Apr 19 Amazonia Pampas

On very little sleep after climbing Huayna Potosi the morning before and attending a chaotic seder at Chabad of Bolivia, I caught a 6:15 flight to Rurrenabaque.  The 35 minute flight in a double engine turbo prop plane was beautiful.  We flew low over the Cordillera Real, right past Huayna Potosi.  It was gratifying to think that I had stood on the summit only 24 hours previously.  The terrain changed dramatically on the far side of the Cordillera into lush greeness.

We landed and I was greeted by the humidity and mosquitos.  A french pastry chef peddaled his wares at the airport and I couldn't resist the flaky goodness of his croissants.  I had 2 hours before my tour started, so I wandered around town.  There were four groups leaving that day from Indigena Tours.  We were crammed in 4x4 vehicles for the heinous 3.5 hour drive to the river port.  The road was a wreck and it was hot and dusty.  We had a nice lunch in Santa Rosa before boarding our canoes on the Rio Yacuma.  The canoes had outboard motor and 8 seats for passengers.  We were to spend the remainder of the afternoon cruising around in canoes and looking for wildlife.  It was so hot that our guide let us jump in for a swim with the pink dolphins immediately.  I went swimming in a tributary to the Amazon!  The river water was dark brown and running very full as the rainy season has just ended.

Tour group and canoe

A quick dip in the Amazon to cool off.

 We spotted lots of weird and wonderful wildlife.  Highlights on day 1 included Squirrel Monkeys, Huatzin, storks, turtles, pink dolphins, hawks, ibis, egrets, dragonflies, termite colonies, and the largest bats I had ever seen.

Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoatzin)

River turtle



The very entertaining and social Squirrel Monkey (saimiri boliviensis)

 After boating around for 3 hours we arrived in camp which was a run down lodge of sorts.  After a nice cold shower, I layered up for sunset for when the mosquitos are particularly thick.  For some strange reason, it is actually more hot and humid in the early evening than the rest of the day.  We went to a bar called the Pink Dolphin where we watched the sunset with every other tour group on the river.  We returned to camp to an amazing dinner of salsa, rice, 5 different vegetable dishes, and juice.  After dinner we went out boating to look for caimans.  There eyes are red at night.  This wasnt a huge deal for me as it was for others having spent lots of time in Florida around alligators.

I spent the remainder of the evening solo sitting out on the boat and taking in the night sounds of the pampas.