A trip to the Amazon was right up there on my South American bucket list. We chose to do the tour in Bolivia mainly because it’s super cheap compared to other countries, particularly Brazil. Generally there are two types of tours – a jungle tour or a pampas tour. The jungle takes you right into the Amazon rainforest but it can be difficult to spot animals, while the pampas takes you through the Amazon Basin’s wetlands and is good for wildlife spotting. As an animal nut, I insisted upon the pampas tour.
After a short flight from La Paz we landed in Rurrenabaque (flights are cheap, meaning you skip a terrible 24 bus ride on unpaved roads and we got to see the sun rise over the Andes, which cast beautiful golden pink light over the mountains). We were travelling with our friend Uriah who we had met at the Wildrover and decided to book the three day tour back in La Paz with Extreme Expeditions as we were arriving early in the morning and wanted to start the tour on the same day. It’s much cheaper to book your tour once you’re in Rurrenabaque but we didn’t have the luxury of time so ended up paying a few hundred Bolivianos more.
The tour starts with a horrible four hour jeep ride along an extremely potholed and bumpy road – this was pretty horrendous considering we were travelling with a hangover. Finally we got to the where the boats depart along the Yacuma River. The boats are narrow with two fold down seats on each side, there were eight of us on our tour plus our guide but the boat accommodated us fine. We cruised along the river for several hours spotting alligators, caiman, monkeys, capybaras, pink dolphins, turtles and lots of birds. The tour included food and basic accommodation at the Pampas Lodge. That evening we headed further along the river to watch the sunset and meet up with the other tour groups for beers (we bumped into lots of our Wildrover mates, including the two Gemmas and Tim from NZ).
The following day was spent anaconda hunting – we came across a South American cobra and an anaconda, despite the cold and overcast weather – and piranha fishing. On the final day we jumped into the river to swim with the pink dolphins (I consider myself quite brave considering the waters are infested with piranhas and there were alligators floating a few metres away).
We stayed one night in Rurrenabaque following the tour as the thought of relaxing by the pool in tropical weather sounded delightful. Unfortunately only the first day of our tour was warm and sunny, with the other days unseasonably cold and overcast. We stayed at Ambaibo Backpackers Hotel, which was cheap, has a huge pool, nice rooms and a pet toucan! It was also located a block away from the French patisserie that sold the best crossaints and pastries I’ve had since Paris.
The tour we booked with was one of the cheaper ones on offer and as such it wasn’t terribly eco-friendly. Our tour guide encouraged us to feed the monkeys and alligators, even though the pamphlet handed to us by the park rangers specifically said not to feed the animals. I also don’t think we were suppose to handle the snakes and piranhas, but again no complaints from our tour guide. But the pampas tour has been one of the best things we have done in South America and I highly recommend to anyone who makes their way to Bolivia!
Chasing the Cheese 