiful sunset.

It was a very early start on our third day, as we woke up at 5.30am, jumped onto the boat and made our way down the river to watch the sunrise. It was so peaceful with only the sounds of buzzing insects, noisy cicadas and howler monkeys. A perfect way to start the day.

We spent the morning swimming around in the river to cool off from the horrendous humidity and baking hot sun. As everyone splashed around in the crocodile infested river, the pink dolphins decided to join us for a swim. After searching the river for more interesting jungle animals, we spent another 3 hours on the wooden boat and headed back to the little jungle town of  Rurrenebaque where we would get another boat deep into the depths of the jungle.

The scenery on the way to the jungle was very different to that of the pampas, with huge jade green mountains overlooking the river and small river beaches. It very much reminded me of South East Asia. Four hours later and the boat pulled up in a random spot on the river, as we wondered were on earth our jungle lodge could be. With our heavy backpacks and bags of food ( I was unfortunately asked to carry the eggs) we followed the guide through the jungle. Climbing up muddy banks, through rivers and balancing on narrow tree-trunks was not easy whilst carrying my 18kg backpack and a bag of eggs! Twenty five minutes later, and we finally arrived at our very secluded, extremely basic jungle lodge (without any egg breakages), where we would spend the next two days trekking through the depths of the Amazon. 




There were less animals in the jungle compared to the pampas, although it was full of giant insects and poisonous spiders. As we spent our days battling through the giant jungle, unsuccessfully trying to avoid mosquitos, we were lucky enough to get up close with more monkeys, tarantulas and even a deadly viper snake, and we followed jaguar footprints, although unfortunately we didn´t get to see the jaguar. We picked and ate unknown but delicious fresh fruit, drank the purest water I have ever tasted from the trees and tried medicinal leaves, bark and flowers.




It has been an incredible five days in the Amazon and an absolute highlight of my trip!


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