As I was waiting to use a computer at a hostel in Bolivia, I was reading over some pamphlets about various jungle tours on offer. The standard, touristy ones did not excite me greatly and I was looking for something more adventurous. A guy waiting behind me, who was obviously looking over my shoulder, said ´a group of us are doing this crazy jungle rafting trip organized by this Israeli guy. We´re having breakfast on the roof soon in you want to come talk about it.´ ´Wow thanks. I´ll definitely think about it,´ I replied. ´My name´s Tom by the way,´ he said, a tall guy with a frizzy afro and an Australian accent.
More out of a desire to socialize than anything else, soon after I was sharing breakfast with a whole group of people on the roof with epic views of mountains and snow capped peaks surrounding La Paz. They tried to sell the tour to me, but did not really know much about it, other than the fact that it was organized by some unofficial tour agency which focused on Israeli travelers. Apparently they needed a minimum number of people for the tour to go ahead, so their attempted recruitment was not purely altruistic. While their description of the tour did not convince me, their cool personalities were enough for me to accompany them to the office/apartment of the tour organizer. The group of us arrived at an unmarked building and shouted out. Then a face popped out of the upper storey window and threw down a key tied to an inflatable Terradactyl. After a not very thorough or detailed presentation about the trip, I was still undecided, and we all went to lunch. It was one of the only restaurants open, illegally, because it was national Election Day and all business was supposed to cease. Over lunch I decided I enjoyed their company, and that the people you do something with is usually more important than what you do. ´Alright. I´m in.´
The next day I did the Death Road, which used to be the most dangerous road in the world before it was converted into a tourist attraction. I descended 3500m on a bike over a few hours beside sheer cliffs of up to 700m. But that is another story.
Rio Verde
The following morning I was woken at 6.15 am by one of the girls in the group. I had slept through my alarm. Again.We got to the house, but they were not ready. The supplies were sprawled across the floor and they didn´t even know whether we were going by bus or private van yet. So they sent us off to go get a leisurely breakfast, although most places were not yet open at 6.30 am. However we managed to find an amazing buffet at a hotel and gorged ourselves as if it was the last time we would eat for a week.
When we got back (after a failed attempt to buy more magic mushrooms from the Witches Market), a van was waiting, loaded with unknown supplies. We crammed ourselves into the vehicle and were off, no one knowing exactly where it was that we were going. It was an epic drive up to 4700m and snow capped mountains, then, within an hour, down into cloud forest. Soon we turned off the paved road and ventured off into jungle valleys. The roads were lined with bananas, papayas, pineapples and huge mango trees. Paradise. As we progressed into the heart of the jungle, the road quality deteriorated. We got bogged a couple of times where waterfalles flowed over the road, getting out to push and getting splattered with mud in the process. Other vehicles were having similar problems, and sometimes there was a line of several cars waiting to attempt the passage. We still didn´t know where we were going. Further on, the road abruptly ended, submerged under rubble from a recent landslide. It was not passable, and without any discussion or explanation the driver reversed back up the road and drove back to the nearest town. Again, with little explanation, we and our equipment were removed from the van, which drove away, leaving us to eat our lunch under the silent and watchful eyes of villagers who sat out the front of their shops or homes in the ridiculous humidity. This one kid played with a wheel and stick, guiding it between cars and chickens and even a pig. He said his name was Percy, but Percy is a famous soccer player who´s name was printed on the back of the jersey he was wearing.
Then we were loaded onto a 4WD van which apparently could take an alternative route to the landslide on the other side of the valley. We drove along wet roads beside precipitous cliffs and were chased by some of the village children, including Percy, in a guard of honor. We also managed a couple of significant river crossings. Then all of a sudden, in front of a large river, we were there. Where ever there was. We and are possessions were unceremoniously dumped on the bank and the van drove away. According to the guides, we were running behind schedule and would be camping there that night. They constructed our shelter, which was essentially a large tarp draped over a long wooden beam, while we all went to swim in the river. We stood in a circle waist deep in the cold water, passing around cheap rum in a plastic bottle and sizing up our companions for the next week. Three British girls, who were University friends; Tom, the crazy haired Australian, who was traveling alone but had recently done another trek with the British girls; a 19 year old Australian guy who wanted to be a hip hop rapper; a German girl with a cute accent and a very Scandinavian looking Norwegian guy she was traveling with; a free spirited Dutch girl and myself. I was certainly impressed with the bodies of the bikini clad women, but I was not so sure about their abilities to undertake a jungle expedition. Many of them were freaking out, squealing that the little fish sucking on their toes were in fact Piranhas.
When we got out, most of us put on our cheap long sleeve white button up shirts that we were provided to help protect us from the sun and the insects. We looked oddly formal in a miss-matched jungle sort of way. I picked a leaf and made it into a jungle tie, then took modeling photos looking pensively into the jungle surrounded by the posing girls.
Without organization, the men then instinctively gathered to start a camp fire while the women went to chop vegetables for dinner. After some difficulty, we were all sitting around a roaring fire, congratulating ourselves on creating fire. I pulled out some weed I had left over from a recent bender, much to everyone´s delight; especially the Dutch girl and the 19 year old Australian, who were big stoners. ´I don´t mean to brag, but I role a dam good joint, ´ claimed the Australian. He was right. As his masterpiece was passed around I noticed that all nine of us took a hearty drag before passing it on. I have never seen such a universal taking to weed in such a diverse group of people. Then we had an excellent, comforting dinner after a day of so much uncertainty, accompanied by epic conversations and appreciation of where we were (where ever that was). There was a great group vibe. Fire flies buzzed around and the river roared with deafening constancy. When I went to pee in a bush before I went to bed, hidden insects lighted up and began blinking at me. Sorry guys. Then, sleeping under a tarp on hard ground was a novelty rather than a pleasure.
