Thursday, November 30, 2006

Rurrenabaque - Pampas and Community Tours

In Rurrenabaque

We arrived in Rurre (as Rurrenabaque is often called) at 3:30 in the morning and were happy that to find that the hotel still agreed to honor our reservation. The next day, we had a chance to get a sense of the town and what services were available. The town, although remote, turned out to have many tourist friendly services. It was a nice change. Usually, I (Jeremy) don´t prefer hanging out in tourist spots, but even I needed some of the comforts of `home´ after the last couple of weeks of having little. I managed to scope out some restaurants, cafe, internet spots, tour agencies, as well as, onward travel options all before Sarah woke for the day. Upon arrival to new places, I like to survey the scene, where as Sarah feels a bit overstimulated. So it works out well for both of us. I get the scoop and help get Sarah oriented. Anyway, that day we mostly relaxed. Our hotel was very clean and friendly and also it had a nice hammock area where we spent some time. Later we went to a cafe run by a British woman where we had mochas and homemade chocolate cake and cookies! It was a slice of heaven.

We did manage to make one practical decision during our day of relaxation; we signed up for a pampas (grasslands) tour. The tour was a three day/two night tour. In Rurre, the main tourist attractions are their pampas and jungle tours. We chose to go on a pampas tour as opposed to a jungle tour because we felt we would see many more animals in the open environment of the pampas. Plus we had just spent a week in the jungle before coming to Bolivia. We were to head out on a three-hour bumpy land rover ride toward a river called Rio Yacuma where we would then head up the river to our camping base. From the campamiento we would explore each day before returning for the night. It really was more of a river tour as you will see.


Pampas Tour

On the first day of the tour, we met the others who would join us for the 3 days. They included our guide Roberto, our cook Claudio, an Australian cyclist named Sean, his Canadian/Romanian/Hungarian girlfriend Ramona who wants to be an event designer when she moves to Australia, a French high-class hairdresser named Sam, and French insect exterminator Cyril. We were quite the group!

We had assumed that the ride to the river was just a means of getting to where we were going so we slept most of the way. Suddenly, I saw a toucan and excitedly pointed him out to everyone in the group. It was very cool - even better than the one on the Fruit Loops box! Actually, we managed without great effort to see many types of birds including toucans, eagles, and storks/pelicans among others. Right before we reached the river port area, the driver spotted a cobra crossing the road. Our guide Roberto jumped out, ran up, grabbed the cobra by the tail and started swinging the cobra around his head. The cobra kept trying to bite him and, in fact, came as close as getting his fangs in his T-shirt, but couldn´t because the guide kept swinging it around. I presume that by swinging the snake it kept its head as far away from his body as possible and possibly it disoriented the snake. That was my understanding at least. Anyway, the guide put the cobra on the ground after a minute or so. The cobra struck at the guide once as if to say ¨leave me alone¨ and slithering off. Kind of mean, but really cool!

The river ride was a long, hot ride and we didn´t see a whole lot. We were happy to get to the camp and relax. We weren´t actually camping because we had private cabins with two beds. Plus we had good mosquito netting and our cabins were fumigated. We relaxed a bit, had a snack and then headed out in the boat to a bar along the river called `Sunset Bar´. Not surprisingly, we watched the sunset from here and then headed back toward the camp after dark. As we went we used our flashlights to find black caiman and alligators. The color of their eyes are reflected by the flashlights. The caimans´ eyes look exactly like red LED lights and alligators´ eyes are bright yellow. They are difficult to find, but we did ¨see¨ a few alligators and a couple of black caiman. It seems bizarre to ¨go looking for giant carnivores in the river in the dark¨, but it was actually pretty cool. For Sarah, it was one of the highlights of the tour.

