We spent a couple of days hanging out in Rurrenabaque, staying at the delightful Hotel Maya de la Amazonia. Found a nice little cafe that became our place to hangout and play cards. Interesting the number of Israelies around the place and also the locals love of very loud music. It’s also the first time on our travels that we felt like we could be in Asia – except the food is not as nice.
We met with Norman, the owner of Madidi Expeditions https://www.madidiexpeditions.com on Monday night to talk us through our 3 days in the Pampas. The pampas are basically low lying grasslands that flood during the wet season and then slowly drain during the dry months. They are teeming with bird life, monkeys and other smaller mammals.
Norman and his driver, Michael, picked us up the next morning at 9.30 (was meant to be 8 then 9) for a 3 hour drive to Santa Rosa del Yacuma. The Chinese are building a road connecting eastern Bolivia with Brazil – at this stage the road is still unsealed with lots of work ongoing. Hence the drive was incredibly dusty, quite scary at times as the visibility was zero while overtaking another vehicle. Anyway we made it safety to our idyllic retreat in Yacuma. At this stage it was just Deryn and I, with another couple joining us for the second day.
We had a great lunch (love the fried chicken) and then headed out in a longboat into the pampas for some viewing and piraña fishing. Norman told us that this pampas wears one of the 1000 plus tributaries that flowed into the Amazon. Amazing. First to be seen was the Caiman – basically a croc. Also we saw lots of the very shy, but noisy, Serere. They looked like a cross between a vulture and a turkey. We saw heaps of cranes, herons, kingfishers and even got invaded by a troop of Yellow Squirrel Monkeys. We then stopped for some fishing and before long was hauling in red belly piranhas (the most dangerous – no way were we taking the hook out of their mouths!) and some sardines. We kept some of the bigger ones for dinner. Eat or be eaten! On the journey back we saw some Howler Monkeys, not howling at this stage.
We sat on our private little deck playing cards with the teeming birdlife all around and some pink dolphins frolicking in the lagoon in front of us. After another fine feed (Pino the cook is great), including some very tasty piranha, we headed out into the pampas for some night viewing. We finally figured out that our torches were best held in our hands and not fastened to our heads – it stopped us getting a face full of insects – which Norman found very funny. The setting sun was spectacular as was the glowing red eyes of the Cayman. Sleep was steamy but thankfully we did not have to sleep under the mosquito net as the room was reasonably insulated.
The next morning we drove to another part of the pampas, including crossing the Beni river in a hand drawn ferry, to look for anacondas. We did not manage to see any anacondas but saw a lot of Capybaras – basically giant Guinea Pigs. We returned to base for some hours chilling on the deck watching the wildlife at play while reading. Our other guests turned up around 2 – Swiss banker was my guess. We heard them talking German over lunch so asked where there were from. Switzerland. Damn I’m good.
Back into the boat after lunch for some more viewing. We got to see the rare Jabiru stork and even a sloth (sort of!). We also got to hear a troop of Howler Monkeys howling in the distance. Quite an eery sound. We flagged the night trip and instead decided on an early night – this viewing stuff is exhausting – plus we were heading out at 6am for a sunrise trip. The mosquitoes were brutal before dawn but once out in the boat, not too bad. Watching the sun come up was great, as was getting to hear properly the early morning wake up calls of the Howler Monkeys.
We then spent a few more hours chilling and reading on our favourite deck. Pretty special being in the middle of all this wildlife. Could spend days just sitting there. Unfortunately our time had ended and it was back into the car for our drive back to Rurrenabaque. It had been raining so the trip was not as dusty but the water filled potholes made it potentially even more dangerous. It was a bit sad saying goodbye to Norman – he seemed to enjoy us as much as we enjoyed him. A mutual love of humour! Another night in the lovely Maya del la Amazonia before heading to Santa Cruz in the morning.
It was raining when we woke up so were a bit concerned the flight might be cancelled. We were assured it was OK so headed to the airport only to find that our flight was actually the next day. Duh. Oh well, back to the Maya for another day of chilling in the rain. I have managed to download the final Game of Thrones series so maybe a G o T binge.