Heavy rain in the morning delayed us getting out of the shelter. But it was not exactly waterproof, and the river level rose to almost lapping up against the tent. That, combined with the grumbling in our stomachs, eventually got us up. We were told that we were going tubing, and that we should leave anything we didn´t need at a house in the nearby village. We had very little idea what we needed, what we were doing or how long we would be away. But I threw a pile of necessities into a waterproof bag and dumped my backpack into the house. The little village was so full of young life: a litter of young puppies marauding around; chicks chasing their mother; a kitten, and a human baby chasing all of the above, despite barely being able to walk.
We didn´t actually leave until 2.30pm due to the guides´ lack of urgency and organization. I hoisted my waterproof bag over my shoulder and headed off on this epic jungle path up river hugging a steep cliff. As said by the German girl, this was ´jungle jungle.´We still had no idea where we were going. The first suspended wire crossing of the river we came across had a broken rope; the second had no cart in which to cross. So the guides constructed a small raft, and tried to swim a rope across the raging river to the other side. But it was too short because by the time they had swum across they had already been swept quite far downstream. They then attempted tying a rock or stick to the rope and throwing it across, but to no avail. We then had the idea of tying many short lengths of rope together, and tying them to the long piece. One of the guides swam across again, holding the rope, and we all cheered. But as we pulled the two ends taught, we realized one of the many knots had come undone. So we rechecked all the knots, retying the complex tangled ´knots´ invented by some of the girls. Success! Bags and people were then ferried across the river. Under the guides´ Bolivian leadership, all this took several hours, and by then it was too late to continue. So we set up camp where two rivers met. A similar routine to the night before, except with a candle rather than a fire since all the wood was wet. We somehow ended up blowing out the candle in unison as a group while standing up, which is actually quite difficult. A strange, but kind of cool, group bonding experience.
The next morning we departed at a half-way decent hour, apparently up to some canyon to tube back down. After wading across a waist deep powerful river, I assumed we would find a trail to take us the rest of the way. But it turned out we zigzagged up the river all day with over 15 crossings, and sometimes walking up the river itself, pressed against a canyon wall without a bank on which to walk. Really quite difficult and exhausting, but exhilarating. While the river level had subsided somewhat since the heavy rains, apparently it was still higher and thus more difficult to cross than usual. After a couple of hours the river branched into two and we were given a choice: a better canyon or better tubing back down. We chose the better tubing, which also happened to require less walking. After 5 ½ hours we gave up on making it to the canyon itself and had lunch, accompanied by a huge blue butterfly which landed on Tom´s head. We also did an impromptu ´Macharina´ dance, some of us up on a huge suspended log.
Then we climbed into our truck tire inner tubes and floated back for an hour and a half to where we began. There were some lazy parts where you just floated along admiring the jungle on all sides, but also some legitimately treacherous rapids. At one point the cute German girl with a strong accent said in a dead pan voice, ´oh no´, then ate shit and capsized over a rock, being swept down the rapid clinging to her tube. We all did a number of times, and by the end we were all banged up and shivering cold, some of us bleeding from shin or elbow injuries. By the time we got back to the previous camp site it was too late to continue, so we stayed there again. We changed into dry clothes, some of us getting into our sleeping bags as well. We then lay on a ground tarp and had the guides re-make the shelter over our heads without moving. They even dragged us lying on the tarp to a better location. Karina, one of the English girls, was lying beside me, and I could not help but spoon her. In then turned into a massive group spoon-fest. Then, like usual, dinner and a joint while sitting around a candle in our inner tubes.We blew out the candle as a group again. It had now become a tradition. When we went to bed, Karina had conveniently positioned herself beside me, away from her friends, and we spooned some more before going to sleep.
After a small breakfast the next morning (they had not expected us to stay there two nights), we jumped into the main river with our tubes and our bags in a small raft they remade in the morning. However, that day, it was warm and sunny and so much more enjoyable. This time I tried going face first lying on my stomach on the tube. There were some big rapids, and after half an hour we alighted back at our first camp site. We all bathed and shampooed in the river in our bathers and bikinis like some shampoo commercial. We were a good-looking bunch of young people. We then lazed in the sun in our tubes and even smoked a joint with the guides. A few of us then waded up the river for five minutes to ride a particularly big rapid back down. Attempting to tube while high was a scary and exiting prospect. On the way a huge horde of colorful butterflies enveloped us. After flying down the rapid, we caught up with the guides to collect logs for the raft, while almost all the girls stayed back to decorate the camp and make us jungle clothes for the fiesta that night.
After an afternoon of ant bites from the logs, carrying heavy loads and tying lots of knots, our 7x2m raft was complete. I rode down the rapids again (better than any backyard waterslide), and was then convinced to go play soccer at the local village. I assumed we would be playing against the children, like I had done a couple of times at other villages in South America. As we stood waiting on the cement soccer pitch, a group of men appeared wearing matching uniforms and proper soccer shoes. And they wanted to wager beers on the game. Oh shit. However, with the help of our guides, one of which used to be in the under 20´s Bolivian soccer team, we lost respectfully. I spent the entire second half in goals, and they were quite intimidating.
