Survivor Bolivia: Amazon

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.