Rosa Maria with rescued baby spider monkey

Welcome to the jungle

After a week in La Paz we decided to head up to the Amazon jungle. This is one of the main things I was looking forward to in the trip so we wanted to pick a good tour. There are basically two different types of tours you can do for the Amazon - a pampas tour or a jungle tour. With a pampas tour you see a lot more animals, and with a jungle tour the focus is more on the environment. There are a few unethical tour operators here and it's important to choose wisely. We ended up paying quite a lot for an ethical, environmentally-friendly jungle tour based in Serere Park in the Madidi National Reserve. The park was founded by Rosa Maria Ruiz, a Bolivian environmentalist and acitvist. It's highly recommended and has been featured in the National Geographic, and it was worth paying extra to do.

To get to the jungle you first have to get to Rurrenabaque. The best and most expensive option is by boat; the worst and cheapest option is by bus. Since we'd splashed out on the tour, we unfortunately had to take the bus - a horrendous 20-hour journey around winding cliffside roads (again) on a cramped double-decker with about 80 other people. There was no air conditioning and no toilet. The road was unsealed for the first half of the journey, and we inhaled about a kilo of dust from the road through the open window. The wheels were so close to ther edge of the cliff that people sitting on the other side of the bus told us that when they looked out of the window, all they could see was the drop.

Rurrenabaque is suffocatingly hot. We had two nights there before and after the tour, and that was enough. We sweated constantly. I had a small block of chocolate in my bag and it quickly became a a small brown puddle (but don't worry - I just drank it). The moon in Rurrenabaque was red when we arrived, because they had been burning off a whole lot of rainforest for crop land. On our three hour boat ride down the jungle river to the lodge, Rosa Maria told us all about the problems they were having with illegal deforestation, hunting, and goldmining. The authorities deny that it's happening because they accept bribes to let it go through. Rosa Maria had a little baby spider monkey on the boat with her that she had rescued from the black market. It's mother had been killed when it was only a few days old.

Once we got off the boat it was a half hour walk to our cabin. The cabin was a big, single room on wooden stilts with a bathroom, big beds, wooden floors, a straw roof and mosquito nets for walls. When you lay in bed you could hear everything moving and shrieking in the jungle around you. It was a rather terrifying walk back to the cabin from the main lodge on the first night, especially after seeing a tarantula the size of a saucer on the wall.

Over the three days our guide took us walking through the jungle, pointing out monkeys and spiders and plants on the way, and on several boat rides through the river and the lakes. The boats are like wooden, dug-out canoes. All of them had holes in them so the person in the middle always had to be on bailing duty, scooping the water out with the bottom of a coke bottle. While on the river we saw countless birds, monkeys and crocodiles. Our guide got really excited every time we saw a crocodile. "Hola croc!" he yelled. "Wow, it's a big daddy one, four metre!". At night in the canoe we slapped off swarms of mosquitos and flying beetles, while shining the torch around to see all the crocodile eyes glowing in the torchlight.

During one walk through the jungle our guide pointed out some wild pig tracks. This didn't really bother me, until I found out how dangerous the wild pigs are. Back when the lodge was first set up a group of men had gone into the jungle and come across a group of about fifty wild pigs. They killed ten of them, but this just made them angry and they charged the men. Most of them escaped by climbing up tree but one didn't get high enough and the pigs pulled him down. They heard screams for a while. When the screaming stopped, they climbed down. They only found pieces of him. Another time when one man was running away from pigs, he climbed a tree but his bum was hanging down. The pigs ate his bum off, and now he has no bum. I was thinking about these stories as we were walking along and started scoping out the trees. I wondered how quickly I would be able to climb a tree if I had to. It didn't help that our guide kept sniffing the air and saying "Smell that? Pigs". I became suspicious that he was leading us on a wild pig hunt. I told him firmly that I was not interested in seeing wild pigs. "Don't worry", he said. "The pigs are smart. Usually tourists aren't lucky enought to see them".

When we returned to Rurrenabaque one of the first things we did was book a flight back to La Paz. There was no way I was getting back on that bus. It was a small 20-seater plane, not high enough to stand up in, but I felt safe for the entire forty minutes.

Nicola

The chicken lady

During our stay in La Paz we took a short trip to Coroico to stay a night at an animal sanctuary. To get to Coroico we hopped on to a local minivan with about ten other people. One of those people was a tiny local lady with about five teeth.

The lady was wearing typical local dress - a blue floral apron over a red woollen jersey and a long green skirt, with a thick grey polarfleece blanket pinned around her shoulders and a brown woollen hat on her head. She had a 2.25 litre bottle of Coca-cola and a little plastic cup with her. Every ten minutes or so she got the man next to her to pour her some coke and she would sip away happily.

After about half an hour of her sipping away happily, we stopped in traffic. The lady leaned out of the window and motioned to one of the street vendors who were selling chicken, rice and potatoes in small plastic bags. (This is the Bolivian version of takeaway food - they just put anything in a plastic bag, including soup and cups of tea).

"Chicken!" she croaked at one of the vendors. He handed her a small bag, which she poked her nose into then all but threw back in his face. "I want wings!" she said. "Don't your chicken have wings?". He scurried away and came back a minute later with another bag, which she checked suspiciously and accepted.

She sat there for a bit, nibbling absently at her chicken. Soon she tucked the bag away at her feet, only to pull out a massive plastic bag full of coca leaves. (I swear, this woman had a picnic hidden under her skirt).

I offered her some peanuts in the hope that she would share her coca with me, but no such luck.

Alpaca shopping in La Paz

Most of our time in La Paz was spent between the Loki and the markets, buying up large on the sweet alpaca wool attire.