They we returned to our camp to start a fire and start getting drunk. Two liters of rum and about five liters of beer purchased from the village, along with music from iPod speakers that could barely be heard over the roaring river. Somehow we all got quite drunk and had a bit of a party out by a river somewhere in the jungle. I lay beside one of the English girls as she saw her first shooting star. Then I had a decent sleep (alcohol makes hard ground soft) and more spooning with Karina (this time it was I who subtly positioned myself beside her).
We had now got to the stage in our relationship when we spooned in the morning as well, not just in the dark before we went to sleep. When we got up, the river had become an aqua green color since the runoff from the recent rains had passed, and the rest of the water came from mountain springs. Hence the name of the river: the Rio Verde, or Green River. We were literally, drinking, swimming and rafting in spring water. With much trepidation, we boarded the raft with all our bags and supplies strapped in the middle of it. We knew how much we had been banged up on our little tubes, and were not confident that such a large raft could take the rapids without being torn apart. To confirm our concerns about the seaworthiness of our vessel, on the very first rapid we continued to go straight as the river turned sharply, smashing into a canyon wall and forcing the raft onto its side. More than half of us were dumped into the water almost immediately, the rest of us clinging to the raft frame and leaning in towards the wall. As the whole raft was driven up the wall to almost vertical, I was just about to abandon ship rather than be caught under the capsizing vessel, when the raft began to slip back down the canyon wall. The people in the water then grasped at the raft and scrambled back on board. All of this took only several seconds.
For the next two and a half hours we managed rather treacherous rapids (at least for a home made log raft) without further incident. Well I guess my definition of an incident had changed. We got caught on rocks jutting out of rapids and almost capsized several times. And all of this was done days away from medical attention in a part of Bolivia where there were no roads. If someone was injured, we would have to climb back aboard the raft and continue down the river for a couple of days to the nearest village with a road.
We alighted from the raft where another smaller river with crystal clear water merged with our main river, and began wading up. It was not as difficult as the first river we waded up, since it was smaller and with less water flow. Then we got to the canyon proper, where there were no rocky banks on which to walk, and only sheer canyon cliffs on either side. There we stripped off our shirts and climbed around or, if necessary, through the raging canyon. Up and up. Further, always further. For example, we scaled wet rock walls with tiny foot holes meters abovea fast flowing water, only several meters up stream from a waterfall onto rocks. If you slipped the consequences could be serious. At another part you had to dive out to the far side of the stream where one of the guides would catch you by the arm before you were swept down a nearby waterfall. You then had to wade around the corner, holding onto any grips in the canyon wall you could find. Then once around the corner, instead of finding relief, we were confronted by a long narrow rock jutting up but still submerged in gushing water. That was the easiest route; on either side was deeper, more powerful water. So I climbed up on the rock. Once your foot was firmly down, it was surprisingly stable considering the torrent of water consuming your legs. But before your foot was actually on the rock, you had all the force of the water and none of the grip of the stone. That was the treacherous moment, which had to be repeated each agnizing step. At the top of this long thin rock, you then had to step across/through the deeper, more powerful water to the other side, where there was another ridiculously steep wall to scale. The Scottish girl, who was one of the first to attempt the crossing, slipped, and the force of the water was too much for the guide to hold. She shot down the side of the long narrow rock like a waterslide at frightening speed. I froze with terror, everything going at half speed. At the bottom was a slightly deeper, slow bit, where she might be able to cling to the rocks. But a few meters beyond that was a sheer waterfall of at least a couple of meters over rocks and onto rocks. In that moment, I genuinely thought she was going to die. Then all of a sudden, everything was in motion again. One of the guides sprinted town the long narrow rock, that I had so carefully climbed up, and dived headfirst into the water. He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the side. She had survived. I thought she would be shaken by the experience, and decide to sit the rest out. But to her credit, or her stupidity, she remade the crossing and then climbed up the long narrow rock again. In doing so she half fell, and the force of the water pulled off her bikini top. I was at the back of the cue, and with the help of the guide we pulled her back up. We all shared a huge sigh of relief, but she was more concerned about showing some breast than almost dying. She really did not seem phased. She then had to reattempt the part where she initially slipped, but did so without a quam. The next part was too powerful to wade through, and the cliff was too high to climb up. But one of the guides, possibly the strongest, most manly man I have ever encountered, offered his thigh, then his forearm, then his shoulder to climb up him to a higher part of the wall with footholds. And all of this was done while he stood knee deep in raging water that we would not be able to stand in without being swept away. It was emasculating and impressive in equal measure.
Against all odds, all nine of us, and our two god-like guides, made it to the top. Including the girls that were squealing about Piranhas the first day. It was probably the most dangerous thing I have ever done, especially considering how far away we were from medical attention. We lazed around on a sunny rock while the free spirited Dutch girl swam naked in a pool of spring water, and a few of us did a several meter rock jump into a deep but narrow landing. The water was the most intense, clean, deep blue, direct from the gushing mountain spring above.
Then we climbed down, which was also no small feet, as anyone will know who climbed a difficult tree as a child and was then not able to climb down. Climbing down a rapid while holding the arms of the guides, the younger Australian lost his footing, and then his shorts and underwear as he dangled over the edge in the rushing water, his arse in full view. There was so much tension in the air from our ordeal, we all laughed.
