Las Pampas (Bolivia)

I did something bad. I am a little ashamed to admit it. It is unlike me, and I didn’t mean to do it, but doing it on my own was out of the question. Really, it had to be done and there was no way around it, I really wanted to see the Amazon Basin. I took a tour.

But tours in Bolivia are different. They are a bit more ghetto than you are thinking of. We carry our stuff as well as community stuff to the camps. Conditions are pretty grim. And I think the most telling part of how different the tours here are is the fact that none of the guides speak a word of English. As a side note here, there is very little English spoken at all in South America. I have a hard enough time talking with people, I have no idea how people with no Spanish can get along. But it is one of my favorite parts about South America. Most other places where I have been people in the tourist industry at least speak some basic English, but it is good to have to get around on Spanish only.

Anyways, a rickety jeep to Santa Rosa, then another 3 hour canoe ride through the wetlands of the Amazon Basin. The birds were stunning, crocodiles lurking, monkey mischievous, sloths sloth-like, and I was positively enchanted by the pink river dolphins. They were my selling point on the whole trip to be honest, I was only planning on going to the jungle, but I heard you got to swim with river dolphins and I signed up right away.

Our guide, Diego, was impressive navigating around this maze of wetlands with so many channels and routes, I had no idea where we were. The water is impossibly still with these ripples percolating from the depths every so often that could be anything really, it is the Amazon Basin.
I
t was beautiful and tranquil, just nice to not be on a bus as well. Our accommodation was basic, a river camp over a nice mosquito breeding ground of stagnant water, though this was not to matter because they would have found us anyways. Our camp had 3 resident alligators, one of which was maybe 3 meters long, named Pequeno. We watched the sunset of the river, so entranced by the peace and beauty and then, all of the sudden, it was like a dog whistle was blown calling all the mosquitoes. As I write this, after 3 days in the Pampas, I would not be exaggerating at all, not even a little to say that I have 300 mosquito bites (and about 50 unidentified bites) on me. I could say 400 but that could be exaggerating, so somewhere in there. It was horrific. It was a bloodbath. We were not happy campers. There was nothing we could do but put on every piece of clothing we had in the heat and scratch.

In the morning the mosquitoes weren’t so bad. At least not by the river. We took a pleasant canoe ride to another part of the pampas. We landed and set out into the jungle to go look for anacondas. I love hiking. I really do. It is one of my favorite things to do in the world. Nothing about this was fun. We thought the mosquitoes were bad at camp, this was a whole new level. It was like, my experience with mosquitoes had been taken up a notch the night before, and then this blew my mind. We couldn’t enjoy the walk, we were so busy being attacked by the mosquitoes. Swatting is useless .We had on ponchos and all our clothes as we walked through the steamy jungle. We did find a small anaconda and then a cobra type snake which Diego then wrapped around my neck and had me hold its head so it wouldn’t bit me, but he had me hold it so tightly I felt really sad and didn’t like that at all either. We continued but were all wanting to get out of there with the mosquitoes. The fire ants weren’t so pleasant either and their bites are a lot more painful.

It was nice to all share in some misery together, nothing like bonding over looking like we had the chicken pox from all our bites to bring strangers together. Two of the crazy people in our group decided to go back in the jungle while the rest of us waited outside. I practiced my Spanish with this great toothless old man that lived in the pampas and he showed me types of fruit I could eat in the jungle.

Later in the day we went swimming with dolphins, and it was more swimming in the vicinity of dolphins. I think Diego could see how I was disappointed so he took us through what would be the equivalent of canoe 4-wheeling to another place. It was a little un-nerving to swim in a river that you can’t see anything in because it is so dark after having seen so many crocodiles and even more un-nerving to be swimming in a river where there are people just 40 meters away fishing for piranhas. But I had to appreciate his effort and I jumped on in. The dolphins came pretty close to me and that was really great, but they didn’t come play around me or anything like I had hoped. It was still fun.

That evening we were let out to play with some other tour groups so I played some volleyball. Then we went looking for alligators and crocodiles by flashlight in the canoe in the dark, looking for their sinister looking red-eyes. I was sitting in the back of the canoe and Diego, the guide and I started talking. He is a fascinating one, he is indigenous and grew up in the jungle. He knows about all the medicinal purposes of plants and he has this special affinity with animals, they just seem calm around him. He has been lost in the jungle and come face to face with a jaguar and also has calmed dangerous snakes. He is an interesting character who is always singing and plays his guitar when we have a free moment and sings songs he has written. His father is a medicine man in the jungle. I was fascinated by his stories of growing up in the jungle and the things his father has done, not to mention the fact that talking to him really helps my Spanish being that he doesn’t speak a word of English so we have to muddle through somehow. We both are pretty dolphin-obsessed and he told me that every night he goes to a place where there are dolphins and I could come with him if I wanted that night.

So after dinner we snuck away from the camp and canoed out to this stunning lagoon. The stars were so incredibly bright I could see the Milky Way dust in the sky and heat lightning in the distance. It was nice to be away from camp and away from people and out in quiet wilderness. Unfortunately we didn’t bring a flashlight to check the water for crocodiles, but I decided to jump in the water anyways and just stay close to the boat. No dolphins came, but it was still a really nice night out for a swim and it is always good to click with a new friend.

Our last day we went Piranha fishing in the morning. They don’t taste so bad actually and by eating them we surmised we were asserting our place on the food chain. I have never eaten anything with teeth like that before though. Another quick swim with dolphins and then a canoe ride back, jeep ride and back to Rurrenebaque with mosquito bites for souvenirs.