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hola! I have just returned to la paz after a week of jungle adventures and am heading off to puno to meet sarah at lake titkaka tommorow!!
I set off last monday and flew firslty to Rurrembaque, a small town north of la paz. the flight was quite exctiting as it is only a 20 seater plane and the turbulence over the mountainous areas was terrible. a few times it just felt as though we were droppong out of the sky! the landing stip in rurrembaque would more acuraltely be described as a field, but despite this the landing was quite good. Rurre is a surprisingly nice town, well set up for tourists who go there to get to the jungle. as a ruselt there are lots of nice hostels and restaurants etc.
on the second morning I started a 2 day jungle tour with a girl called carolyn who was laso staying in Loki La Paz. we travelled by motorised canoe for 3 hours down rio beni, though spectacular scenery - steep mountains covered with dense rainforest. Our camp was also quite nice, 3 wooden huts in a clearing and they even had proper toilets! our guide, Nelson (apparently a common name in the cechauan tribes of the area), took us on a hike through the jungle.
It was pretty hard going due to the humitdity and climbing over trees and vines but so many fantastic things there! Lots of enormous spiders, turtles, frogs, snakes and very nasty biting ants. We tracked a group of wild boar for half an hour before spotting them. they are quite easy to find as they smell strongly of french cheese. also so many cool plants. my favourite was the strangler fig, a tree whose seed lands in the branches of other trees. after sending down initial roots to the ground to supply water, it grows more and more roots that gradually constrict the original tree. It eventually dies and the strangler fig roots fuse together to form a new hollow trunk where the old tree had been. also there were walking trees that can move slowly by killing and growing specific supporting roots to find better light.
In the evening we did a night trek which was very eerie. Here we heard a puma that was very close but could not see it. i found it terrifying when we turned the torches off as it was pitch black and there were so many noises! Next day we headed back to rurre by boat again before heading off the following day to start a 3 day pampas tour.
The pampas is wetlands with open grasslands and rivers just north of rurrembque. Firtly, we had a three hour jeep ride before reaching the pampas river. there we were back on motorised canoes. the pampas river is the most fantastic place, so much wildlife. There were animals litterally everywhere. I must have seen hundreds of aligators and caimen, Kapybaras, river turtles, pink river dolphins, stalks (enormous and impressive birds), eagles, herons, jungle pigeons and an anaconda! we went swimming twice with the dolphins (also only a few metres away from the aligators!). In the evening there was quite a good commuinty of travellers as all the companies would go to the same bar to watch the sunset. We also went fishing for pirahnas and i caught three but they were too small and I had to throw them back. Our group were really fun and I had a fab time.
However as the week went on the temperature kept rising as did the humidity. Yesterday was around 37deg with no breeze and humidity near 100%. It was clear a storm was arriving and we were pretty concerned as the planes cant leave if airfield is wet. luckily the weather held but as we stepped off the plane in la paz we were very glad for the cool, high altitude climate!
ciao
trine
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