After an incredibly satisfying late lunch, we boarded the raft again. A cruisey bit and then some really dangerous rapids where our raft began to fall apart: snapped logs, broken ropes and punctured and deflated inner tubes. A few times we almost capsized or got impaled by hanging logs. As someone at the front pushed a particular hanging log out of the way, it swung back unpredictably and the Norwegian guy beside me was able to deflect it from his face using his forearm, resulting in a long bloody scratch down the length of it.
We ended up camping sooner than intended because our raft was sinking and in need of repairs. While the guides repaired/remade the entire raft, Tom and I took it upon ourselves to make the shelter, including chopping down a 10m plus tree for the roof. We did all this shirtless because it was quite hot/for dramatic effect. We then drank magic mushroom tea which a couple of people had brought, but because it was shared between so many of us it had little effect. However, the last of good ol´ faithful Santa Ganja sure worked. On our last night, we sat around a fire listening to iPod speakers and reflecting on the crazy week we had shared. A really intense group bond had formed over such a short time because we had done such crazy things and shared every moment together.
After a good shit and an even better breakfast, we set out on our raft one last time. Only 50 meters around the corner from the campsite we saw an extremely tall waterfall gushing out of a spring at the top of a mountain. We climbed up a bit and posed for photos under the waterfall spray. After a few more hours of rafting (including a section of riding the spare tubes alongside the raft), our river came out of the mountains and joined a much bigger, broader river. We pulled up onto the bank to deconstruct our beautify raft that now felt like home. After a last group lunch (we really had a routine by now), we took a half hour taxi to the nearest town with a bus station. We said goodbye to some of the group, but most of us were continuing on the Rurre, a larger city further into the northern jungle of Bolivia. The ride would take us 12 hours overnight to travel only 100km, since it was one of the worst roads in Bolivia. After looking to buy weed half an hour after the bus was scheduled to depart (it was getting some serious engine work done), we boarded. It was a terrible bumpy hot ride, but valium helped, and I even introduced a few people to its immense benefits on night buses. We drove past huge, surreal forest fires as I was drifting into sleep.
Rurre
We arrived in the wee hours of the morning, and stumbled off the bus in a daze. We wondered around looking for a hostel, and found one with amazing choc banana pancakes! It was real comfort food and the first taste of normalcy in a week. We all vegged out for a few hours in the hammocks, reading books, writing in our journals, or just having a siesta. We then went off in search of a late lunch, and found this place with amazing fresh fish straight from the river on which the town lay. Got some snacks and fresh fruit to go with the huge pile of weed rapped in newspaper that the Dutch girl had managed to track down. It had been a higher priority for her than sleep. We sat on the river bank directly behind our hostel to watch the sunset and bask in our familiarity with each other. It was the first time we did not have to ration the weed, so we ended up getting really high. This inevitably lead to an adventure out into the town to find treats.
Las Pampas
The following morning I went to the towns central markets for breakfast and my first time alone in a week. I had Ceviche (uncooked fresh fish marinated in lemon juice), some unheard of fruit juice, bananas and a coconut drink which I asked a man at a random for who went and picked it and cut it open for me. All this came to just over US$1. At our hostel we were picked up by a jeep and introduced to other people in our tour group for an uneventful, bumpy three hour drive. Oh, except Tom and I climbed some random 60 plus meter antenna tower beside a toilet stop with vast views over the flat swampy land below. WE lunched at some random town, then onto a long narrow boat with an outboard motor. It was frieking hot. The boat took us up a narrow swampy river for a couple of hours. There were heaps of Capybaras, giant guinea pig looking creatures, bathing in the water or up on the banks, sometimes followed by a horde of little babies. Beside them, perhaps even more numerous, where crocodiles and camion on the banks, in the water, and almost everywhere you looked. There were also heaps of turtles perched precariously on logs in the sun, and too many types of birds to list. We also came across a pod of Bufeo, or pink river dolphins, and were invited by the guides to jump in with them. At first I thought they were joking, as I eyed all the crocodiles nearby and considered the presence of Piranhas in the river. ´No, its fine,´ he assured us. After another guy got in first, I hesitantly stripped down to my bathers and climbed in. While the pod was four or five strong, it was difficult to see where they were since the water was a muddy brown and they surfaced only occasionally to breathe. Tom and I tried to fool the others in the boat that we were dolphins by diving under and swimming to another location, before suddenly surfacing and then submerging again. During one of my dolphin surfaces, apparently I came within a meter of a real dolphin and almost collided. I did not see anything because my eyes were closed, but when I resurfaced an onlooker said ´wow. Did you hit it?´ ´Hit what?´ I asked.
The lodge were we stayed was like some strange tree house, all above ground on tall stilts. Apparently it was to keep us out of reach of rising water levels and crocodiles. Our rooms contained simple beds with mosquito nets hanging above. I got a bed beside Karina, although this time I think we both contributed to the coincidence. We then all went to watch sunset on a rickety wooden balcony suspended on huge wooden beams, with some weed, or course. ´Do you know what be cool,´ I asked Tom. ´Swimming across the river and climbing that bank on the other side.´ ´Ok. Let’s go,´ he replied as he turned and began walked off down to the river. ´Um. Ok,´ I spluttered, not thinking I was giving a real suggestion. Nevertheless, we stripped down to out bathers and waded/swam across the river without pausing, alongside a medium sized crocodile on the bank and up to Capybara on the other side. There were also these ridiculous peacock/chicken like semi-flightless birds with beautiful head feathers roosting in a nearby tree. When we returned we were told that a girl was recently attached by a crocodile swimming there at a similar time of evening.