The next morning, we had a nice breakfast. By the way, the food on these tours has been great - a lot of it and really nicely presented. it´s amazing that they can do so much with so little. We headed to a pampas (grassland) area and went walking throught the tall grass. It was extremely hot and to honest not very interesting until we ran into another group who had found a baby anaconda. Then we walked a bit further and the same group had found another anaconda hidden in the base of a tree. This anaconda was of a different variety from the first. Whereas the first was a black and brown constrictor, this one was bright green and venomous. Although very cool, that was the extent of our tour in the actual grasslands. it lasted about an hour and then we headed back to camp. I was expecting to see much more birdlife and maybe even some mammals. It was really stinking hot because we went out mid-day plus there were a hell of a lot of mosquitoes and we were getting eaten alive. I think it was probably their lunch time. Our guide definitely wasn´t the most enthusiastic or inspiring of guides. Other groups, we discovered later, went looking for anacondas out in lagoon areas and went swimming with the pink dolphins. We did neither mostly because we were a bit afraid to go in the water (it was completely black due to the decomposition of plant life from the river's recent quick rise) and our guide didn´t seem willing to take the lead. However, that night we did see many pink dolphins swimming which was also cool. As they came up to breathe we could see that they have some pink on them. They have a hump on their back and we were told that their snouts are longer than sea dolphins. They supposedly have a similar personality to sea dolphins in that they are curious and not afraid of people. They also scare off the pirahna because they eat them making it safe to get in the water around them. For some reason, which I didn´t quite get, caiman and alligators also avoid them.

The third and final day we woke and took a slow, motor-free ride down river towards port. This way we could listen to the bird life. We saw and heard many. Also, I should mention (mostly because I forgot to say it before) that we saw two types of monkeys on the two previous days and on this day along the river (Howler Monkeys and Chinchillo Monkeys) plus two camping areas each had a resident alligator. Ours was blind, had a maimed leg, and was likely very old. Although, not completely domesticated, they both seemed to coexist and somewhat depend on the guides as caretakers. Okay, back to our journey back to port...The most exciting sightings on our journey back to port were a couple of caiman (this time in the daylight). One out of the water and one in the water. Caiman are similar to alligators except in coloring and size. They have brown heads and they are generally much larger than alligators. These, however, were small - about six feet long.

Overall, the pampas tour was worth it. The wildlife we saw was very fascinating to see and hear. This is the first time in both our lives that we´ve seen so much wildlife in one area.




Day for the Communities Tour

Another tour we took from Rurre was called "Day for the Communities Tour". This tour highlighted various community sustainable development initiatives that demonstrated harmonious living with nature.

Our first stop on the tour was Playa Ancha. Here, a man named Don Eusebio Porco (originally from another area of Bolivia called Potosi) has implemented different agroforestry systems including timber species, reforestation projects, fish farming, bee keeping, and cattle ranching. He has been working on this project for more than 20 years and is extremely knowledgeable about the trees, and medicinal plants. Throughout the tour, he said he´d give us a quiz on the trees he told us about. We were thankful he didn´t because there were too many to remember! All in all, his project is inspirational and shows what committed families can accomplish when they put their minds to it.




Our second stop on the tour was Nuevos Horizontes. In this small village, women artisans from a variety of communities meet to transform natural materials into beautiful handicrafts. Their initiative is called Tres Palmas because they make their crafts out of 3 locally-grown palms. Some of their crafts include bowls, hats, ornaments, fans, birds, mobiles, and boxes. We even had the opportunity to try out some of the techniques! Initially, the men in the communities served were not enthusiastic about this project. Now, they are thrilled because the women are now contributing financially to their families. The women we met at Tres Palmas were talented artisans, confident and proud of their work. It was fun to see.




Our third and final stop was at El Cebu. At this location, local women traditionally transform local forest fruits into unique wines and marmelades. The wines included chocolate (which is supposedly delicious), asai, and majo. We were lucky enough to taste-test a bit of their pineapple-papaya marmelade and their delicious honey. In addition to these efforts, they are working on developing their animal farming with the assistance of Veternarians Without Borders. They had chickens, ducks, and guinea pigs for that purpose.




All in all, we enjoyed our time in Rurre. However, we were also happy to leave the heat and mosquitos behind us when we left for Coroico on November 28th.

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