Rurrenabaque

A month ago, on Halloween weekend (Day of the Dead is celebrated here on November 2nd), Dave and I explored Bolivia’s Amazon rainforest, via the small town of Rurrenabaque. Rurrenabaque is in the North West of Bolivia and is not very accessible; travelers have two transportation options, to either take a small plane from La Paz to the dirt runway of Rurrenabaque, or to take a 20 hour bus ride from La Paz, but caution, the road is impassable when it rains; we chose option A, the flight.

Rurrenabaque (Rurre) is popular as a traveler’s base for trekking into the Amazon or touring the pampas. With only a long weekend, we had to choose, and chose to explore the Amazon for two days in Parque Nacional Madidi. We arrived in Rurre on Saturday afternoon and booked our trip with a tour operator for the following morning. On Sunday morning, we awoke to torrential rains, and realized we needed to put our ponchos on and meet our tour guide down at the river to start our two days in the jungle. Soon we were in a motorized dug out canoe (with a cover), in our ponchos, cruising down the Río Beni in the rain with three fellow tourists from Germany, and after three hours, we reached our camp site.

After lunch, we headed out on our first hike with our guide, Eloy. We saw several small yellow monkeys and explored the amazingly dense Amazon forest. We came back to camp for dinner, and then ventured out on a night hike. With our flashlights, we navigated the forest, staying close to our knowledgeable guide. When we came upon water (a stream or swamp), Eloy would chop down a few small trees, and make a bridge for us. On the night hike we saw tons of spiders, to include a tarantula! It was the size of a kitten and black and hairy! Unbelievable, literally beyond anyone’s imagination (Aunt Jane and Callie, you would not have liked the night hike!) Our guide’s sense of direction was astonishing; in a vast forest, with seemingly no landmarks, he was always capable of orienting himself with the camp site, and finding alternate paths.

The next morning, we woke up and enjoyed a huge breakfast of pancakes and fruit. We set out on another hike with Eloy, who told us that for the next few hours, he was going to show and tell us about the natural medicines in the Amazon. Again, his knowledge was really amazing; he would stop and tell us about a tree that produced a syrup that you could drink to cure malaria, another tree whose leaves you crushed and made into tea to ease your throat, another whose leaves acted as Viagra, and so many more. On our walk we also saw a herd of wild pigs (cerdos de la selva), which looked like wharthogs. After lunch, we got back in our canoe and headed back to Rurre where we spent our last afternoon lounging in hammocks.