After dark had settled over the swamps, and dinner had settled in our stomachs, we set out in the boat to watch crocodiles. Their eyes glowed a shocking orange in our torch light, and they were so much more active in the night. The girls were quite scared, and when a fish jumped out of the river into one of the English girls´ head´s she frieked out. Despite my assurances, she thought the guide threw it at her as a prank and refused to believe it jumped out of the river. We saw movement on the bank and all swung our torchlight towards it to reveal – a cat. ´Puma,´ said the guide. We then turned off all our torches for a while. It was the greatest concentration of fireflies blinking away I have ever seen. During the night I lay in bed listening to heavy jungle rain on the tin roof and really, really load thunder that sounded liked it was almost hitting the building. It was excellent.
Our departure in the morning was delayed due to heavy rains – a not uncommon occurrence in the jungle apparently. But eventually we donned gum boots, boarded the boat, then trekked to a lake through the mud where we looked for Anacondas. We waded ankle deep in water brushing aside the reeds in search of the great serpents. My understanding of Anacondas is limited mostly to the popular teenage movie of the same name. Hence I was a little scared. After a whole lap of the reeds around the lake, an Anaconda was spotted meters away from where I first went and looked. An Anaconda was in the reeds in the process of constricting a small crocodile to death. It was definitely the biggest snake I have ever seen, but it was nothing like the ones in the movies, only somewhat bigger than the biggest python I have seen.
After lunch we went Piranha fishing from the boat. This tour sure ticked off all the cliché dangerous jungle animals. We all constantly got nibbles on our bait as soon as it was in the water, which made me confused why we ourselves had not been eaten when in the water. While it was easy to get nibbles, it was more difficult to actually hook the Piranhas without them simply swimming off with the meat. After the first one was raising into the boat we were all really excited. But as soon as the excitement settled I realized how small and unthreatening an average Piranha really is. They were at most the length of my hand, and with only tiny jagged teeth. While Piranhas can get bigger, this was a pretty normal size. After a couple of hours we headed back with a bucket of Piranhas for dinner (although with less meat than the amount of bait we came with). I was one of the only people in the group who had not caught one, and I was quite disappointed. But on the ride back, two more Piranhas jumped into the boat, one literally into my lap. Thank you jungle. The fish were fried up and added to our dinner. While the taste was not great, it was not without some sense of satisfaction that I put a dangerous animal into my mouth.
The next and final morning we were woken at 5.30am for a sunrise boat trip. But over half of the group declined the offer. Instead, I climbed under the mosquito net and into bed with Karina. Loud and varied animals sounds surrounded us, one we were later told with a monkey being raped and or having rough sex. Welcome to the jungle.
After breakfast we went for another boat ride and swim with dolphins (there were less of them this time), then swum up behind a crocodile and stroked it. Then, after an early lunch, a boat ride back to where we began listening to an iPod, then a long cramped jeep ride back into town.
Rurre
Back in Rurre we all got amazing huge ice cream Sundays that were incredibly satisfying in the hot and humid jungle climate. After being reunited with the Dutch girl from the river tour (who did not come on the last tour with us), we returned to our river bank for our usual routine. However, initially the woman at the hostel refused to open the gate and let us go out on the river bank. Somehow, I was able to understand her concerns and convince her that it would not be a problem – all in Spanish! Essentially, I had to convince her that we would keep an eye on the dogs and make sure they were locked back in when we were finished. It was a landmark moment in the progress of my Spanish abilities.
We then proceeded to smoke lots of joints and drink heaps of rum and wine. We were celebrating our last night together, and things got a bit messy. We almost smoked as much weed and drank as much alcohol as the whole week-long rafting trip combined. This would have been ok, except that everyone else at the hostel came out and joined us, but we were the only ones smashed and talking shit. I talked to a guy from another group in the Pampas at the same time as us who said he thought we were some religious group during the tour because we wore these white long sleeve button-up shirts while everyone else wore casual clothes. I found this quite amusing, as did he when he found us all puffing away at joints like monkeys and drinking rum like we were dying of thirst. We all ended up passing out together in one room, me in Karina´s bed again. We even contemplated putting the mattresses beside each other on the floor so we could all sleep next to each other like we had done all week on the rafting trip. We were so close and comfortable with each other by then. That and really drunk and high.
The next morning, after a slow and painful start, we went to this really nice pool up on a hill. This was our last bonding with the girls: floating around, sitting in the sun and having one last joint with a bunch of Israelis. Then Tom and I walked them back to the hostel and watched them go on the back of three motorbike taxis (the only type of taxis in the town) to the airport for a flight back to La Paz. When I said goodbye to Karina she kissed me on the cheek, the only kiss of a strange, but very pleasant jungle spooning relationship.
Tom and I went back to the pool for sunset (after some lunch), where we encountered three friendly but embarrassingly stereotypical Australian bogans from northern NSW. There has been more Australian bogans in South America than I would have expected (and hoped). In the evening Tom and I bought a machete for about $4 and asked around about trails into the nearby jungle. We had had the crazy idea to spend the night out in the jungle by ourselves, and somehow it seemed like that too would become a reality.