La Paz is bursting with alpaca produce. Our bags are also bursting with alpaca produce. I managed to kit myself out with two alapaca jerseys, two pairs of mittens, legwarmers and about four pairs of socks, all ready for the London winter.

A bit lower down from the alpaca markets is the witches' market, complete with all sorts of good luck charms, including dried llama fetuses (to bury in the corner of a new house) and various aphrodisiacs and potions. The smell from the dried llamas made me gag but I bought a good luck charm for attracting money. On the same day I lost my cash passport card, accidentally ripped a $100 Boliviano note in half (luckily it's only worth $20) and was unable to withdraw cash from about four different ATMS. Since then I've lost my second cash passport card and realised I'm about $1500 short of what I will need for Argentina and Brazil. I'm hoping the good luck charm is going to start working soon.

Nicola

Wisdom from a taxi driver

While travelling through South America, I've spent a lot of time in taxis. Some have been good taxi rides, others have been terrifying. You never know, when you get in a taxi, which one it's going to be.

One of my favourite taxi rides was in Colombia. My sister and I went to a free rock concert in Bogota, held about thirty minutes away from the centre of town. At the end of the concert we jumped into a taxi for the ride back.

"Hello, beautiful girls", the taxi driver greets us. He flicks the light on and turns around to get a better look. "Yes, very beautiful", he nods. "Beautiful girls are trouble though. Do you know why?" We shake our heads.

"They're expensive", he says, rubbing his fingers together. "They want the Mercedes, the nice house, pretty clothes. You give them money, money, money. Muy costoso".

We nod. He looks at us. "Mercedes are expensive here", he says. He adds this as though Mercedes might be cheap in other places.

The taxi driver then tells us a bit about himself as we drive along. He asks us where we're from. We go through the requisite question-and-answers, which usually go like this:

"Where are you from?"

"New Zealand"

"Ah, New Zealand! It's a beautiful country"

"Thank you "

"So you speak Dutch?"

"No, English"

(Pause) "But New Zealand is in Europe?"

"It's in Oceania"

"Oceania! How far away is it on a plane?"

"About twenty-four hours"

"That's very far away!"

"Yes, it's very far away."

"Do you have husbands? Boyfriends?"

"No"

"Don't worry. You can get Colombian boyfriends"

This is said reassuringly, as if we're worried. He glances back at us.

"My girlfriend is black", he says. ("Mi novia es negrita"). He pauses. "But I like her".

At first I think, how nice, he used the diminutive to refer to his girlfriend - "My novia es negrita", rather than just negra. Later I think he may actually have meant "My girlfriend is a little bit black".

Nicola

The Colca Canyon

While we were in Arequipa, Peru, we took a trip the the Colca Valley and Colca Canyon. The Colca Canyon is twice as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States, making it the deepest canyon in the world. The Colca Valley was once inhabited by the Incas, and by the Collaguas and Cabanas before them, and their ancestors continue to cultivate the steep Inca terraces that decorate the valley.

Nicola

Sandboarding in Huacachina, Peru

We arrived in Huacachina at night, and didn't see the massive wall of sand dunes that the small town is famous for. When we woke up in the morning and had a look outside we realised we were in a small oasis in the middle of a sand desert, with mountains and mountains of sand surrounding us.

The reason most people stay in Huacachina is for the sandboarding. First you get on a sandbuggy along with about 10 other people, and the surly driver takes you speeding and bumping over the dunes before stopping at certain spots and grunting one word prompts - 'photo', or 'boarding'. With no more information besides that, you pile out and take photos or grab a board from the back of the buggy. The driver hands you a piece of wax candle to wax up your board then grabs it off you and waxes it more if he thinks you haven't done a sufficient job.

We arrived at the first small hill, and our driver/guide stood in front of us. "You can go standing up", he said, "or lying down. Lying down is good, go real fast. Who wants to go first?"

We took turns sliding down the dune. It was pretty easy. Once we were done he instructed us to walk to the next one and pointed in the general direction of it.
The second hill was much the same as the first, maybe slightly steeper. I assumed, naively, that the third hill would be a small step up again. We piled back in the buggy and the driver/guide zoomed erratically over the dunes in a seemingly random direction to the third dune. We got out.

"Walk up there", the driver said. He pointed. We walked. We came to the edge of the dune. We peered over the edge, to what was an almost vertical drop about a hundred and fifty metres below us.

A couple of people shrugged and just went for it. Claire started to sit on her board. He reached his hand out:

"No!" he barked. "Do that way, go to hospital!"

From the way he said this, I was quite sure he would have seen people go to hospital before. Probably every time he takes people to the dunes, in fact. He looked away, then mumbled something about death. I just stared at him.

We decided to walk down the edge of the dune and started to head off, but before we left one girl came forward. She lay down on her board in the way he'd shown us, belly down, facing the front. "I feel like my head is going to hit the front of this board' she said uneasily.

The guide pulled her forward and pushed her, speeding, down the dune. About half way down she lost her grip, smacked her head on the front of the board and started tumbling down the dune, limbs flailing, until she skidded to a halt at the bottom.

We watched in horror. Our guide, on the other hand, didn't seem surprised. It was almost as if he was waiting for something to go wrong, and he didn't even go down to check if she was okay. "She didn't open her legs wide enough" he said dismissively.

When we reached the bottom of the dune, on foot, we saw the girl for the first time after she'd fallen off. She'd scraped the skin off her face and looked pale and badly shaken up. We all piled somberly back into the dune buggy and drove back to Huacachina.
Nicola