Day: 399
The days here on the steamy shores of the Amazon are drifting in and out of similarity, unable to seem to know where to land. It rains, the sun blazes and we constantly lounge around in hammocks loving life. Quite a nice break if I dont say so.
Day: 398
Our days are pretty simple, eating and relaxing, trying to avoid the worst of the days heat in the shade, then eating again. We manage to rally the energy to buy plane tickets for 3 days from now, when we´ll be leaving the Amazon basin and heading up to lake Titicaca, which makes me smile everytime I say it.
Day: 397
It rained most of the day and we are still wasting lots of time together. We did manage to get Felicia´s visa extended (mine is for 90 days, here was 30), so we don´t have to rush out of Bolivia.
Day: 396
After our Amazon adventure, we realized we were exhausted from traveling and have decided to stay put for a while here in Runnenabaque for a few reasons: the aforementioned exhaustion, its cheap, and we still have a couple weeks until we meet Ed in Cusco and there is only a couple of other places to visit between here and there.
Day: 395
After a morning of making assorted jewelry out of forest nuts and branches (I swear its like summercamp here), we hike the 2 kilometers back to the river and boarded the boat, with the utmost caution of the quicksand, to head back upriver for 4 hours to return back to Rurre for the next few days until we can get a flight back to La Paz.
Day: 394
To answer your questions (Grandpa), yes we do have repellent. Actually we have three types, REI Jungle Juice, and aerosol can of OFF, and a 30 DEET Cutter Glue stick type thing. We also have mosquito coils constantly burning in our lodge and sleep under mosquito nets. Everytime we go out we apply layers of all three, and it seems to work to some extent, yet for some reason the mosquitos here seem to be dying of hunger and about one percent of the clouds of millions seem to have a DEET immunity and still fly through my array of defenses, leaving Felicia and I with numerous bites. We have met a few people without repellent, and all I can say is I really don´t envy them and there skin which appears to be covered in some awful disease.
Anyways, today was spent partly on a boat looking for birds (where Felicia had to row, whilst I took pictures) and partly in the jungle looking for monkeys with our guide, Señon.
Day: 393
We walked through the endless jungle looking for animals, assorted plants and sweating the combined equivalent of 3 gallons of water. It might just have been me but the furry tree anteaters seemed to be cooler than my poor Southern Californian ass…
Anyhow, we did manage to see all sorts of jungle creatures, and even manage to each only get about 30 mosquito bites each throughout the day; that was until we decided to go looking for Caimans on the lake after dark with only the full moon and our flashlights to show the way.
When you shine the your light across the lake you see these evil red eyes everyware, they are Caiman (a sort of croc.), its pretty cool to see, but the major danger was the armies of mosquitos who number in the millions and swarm all over you and your flashlight. I have never before been unable to breath due to the fear of inhaling hundreds of mozzies. Quite disgusting.
Day : 392
After a late breakfast and waiting an extra 45 minutes after our supposed departure time, Felicia and I boarded a river boat and headed downstream on the Beni (pronounced Behney) for the next three hours, checking out all sorts of going ons (aka nothing really other than a really wide river).
The absolute best part of my day was when we arrived at the riverbank to hike the 1.8 kilometers up to the jungle lodge we were staying at. The boat pulled up to the bank, and with only Felicia and I on the boat I walked up to the front to jump off, I saw a couple guys on the shore bringing over what looked like a gangplank (to walk down off the boat), but it was only about two feet to the shore, so I just jumped. As soon as my first foot left the edge of the boat I had four guys screaming ¨NO!¨ as I cleared the edge of the boat I realized I might have made my first mistake in the jungle…
Within moments I found myself thigh deep in river quicksand. I couldn´t move and Felicia, being to paralyzed by laughter didnt manage to get a picture of me buried in mud, or the proceding process of two guys using all their strength to extract me from the muck.
Anyways, after a moment like that, the rest of the day, fishing for Piranha, watching glorious sunsets or treking through the jungle seems uneventful…
Day: 390
We got up early this morning to get to the military airport to get on our military transport, into the Jungle town of Rurrenbaque, in the Amazon basin, complete with grass runway. We were planning on getting on one of the cheap 3 day ($50) tours throughout the region, but after some research we started seeing patterns of stories from other travelers who were disgusted by most of the ¨Eco¨tour operators, and their practices that seem to be destroying most of the surrounding area with tourism. The guides speed through the jungle on motor boat scaring animals away, find anacondas and handle them, fish the areas to extinction, and hunt anything that the tourists want to eat. It is causing irrepairable damage to this beautiful area, which is one of the planets most diverse regions.
There is a large population of tourists here who seem to only want to bargin for the best price and the most interaction with the animals, which seems to constantly drive the prices and quality down. Unfortunatly it looks as if much of the damage is being done by a single group of people, the young Israelis who have just been released from their 3 year stint in the Gaza strip conflict.
Just a sample: on the plane this morning there were 40 people; Felicia and I, an Austrailian couple, a local mother and Daughter, and 34 Israelis. It is unfortunate, but after talking with a few tour companies we found the trend was to cater to what the tourist demanded, and this group in particular is demanding it all for very little given back to the local area.
(I hate to list one group of people as the sole problem with an area, but in this case it seems to be the truth. I am not saying all Israelis are horrible, at least thanks to my experience with Nimrod in China, or that no one else takes part in this damaging system, but from my point of view on the ground here, it seems to be the case in Amazonian Bolivia.)
Felicia and I, really want to see the region but were uber concerned about how to have the least impact on the enviroment and the most possitive impact on the actual local economy. It left us having to decide to take the less of the present evils. We went to the one tour company, Bala Tours, who seemed to have the least horrible ethics and discussed with them what was availble. We weren´t extremely impressed, but it seemed to be the best choice listed in the Lonely Planet. We wandered back to our hotel discussing if we thought the $150 tour would be better then the bargin companies who seem to be wrecking this area.
Then we came across a posh looking agency, Madidi Travel, on our way home for a midday siesta, we stopped in just to see what they offered. We were invited to come in, sit down and read through their packages and the National Geographic article written about the area 8 years ago. We got to reading and before we knew it a quiet older Bolivian woman came and sat down with us and began speaking in a perfect American accent about what they do there.
This woman, it turns out, is Rosa Maria, who is written about in the article and singlehandly created Madidi national park in the face of every kind of opposition imaginable. She went on to spend the next two hours discussing with Felicia and I, all about her life in the Bolivian jungle, fights with logging companies, American politics & the upcoming election, and the problem with the other tour operators in town. She told how a few years back someone torched her jungle lodges and the local government refused to let her run her conservation programs. Rosa Maria eventually was force out of operating in the park she birthed and now helps operate a lodge on one of the other river systems nearby. She is easily one of the more interesting people I have ever met, Felicia felt the same way.
After hearing all the horror stories about what goes on with tourism in Madidi, Felicia and I signed up to take a 4 Day, 3 Night trip out to the Serene lodge, although it ended up costing significantly more then the competion but we agreed it was the only way we could morally see this area.
Anyways, the rest of the day passed uneventfully, in the sweaty heat of the jungle until we finally found a little cafe where we passed the night playing boardgames and drinking beer. Before heading to sleep at night we found themain plaza filled with what looked like a naval graduation, although Bolivia is landlocked, which left me rather confused.
Our tour starts the day after tomorrow, so we´ll be about 4 or 5 days before another new post, while we are deep in the Amazon.
