Survivor Bolivia: Amazon
Day 1:
-Picked up in the bus at midnight for 9 hour drive past
mountains and snow. The moon shined in through my window. Cold. So Cold...
Day 2:
-Scavenged a breakfast in a dusty village and met my team: 5
German volunteers and us, they seem friendly
--Boarded our transport-a wooden boat with tarp as a roof
-Headed down the Amazon: the water was muddy and rough at
times, the jungle dense and dusty and the seats hard. No animals spotted but I
started a book about a group of scientists travelling from La Paz down the
river into the jungle in the Amazon. Day two of camping they are attacked by
bats and turned into vampires beginning the end of the world. I am afraid.
-We stopped for a 2 hour hike through the dense jungle. It
is warm and beautiful, so green. The Germans are funny and make good team
mates. At the end of the hike we come to a beautiful waterfall with icy , crystal
clear water. We’re bathe, wash our hair and Jade and I can refill our water
bottles. If we don’t come upon more places like this we’ll be drinking the
muddy water out of the river.
- 2 more hours of boat riding and we come to a beach. We
sett up camp for the night then hike for
1 hour up a hill in the dark. We see only frogs and bullet ants: ants tha have
a bite as painful as a bullet that lasts for 24 hours. We almost grab a branch
covered in them. Things are different here...
Day 3
-We wake up to a good breakfast of bread and eggs and
tomato. If we don’t find fish today, we won’t have meat for the next day. There
is no water so Jade and I are drinking out of the dirty Amazon river-testing
our life straws to the limit,
-We travel down the river to a meeting point between the La
Paz river and Beni. If we go down the Beni we get to Brazil. We take the Beni.
-The jungle is thicker, more dense-primary forest. We stop
at a ghost town, once a tourist resort, that was flooded and abandoned. A man
is building houses for biology students and we stop for a banana and chat,
sprits are still high despite the sand fly bites and lack of fish. We head into
the jungle for another hike. It is lush and smells amazing. We learn about
which trees kill parasites, which has poisonous sap to be used for spearing
animals and which start growing on the branches of trees and grow down to
suffocate the mother tree and turns into a big hollow cast.
-We set sail through beautiful gorges, past small groups of
villages and into the deeper jungle. After a long argument between everyone and
the captain, we set up camp on the beach. The full moon rises and I share how
on the second night all the scientists in my book were attacked by bats. Now we
are all afraid.
-Uneventful night filled with marshmallows, rum, lentils and
stories-the bats never came
Day 4
-Last day until civilization: we head out early to the
forest for a hike. It is the densest and oldest yet-the amazon rainforest
without a person in sight. It is beautiful and peaceful until the guide shouted
‘run’ . We ran through the rainforest to see 100 wild boars cross our paths. So
exciting!
-We catch the boat the rest of the day and come to a small,
dirty town deep in the jungle called Rurrenabaque. This is the end of our first
leg and we book into hotels for showers and meet up with our friends for half
price cocktails.
Day 5
-After a luxury night in the hotel, we pack up and pile into
a jeep with our new group: 5 Israelis just out of the army. In an attempt to get
our two south African friends onto our boat we accidently got ourselves kicked
off.
-After 3 hours of 4WDing through the dust and jungle we come
to our start point: a small wooden boat.
-We cruise through the flooded swamp lands known as the
pampas and, 5 minutes in, see pink dolphins swimming around us. On the way to
our hostel we see golden monkeys, many birds and turtles.
-We arrive at our
hostel, buildings on stilts, for popcorn. We are supposed to go crocodile
searching but it is so cold that we build a fire and huddle instead
Day 6: Anacondas and a magic carpet ride
-Early start with fried doughnuts
-Anaconda searching: Head to the swamp land with big
gumboots and spend 2 hours trudging through the mud and water. The gumboots are
for protection against snakes, not to keep our feet dry-my boots are full of swamp
water. Our guide yells ‘run’ and we take off to find a baby anaconda trying to
slither away
-Return to camp victorious for a siesta
-Head out in the sunny afternoon for a bit of pirahna
fishing. The water is still and the pampas alive with animals-we change sites 3
times and catch 1 fish to share between 8. We stop for sunset at a house and
the house cat gets into our boat and eats it...
-That night, after vegetarian food, we head out onto the
pampas to see crocodiles. I’m in the front seats with Matarn, an officer from
the Israelis army. The stars were out in force and reflected in the water. It
was so beautiful to cruise through and so romantic that neither of us were
looking for corocodiles. Instead, we sang at the top of our lungs ‘A whole new
world’ by Aladdin, Disney. Turns out this officer knows all the Disney songs in
2 different languages.
Day 7:
-The final day with our group
-Head out early and jump in the water. Soon we are
surrounded by playful, pink dolphins that steal our water bottles and nibble
our toes. I had sticks behind me, one underneath me and one in front. Very fun
but a little scary.
-Headed back, stopping to admire the tortoises and
crocodiles
-3 hours more on the jeep and back to our hotel for a shower
Day 8:
Spent the day in luxury with our South African and American
friends: coffee, ice cream and a pool at the hotel
-Bought banana bread off a man who asked us what is love and
proceeded to lecture us on god for 1 hour. The arrival of a toucan saved us. He
later found us in a restaurant to give us his hand outs.
-Got on a bus at 11pm. It didn’t leave till 12:30. It was
rough and had no toilet so I ended up going in fields, behind shops and at
truck stops. We are the only tourists on the bus and everyone is staring.
Day 9
Wake up thinking we have only 7 hours left. We stop in a
village called Silla for breakfast to find out there is road works happening
and the road is closed until the finish for the day at 4:30. Silla is a village
of about 8 houses nestled in the mountains. There are no western anythings, it
is a rural village that never sees tourists. The kids were fascinated with us
and hung around drawing the whole time.
Hour 1: beg the guy to let us through in Spanish then order
a coffee and play cards
Hour 2:Looking for things to do, we hike through the mountains, past waterfalls
and among cows
Hour 3: go ‘shoe shopping’ in the only shop. Buy all the
different kinds of sweets and chips we can
Hour 4-5: We eat lunch in the only restaurant-a shed where
we bought the coffee(egg and rice), patience is wearing thin. Argue with a 9
year old over 7 cents based on principle for 30 minutes. Lose but then get the
money back when her mother sent her back to me, win!
Hour 6-8: Colour in and draw with the kids with our brand
new textas and books we purchased at the shop. Write in journal- we’re almost
there
Hour 9: clamber onto our bus with a sad good bye to our new
sila friends-we made it!
Budget of 2 main meals, coffee, two teas and snacks: $3
-The next 12 hours
were absolutely terrifying. We were 4WD in a bus over muddy, loose roads where
there was no railing and a cliff dropping all the way down, too much!
Day 10:
-5am after 31 hours of numerous adventures and trials on
this toiletless bus, we get to La Paz, check into our hostel, take our first
shower in two days(this is becoming a habit) and pass out.
