Bolivia part 2: Rurrenabaque

When you think of Bolivia, what comes to mind? I always associated the country with the Andes and the altiplano, the flat plains at high altitude. Did you know that 2/3 of Bolivia is tropical lowland? Did you know that Bolivia has Amazonian rain forest?

I arrived in Bolivia on a Wednesday, and by that Friday I was on the go again. Mauricio and I flew to Rurrenabaque, a town of about 10,000 in the north of the country. It is only about 120 miles from La Paz, but worlds away. Here the climate was tropical and humid, and we were only about 700ft above sea level. We flew on the airline operated by the Bolivian military, TAM (not the same as the TAM which had a plane crash in Brazil around the same time as my trip!) It was a really old Fokker turboprop. The landing strip at Rurrenabaque was made out of grass. After getting off the plane, I could see tree-covered hills and hear the sounds of mysterious insects and animals in the surrounding jungle. It was the perfect introduction to the Bolivian Amazon Basin.

Our hotel in Rurre (as the locals call it) was on the edge of the slow-moving and wide Río Beni. It was a 10-minute walk to the center of town, or you could also take a motor-scooter taxi for the equivalent of $0.25. The town was everything you would expect a Latin American jungle town to be: laid-back, humid, lots of buildings made from wood and palm fronds, friendly people, and cold beer. Mauricio casually mentioned the name of a college friend who lived in Rurre to a hotel employee, and 10 minutes later, we were in the hotel's van chasing down the friend's truck. That's how small the town was. We ended up making several friends in Rurre who showed us overwhelming generosity, including inviting us over to dinner one night. (If anyone who reads this eventually finds themselves in Rurre, ask around for "Gigi", one of the town's more infamous residents.)

I read that 15,000 tourists a year visit Rurre, but I think that this number will double if not triple in the next 5 years or so. A new, paved runway is being constructed. The town is near to two national parks: Madidi and Río Yacuma. Madidi is home of tropical rain forest. To get to it, we spent 3 hours traveling upriver in longboats cruising past scenery reminiscent of that movie Romancing the Stone. Once in the park, we hiked, looked at plant life, swung on vines across rivers, and chased wild boars. We also fished without poles; Bolivian-style is with a hook at the end of the fishing line, nothing more. Jaguar live in the forest, but I only saw some footprints. Madidi has more species of birds than anywhere else on the planet. We saw some macaws in their natural habitat.

Río Yacuma is a wetland that is home to large number of species of animals. I can't really even begin to count the number of species I saw during our 3-day camping trip there, but they included: caimanes (a type of alligator), capybaras (the world's largest rodents - surprisingly cute), small monkeys, lots of birds, tortoises, flamingos, the beautiful roseate spoonbill, and an anaconda!

To get to the campsite, we had to drive for 3 hours and then go upriver for 2 more hours. Bolivian roads are HORRIBLE. Only 4% of roads in the entire country are paved. Everything was covered in dust when we finally got to the river. On the morning we were to return to Rurre, it rained heavily. The boat had no cover, so we had to sit in the rain and bail it out for the entire two hours to the road. The road was even worse in the rain. All that dust was now mud, and we almost got stuck several times. The grass landing-strip in Rurre was a lake after the rain, and all flights were indefinitely suspended. We ended up spending an extra day in Rurre waiting for a flight out. There are worse places to be stuck waiting for a plane.

La Paz has high-altitude mystery, and lowland Bolivia has tropical romance. The sunsets were amazing, and the diversity of wildlife was incredible. I only hope that the Bolivian government continues to protect its natural resources and ensures that tourism to the area remains responsible. There is a lot of money to be made, and in a cash-starved country like Bolivia it would be easy to ignore nature in order to make a few bucks.