The Jungle Shelter
The next morning we checked out of the hostel and left with a Canadian guy from the hostel out into the jungle, where Tom and I intended to stay the night. I was no longer 100% committed to the idea because that morning my digestive system had circumed to Bolivia Belly; but I did not want to give up just yet. So we bought supplies from the market and headed up a trail to a waterfall. When we got there, it was almost completely dried up, since it was the dry season in the jungle. We scrambled up a side-branch of the river (which is the only way to get though jungle without a path) until we found a relatively flat sections on which we could construct a shelter to sleep. As we inspected the area for suitability, we found a black tarantula with a huge orange stripe down the length of its back, before it scurried under the thick leaf litter. Due to lack of alternative locations, Tom began clearing that exact spot of leaf litter and constructing a shelter. Using the machete and only what the jungle provided, he used two tripods of branches to support a roof beam, then leaned long logs onto the roof beam and tied on cross beams with vines to support a roof of leaves.
Meanwhile, I had my own problems. As I purged myself of Bolivian bacteria, I reconsidered some of my life choices. For example, what was I doing out in a jungle without a guide when I felt quite sick. It was a jungle-diarrhea-bush-shit like no other, and a difficult feat to pull-off in a mountainous jungle with impenetrable vegetation and no flat ground.
We then went to another waterfall (that was also mostly dry) for lunch and a joint (the girls had left us the entirety of the stash rather than take it on the plane). Then I was enjoying myself again. Tom returned to put a leaf roof on the shelter frame while the Canadian and I went to explore some of the other paths. Really beautiful jungle and ridiculously steep trails where you had to cling to tree roots.
We said goodbye to the Canadian so he could get back to town before dark while Tom and I tried to settle in. I still had not committed to staying, but my indecision eventually made up my mind as it rapidly got dark. Surprisingly, we were not able to get a fire going, but the joint and food were great. I sat there on a rock, ridiculously hot and tired, a little bit sick, and quite high, watching the fireflies buzzing around us and listening to the shockingly load jungle noises. It was so dark. We then had a bit of sing-along before eventually crawling under the flimsy protection of the leaf roof onto the tarantula infested dirt. It was an extremely hot and dirty night, but not in the good way. I was constantly torn between removing myself from the heat of my covers and exposing myself to the rath of the insects.
We returned to our hostel at 8:30 in the morning, utterly exhausted and filthy, but glad I had done it. After a well needed stop at the toilet, I showered, got lunch and lazed in the hammocks (I wished I had a hammock to use out in the jungle). We then changed our mind and decided to leave that night. After getting tickets at the bus station, we returned for siestas in the hammocks. There was rain and thunder and it was frieking hot. Later in the afternoon it began bucketing down with rain. We sat under cover and watched life go by: people who just ran fast and got really wet, people who fashioned rain covers of various materials and effectivenesses, kids sweeping water out of their house. On an impulse, we both decided we would like to stay another day. Part of it was because we thought the rain would be bad for the road condition, but mainly it was because we really liked the town, and were seeing it in a new perspective. We made our way back to the bus station, getting drenched in the process, only to bluntly be told ´no´, we could not change our tickets to the fllowing night. We returned to the hostel to collect our bags, and I was able to pay for our use of the facilities that day in exchange for the machete and a bag of four potatoes to sweeten the deal. Barter is alive and well in Bolivia. It was also a positive indication of my Spanish abilities, because initially the woman refused the trade and I had to convince her of the quality and usefullnesse of the Machete.
The Haunted Halloween Bus Ride from Hell
After a terrible last minute dinner of street food with questionable hygiene standards, we boarded the local bus at about 8pm for an 18 hour ride to La Paz. There were no steps up onto the bus and this short fat Bolivian woman had great difficulty climbing up, resorting to using her knees to leaver herself up. It was slow, bumpy going on the wet roads. We often had to stop or even reverse significant distances to let other vehicles pass on the one lane detours around the washed out sections of road. The bus often stopped and started, but by midnight it stopped and turned off its engine until 8:30 in the morning. We were given no explanation as to why the bus had stopped, but due to the lack of bumping around, and some Valium, I was actually able to several hours of sleep.
In daylight it was revealed that we were parked in a cue of other busses and trucks at an impassable bog that extended for a couple hundred meters. Oh and it was Halloween. After over eight and a half hours without moving, and no sign that anything was going to change, I got off to go to the toilet. There were hundreds of people milling around waiting for their buses or trucks to get going, as well as many locals who had come to stare at the spectacle. I found an area of jungle to urgently relieve myself of the demon within my bowls. When I returned to the road only minutes later, the bus was no longer there and Tom was waiting with an anxious expression. Our bags were on the bus and we had almost nothing on us. We rushed up along the muddy road hoping to catch up, sometimes plunging my foot ankle deep into the sludge. As we got to the end of the milling buses some hundred meters ahead, we realized our bus was not there and we had been abandoned. Shit. However, within moments, we were able to hitch a ride with another bus going in the same direction. The super friendly more middle class seeming Bolivians moved over and offered us their comfy seats. They explained that there was a town in about an hour and a half drive where the buses stopped and that we might be able to catch up with our bus there.
After about an hour, there was another traffic jam of buses behind another boggy section of road. We thanked the passengers and driver and ran past the cue of buses to our own. A Bolivian woman near the front laughed in a friendly way as we re-boarded the bus in the middle of nowhere. Now that we were safely back on our bus and reunited with our belongings, the adventure had been exiting and we were glad it had happened.
