Vasta poissa olen viimein perillä: Along the river to Rurre, a Pampas tour and Lake Titicaca

The next three days we spend on a longboat with some 8 benches as seats and a canopy for shade. Each day consisted of approx. 4 hours of riding along this pretty sad river: there was hardly any wildlife or views since the extensive gold mining on the shores had destroyed all that.

We visited a couple of small villages on the way to get more supplies. Because of earlier heavy rains, flooding and landslides this proved to be difficult: the villages were running short on food. Our cook still managed to create some delicious meals so we weren't too bothered by this.

Chilling on the boat

A village visit

Stav, the coolest Israeli ever and Marie-Lou, the coolest 8-year-old ever

We did a couple of jungle treks too on the way and learned a lot about the nature, for example how to find water from the forest etc. (check the pictures). One nice hike was to a waterfall! It was a beautiful place with clear refreshing water and a cool pool of rock where we tried some bouldering from the water. The campsites were full of mozzies and other biting insects and after a few days everyone's feet and arms looked pretty nasty. There had also been a bit of a mix up with the tents and most were horribly broken or missing poles etc. This didn't make it any easier to escape from the mosquitoes. But in the evenings we made bonfires to keep away the bloodsuckers and to roast some marshmallows. The second night's campsite had to be changed due to the floods! The original one had been completely washed away but I didn't mind: the new one had trees full of grapefruits which I ended up eating for dinner, breakfast and lunch :) At the new site there was also a local family which had a pet baby spidermonkey! The poor thing was hanging from the back of a small boy and I couldn't help but think that they had probably killed its mother to catch it...I wished I was wrong.

Bonfire and marshmallows

Mirador

Hike to a waterfall

Bouldering (or Deep water soloing?)

Crossing rivers

More chilling

River views

Boy and the monkey

Shy little fellow

Men making fire

Women looking pretty

Men hunting for grapefruits: that's how jungle works

A blind fish

Morning sun

Chris and a tree

Chris and a tree where you can drink from

After the three days everyone was happy to get out of the boat and into the small but cute town of Rurrenabaque aka Rurre. Shower,laundry, proper bed, no mozzies...heaven. We spend our last night together as a group eating, drinking and partying. Most of our group still stayed in Rurre for the Sunday like we before leaving for our 2 day/1 night Pampas trip to a community ecolodge of Mashaquipe. Most tourist in Rurre do either a pampas or and jungle tour to the National Park Madidi but since we came from the jungle, we opted for pampas instead. We wanted to invest in the sustainable community tourism instead of choosing cheapy and unlicensed operators. We payed a lot more for this but you really get what you pay for: we saw it the next day.

That Sunday in Rurre was hot hot hot and my wrist was paining weirdly. I didn't think too much of it before it really hurt when I tried to mantle my way out of a swimming pool. Both writs, fingers, and then ankles and knees were hurting like I had rheuma. I felt dead tired and I fell asleep in the afternoon just to wake up with a fever. My normal body temperature is pretty low, around 35,5*c so when the thermometer showed 38,5*c I was a bit alarmed. I still had appetite though (as I always do ;)) but the dinner wasn't too comfortable with the growing muscle pains. Chris fetched me some paracetamol and during the night I took 1500 mg with absolutely no effect.

A toucan on the swimming pool

Chris suggested that we stay in Rurre to see if my condition gets worse or not. I insisted we go to the Pampas: I could rest in the car and in the lodge while Chris can still go on the tours. So we left in the morning with a group of six: Ken from the Ride and River trip, Julia from Germany and her boyfriend Leo - a Russian guy who lived in Australia - plus our guide Ismael. The road to the lodge was horrible: destroyed by the floods, full on ditches and potholes and what not but we had a comfortable car with space and ac, unlike the cheap tours who put 12 Israelis in a Jeep with only windows as ac (not so nice on a dusty road and plus 40 degrees celcius outside). All was well until our car broke down: someone had forgot to put oil, woops. It was a bit inconvenient, especially when in a high fever. Gladly another company car took us in and we continued the journey that took more or less 3 hours in a car and some 20 min in a longboat on the river.

