Welcome to the Jungle

I think I might have a new favorite part of the trip. After a few days in La Paz we took a 40 minute ride on a very small propellor plane down to the jungle town of Rurrenaboque or Rurre as many people call it. We landed on a small air strip in the middle of the forest and then bused into the town. It was a very laid back place. Being significantly lower in elevation it was much warmer and easier to breathe than most of the places we had previously been.

We signed up for a 3 day Amazon trip through a non profit organization called Madidi Travel. The woman who started this organization is indigenous to the area and helped to form the Madidi national park many years ago. Madidi is a highly diverse section of the Amazon in Bolivia. The area we were going was called the Serere Reserve which is just a little outside the main park. The cool thing is all the money from tourism to their ecolodge goes directly back into the conservation work that is happening in the area.

So the next morning we boarded a boat and took a 3 hr ride down the Rio Beni then hiked in for about 30 minutes to our ecolodge. It was a very cool place. We had our own little cabin which had mosquito netting for walls and made you feel like you were really sleeping right in the middle of the forest. There was another building the Casa Grande that was right on a little lake and was were we ate all our meals and hung out in several hammocks. I know it sounds rustic, but it was actually a pretty up scale place.

We were in a group of 5 and spent our days hiking around the forest and canoeing on the five lakes in the reserve with our guide Chaco. We saw a ton of monkeys, some wild pigs, coati, acotis, oppossums, an armadillo, crazy huge ants, giant spiders, big trees, vines, and colorful birds. One of the highlights was going out on the lake at night and spotting the eye shine of cayman (very similar to crocodile). We also spent an evening fishing for parana. I caught one very puny fish, but it was a lot of fun. All in all it was an amazing experience being out in the forest and learning about the plants and animals of the area. It reminded me a bit of IslandWood for adults.

We ended up liking Rurre so much that after our jungle trip we spent an extra day just relaxing around the small town. However, we had to continue on and have now made it to Arequipa in Peru. We´re back at high elevation, but luckily not quite as cold as other places we´ve been. Tomorrow at 3 am we leave for a two day trek in Colca Canyon one of the deepest canyons in the world. I can´t believe we are in the final week of our trip. It´s been quite an adventure!

Pictures to come soon!