Despite being so behind schedule, throughout the day we continued to make stops, some of them ridiculously long. We stopped for half an hour in a town for lunch, which was quite reasonable, but also other times for up to twenty minutes for no apparent reason. Another time we stopped behind some road works clearing a recent landslide. One lane was still functional, but instead of letting the traffic in each direction take turns using it, they closed off the road completely for over two hours. Of course the bus driver didn´t tell us any of this, but we got off the bus and managed to work it out by talking to local truck drivers who also recommended Cororico as a must see destination in Bolivia. So we rolled a joint and sat on the road edge looking off the cliff to the jungle all around. We were then joined by a pretty Israeli girl with a didgeridoo. As we all talked and attempted to play the instrument, she mentioned that she wanted to go to Cororico, but would not go alone at night. If we were on scheduled we would have arrived there in the early afternoon. Instead, we were likely to arrive there in the wee hours of the following morning. So we all decided to go together. I love impulsive decisions.
Later that night, back at the town where we caught the bus after the rafting trip, we stopped for a full two hours and left at 9pm. We waited directly beside the bus (not wanting to miss it again) and ate food from the conveniently located stalls which were right there. Chocolate rapped in a leaf, fresh squeezed orange juice, coconut and mango. One of the other gringos on the bus had cereal with milk which I also had some of. By this time there was a profound comradry between all the middle class foreigners on the bus, since we had been through so much together over the previous 24 hours and we were still a long way from our destination.
We were back on the bus for another 4 hours, and at 1am in the morning we roused ourselves and got off the bus for the last time at a highway junction near Cororico. 29 hours and only about 230 kms later, 17 hours late and still several hours from our initial intended destination. And all this for about $8. A Halloween to remember. After another bout of diarrhea in the public squat toilets, we organized a taxi for the 6 of us to Cororico, leaving by 2am. While the first taxi we paid a deposit to never came back, we got another taxi and all squeezed in for the 15 minute ride. When I got out my legs were numb with the worst case of pins-and-needles I have ever experienced.
The Squatter´s Shack
The driver left us in the central square without any idea where to stay. It was 2.15am and every hostel or hotel we knocked at did not respond. The streets were foggy and a number of strange characters were wondering around. Quite eerie, especially following our 29 hour haunted Halloween bus ride from hell. We eventually found a big hotel with a pool that had a room up on the second storey with a window left open. We were tired and defeated and needed a place to crash. So we climbed up over a balcony and into the window, passing our bags across the gap. It was a small room with a single bed, and we all piled onto the bed or floor. It was now 3 am, 31 hours after we boarded the bus.
At 6.30 am we got up and snuck back out the window, then waited in the Plaza for the town to awake. After a breakfast of extremely satisfying hot chocolate, we sat in the Plaza playing the didgeridoo, reading, or just vegging out. Then Tom and I separated from the others to walk to a nearby waterfall. We had our backpacks with us because we were not yet checking into a hostel and were not sure if we would stay another night. The town had not been good to us thus far.
On the way to the waterfall we got lost, but found a seemingly abandoned construction site. It was a small two room building up on these tall cement beams, located on some isolated hill overlooking the jungle below and mountains all around. We decided we should try to climb up, and then hang out there for a while. After inspecting various potential climbing routes, we had a plan. On the lower edge, it was about 3 meters up from the ground to a cement ledge. I boosted Toms foot up in my hand until he could reach the ledge. Then I pushed and he pulled until he could get his upper body up onto the ledge and climb up. I wasn´t sure what exactly I needed from my bag, so I decided to pass the whole thing up to him. Then he lay of the ledge and extended his arm down as far as it would go. Standing on my tippy-toes I was just able to reach it without jumping. He then took all my weight on one arm for a moment while I walked up the cement beam and grabbed the ledge with my other hand. But that was not the end of it. I then had to get up onto the ledge. One hand was on the ledge, taking all my wait, while I worked my other hand up the wall using the holes and creases in the bricks. I was then able to pull my body up onto the ledge. It was seriously difficult, and I don´t think we could have got up without teamwork. We then smoked a joint, ate a cake we recently purchased, and whittled away the hours reading our books or just enjoying the epic view. ´Why don´t we sleep here,´ one of us asked. ´Why not,´ we answered together. Tom lacked a sleeping bag while I lacked a sleeping mat, and I was still sick. But these were minor inconveniences.
So we left our bags up in the shack, intending to return for the night, and walked back down to town for lunch and meeting back up with the Israeli girl. We waited in the Plaza and watched a group of Artisans and Hippies, mostly from South American countries, playing instruments, juggling, making jewelry etc. A Bolivian media station then asked if they could film them, and asked us to join in. So moments later a bunch of people were setting up tracks for the camera and other equipment and they filmed a guitar sing along accompanied by dancing and juggling. As they played an old fat Bolivian man with an ice cream danced along in his seat. The Israeli girl then joined us and we began talking to the Artisans and I played one of their guitars. We were invited back to their hippy commune like hostel for dinner and drinks. They already had the rum, so we bought some food to contribute. Back at their hostel we did some juggling, but Tom and I were too tired and sleep deprived to enjoy any physical activity. We had spent the previous two nights either in a bus or sleeping on the floor of a hotel room we broke into. Some people were playing music, but it only really kicked off after the vegetarian home cooked dinner when rum cocktails and joints were passed around. It became a full blown hippy sing along. Beautiful solo performances, sing-along and improve jamming where we all contributed in some way. Shakers, clapping, singing, and even a surprisingly good triangle. I even played a couple of songs on guitar, including one I made up myself. A dog and the baby of the owner fell asleep in people´s laps by the end of the night. Tom and I thanked our hosts and bid them farewell, for we had a long walk back to our squatters shack. It was then a difficult climb back up in the dark, especially since we were so exhausted. After a while of sitting on the balcony admiring the stars, we called it a day. It was a cold and hard sleep on the cement floor for both of us. We were no longer in full on jungle, and it got cold at night.