The ecolodge was beautiful, located in the middle of the forest next to the river with all the wildlife! We had a nice room and all the facilities were well maintained. I kept eating paracetamol but it didn't do much good. Chris placed some wet towels on my head to cool me down and if I wouldn't have felt so dead I would have been quite amused. I had to miss two wildlife tours in the evening and in the morning to rest but I still made it on another two tours: these were mostly riding on the river on a boat so not too strenuous.

Feverish Inka

River trip

The first tour was one of the most amazing things on the trip so I'm glad I made it! We swam with pink river dolphins! Not far from the ecolodge, on a wider part of the river, the guide said: "Hop in!". What? Right here, in the muddy water swarming with these pinkish grey massive creatures? Is it even safe? After a short thinking, Chris jumped in and then the others too while I stayed on the boat taking pics.

The dolphins were highly interested in the splashing humans and came to play and poke everyone. I decided to hop in too and the cool water felt so nice on my burning skin. And indeed there I felt it: a dolphin dove under me and poked my feet! It felt so strange, this rubbery skin somewhere in the darkness brushing past my feet! Everyone was gasping and letting out little surprised screams every time the dolphins made contact! The dolphins also started picking our feet, like tasting them a little bit but in a friendly playful manner. We had ball with us which the dolphins were kicking with their back fins, splashing water on our faces, and then taking the ball in their mouth and diving down. After a minute or so the ball would surface somewhere further. Everyone was excited about the experience and what made it even more special for me was the comment of the guide. Chris asked if he can try to pet the dolphin when it comes past and the guide said: "I don't recommend you to touch the animals, it is okay if they choose to touch you but not the other way". Wow, real actual sustainable tourism, I was so happy to have chosen Mashaquipe!

Capybaras

Catching the ball

Playing around

More playing

Another excellent thing we did on the pampas was piranha fishing (catch and release, sustainable as well ;)). I had tried fishing for these meat-eaters before in Venezuela but with no luck. This time I was the first to catch one: pretty little orange baby piranha! Happily almost everyone caught a piranha in the end though it took long, difficult to catch these fellows. (Finland still won the fishing contest 2-1 ;))

Piranhas!

Chris with his massive catch

We saw a lot of big birds, alligators, turtles, a beautiful green snake that almost swam in our boat and capybaras (the world's biggest rodents). Sitting on the boat was easy enough even with the fever and the food, people and facilities were so great that I was happy we decided to come anyway. And indeed the next day I felt better already: the fever was vanishing. I had developed a weird rash though and the pains were still there.

Tired but happy

Evening on the river

A toad

Pretty sunset

A woodpecker

Chris pretending to be a guide

Jabiru with a snake in its mouth

Dragons¿!

Alligator baby!

Butterflies

More mariposas and Inka

Happy Pampas fans!

Chris dragged me to the clinic in Rurre after we had matched all the symptoms to dengue. It was uncanny. But the test result unfortunately wasn't: it showed traces of dengue in my blood but one antibody was missing which meant that I didn't have dengue at the moment. Well, it was good news but we were still confused about the disease. If the fever would come back, we'd have to go directly to the hospital, doctors orders. I can tell you now that gladly it didn't come back and we continued our trip to La Paz and after a day we left to Lake Titicaca.

We spent one night in a horribly commercial Copacabana, walking around and up some viewpoint hills. At this altitude of 3800 m it was hard work but necessary practice: we had booked a trip from La Paz to climb up mt. Huayna Potosi (6088m) in a few days!

Next morning we left with a small boat to Isla del Sol, the Island of Sun, another horribly commercial but pretty place with nice views over the lake. I have been to the Peruvian side of the Titicaca lake some 10 years ago and remembered it being very touristy. The Bolivian side wasn't much better: you pay to enter the island, you pay to walk to the north side of the island, you pay to enter the ruins, you pay to take a picture of a girl with a llama, you pay you pay you pay. I was still feeling pretty ill and the altitude, sun, dry air and walking up and down the high hills really wore me out. But we took it easy, slept a lot and ate well. I was happy to return to La Paz though but nervous at the same time: next day we'd head off to try to conquer the mountain!