Mogli the jungle boy – here I come!

Actually, it´s just the name of the agency… but our guide was a native bolivian who lived in the jungle until he was 12, which makes it a very interesting experience.

At first, we wanted to spend 5 days, (4 nights) in the jungle, but the car broke down on the way back from the pampas… So we had to push a bit, wait a bit, and eventually sat in the car while our driver was WELDING the main axle back together in one of the villages on the way… Long story short – we got back to Rurrenabaque too late for the jungle tour and ended up doing a 3 days´ one instead of five.

We began in a nice rural area with a very nice old couple who fixed our lunch. It was chewy meat and rise, but you can´t really complain when you get real meat in the jungle, right?

Then we went on in about 3-4 hours of jungle walk all the way to the camp area. We saw interesting plants on the way (Lots of cacao!) and scary bugs as well. Those will be with us during the entire jungle trek…

We ended up at a nice area which used to be a camp, but now seems like chopped tree branches and flies. After setting up the camp (which included chopping new branches, cutting off trees and assembling a big tent together) we sat down for lunch with our five starts chef (I think we had rise) and then went out to explore a bit.

We walked for a few hours but saw no animals. We did see lots of plants and heard a 300kg Tapir run away from us, but we didn´t get to see him. At night we had a nice ceremony for mother earth (Pachamama) which was meant to protect us from the dangers of the jungle (Selva). The ceremony included cigarettes, wine and coca leaves. Apparently Pachamama has a serious drugs-alcohol-tobacco addiction… Crazy.

The next morning we woke up broken from sleeping on the ground (and from the creepy jungle noises at night) to a lovely breakfast from our chef. After eating and refreshing ourselves we set out on a 5-6 hours jungle tour going Rumbo for a while (chopping our ways with machete, without a specific trail). The scenery was amazing! We only saw 2 Cappuccinos – a mom and her baby, but that was a lot considering how close we were to the village. We learned a lot about plants – dangerous ones, poisonous, medicinal etc…  We even made some arts and crafts using local leaves and branches. At the end of the day we were dead tired and I was almost dead due to a spider who crawled all the way up to my inner thigh under my pants and nearly gave me a heart attack… Luckily it wasn´t poisonous, just big black hairy and ugly (and now dead as well).

On the way back the guide made us a lovely see-saw made of a 30 meters tree vine and a piece of wood tied with smaller vines... incredible :D

After dinner we set out on a night expedition (just the guys, the girls decided to stay and watch over the campsite… ;) We heard many snakes and creatures (creepy) and saw a HUGE amount of insects swarming the jungle everywhere. Spiders, grasshoppers, night butterflies etc… We even caught a glimpse of the hideous creepiest of them all – The boro! This terrible moth lays eggs inside people´s clothes. Those eggs hatch into larva which crawls inside the body (under the skin) and eats you from inside. We didn´t touch it.

The next morning we had but a few hours before we headed back, so we learned a bit more about plants and animals in the area, like the tree that has such a poisonous acidic liquid in its veins that it burns your skin and flesh for the period of one year (we saw the scars), and is being used for fishing simply by dumping half a bucket full of the liquid into the lake and then collecting the fish that floats upside down… Or the dangerous snake that kills in 10 minutes unless you use its raw flesh to pump the venom out of the person´s body. Creepy stuff…
We also had an encounter with edible termites. There are 2 kinds, a bit similar. One is nutritious and taste like mint, and the other is poisonous and will cause you some serious stomach ache. We chose the right type... We had our desert in the shape of a huge worm. It´s a coconut worm - it enters coconuts and eats the inside. It´s big, fat, juicy and tastes like - yes, coconuts.

We climbed up to a wonderful viewpoint – a Mirador (once again – just the guys) and saw that the jungle actually lasts forever, as it seems… And then came back to the old people´s house for a last lunch and on to Rurrenabaque.
We celebrated the last night at the infamous mosquito bar, and the next day we took off on the military TAM airplane again. lucky for us - we made it back to La Paz in one piece and with all the airplane pieces intact (even the landing gear worked!).

So a quick stop in La Paz and then on to Copacabana! The last stop in Bolivia... :D