In the early morning I had to climb back down in a hurry for some serious shits. I slept and read all morning, interrupted periodically by having to climb down then back up again. My decision of when to go was crucial. If I went too regularly, I would exhaust myself by so much climbing up and down. It was seriously difficult climbing, especially for someone who is sick. But if I held out too long, well … . Fortunately that never happened, but I was not far off one time. The climbing down part was particularly treacherous. All the exertion from the climb and the impact when you jump down is not without its risks. It was terribly inconvenient but incredibly beautiful and districting place to be sick.
We decided to go back to town to get our regular lunch and a cheap bed for the night. At lunch, I asked if I could have an incredibly provocative cigarette poster on the wall depicting a beautiful scantily clad woman clutching some phallic drilling equipment sprayed in some white fluid. Since cigarette advertising in all forms is illegal in Australia, I found this quite novel, and took it to send to my brother as a gift. Then I had a delicious siesta in a real bed for the first time in 4 nights.
In the evening we went back to our house up on the mountain for dinner and more star gazing. Then we returned to the hotel for a real bed. An amazing flutist was playing outside the window as I drifted off to sleep.
We had a slow start the following morning with a leisurely hot chocolate and reading in bed and then back in the Plaza after checkout out. Neither of us brought our credit cards from La Paz since nowhere on the rafting trip nor in Rurre had ATMS. We therefore had to do some serious budgeting to ensure we had enough money to get back. We had just enough, so decided to stay another night in our squatters shack. That Tom had joined the diarrhea club did not deter us.
After lunch at our usual place, we bought supplies from the market and returned to our house for a lazy afternoon of reading and hanging out. We smoked the last of the weed and watched the sun set. Tom then asked me to take a photo of him out on the balcony from inside the house. The next thing I knew his naked arse was staring at me through the viewfinder, with the epic mountains in the background.
After a dinner of sandwiches we went to the cemetery because apparently it was the Day of the Dead and some celebration would be going on. Amateur bands of flutists and drummers stood in circles amongst the graves passing around beers and playing painfully out of tune. Furthermore, the multiple bands did not take turns but rather played as loud as they could to hear themselves over the other band playing totally different tunes simaltaniously. A guy from one band gestured for us to come over, and we shared beer with them before getting one ourselves and sharing it with him. People were getting drunk everywhere and there were even food stalls scattered amongst the graves. There was a morbid but yet celebratory atmosphere as the drunken people stumbled around visiting their deceased relatives. One little Bolivian man asked me where I was from. He then asked me what I thought of Bolivia, and I said I loved it. He chucked heartily, kissed me on the hand then stumbled away into the night.
We then returned to our house for reflection and one last night in the squatters shack. Everytime we climbed up the same way, do this last time we decided to reverse roles. We wanted to experience what the other person had been doing, and see if we could do it ourselves. Tom was able to push me up, and I was able to pull him up by the arm. Later, thanks to the blanket that I had ´borrowed´ from the hotel earlier that morning, I actually had an ok sleep.
In the morning I was woken by Tom, who informed me that there were workers in the nearby field. We packed our bags quickly, hoping to slip away. But they noticed us and said to get out just as we were leaving. It was a real shame to leave the place that now almost felt like home with our tails between our legs. But I guess it was lucky that we were only caught on our last morning when we were going back anyway. We had never made it to the waterfall that we set out in search of when we found the squatters shack. But it was better than any waterfall I have yet seen.
Back in town I stealthily returned the borrowed blanket, past three Bolivian Army personnel in uniform who happened to be staying at the hotel. We had just enough money for the bus back to La Paz, but we wanted to see if we could hitchhike back instead. So we caught a van to a nearby highway junction called Yolosita where we were more likely to encounter trucks on the way to La Paz. In the shared van, I asked the women next to me if I could put my backpack on top of her bags on the floor so that everyone could fit. She said it was chickens, and sure enough I noticed a quiet clucking sound emanating from the bag, which was also moving a little. That was a close one, because I almost put my bag on top without asking.
Within 5 minutes at the highway junction, and only two attempts, we were climbing into the back of a huge truck filled with used class beer bottles. It was an awesome three and a half hour ride up to 4700 m altitude that started in the jungle and ended in snow covered mountains. There were also a few awesome tunnels through the mountains. Near the top I decided to get a naked photo myself, standing at the back of the truck looking away at the mountains. It was cold up there, so I am glad no frontal nudity was involved. Moments after the photo was taken it started snowing. We used a huge orange tarp lying in the back of the truck to fashion a shelter, and even tried to read our books. Then we descended back down the mountain and were dropped off in the outskirts of La Paz. After negotiating the chaotic public transport system, we were back in the hostel where I met Tom over two weeks earlier. The first person we saw was a friend from earlier in my travels. ´Hey, what have you been up to,´ she asked vaguely. Tom and I looked at each other and smiled. ´How long do you have?´
