Amazing Amazon

Beware... it´s a jungle out there!

Since the last entry we have witnessed the incredibly vast array of geographical contrasts that is Bolivia, and the reason why it is one of the most biodiverse countries on the planet.

After leaving pretty, temperate Sucre we headed north to the steamy Amazon Basin. En route in our tiny propellor plane, we passed over the La Paz altiplano and thankfully managed (albeit somewhat shakily) to climb high enough to pass over the snow-capped peaks to its north. When the mountains dropped away, the landscape became a vast ocean of green forest, occasionally interspersed with brown winding rivers. After landing on a grass runway (ok, a field basically!), we climbed out into the little town of Rurrenabaque and arranged a trip into the amazon jungle.

The trip was everything we could have hoped for... after a private boat-ride down the river, watching the exotic tree-lined banks drift past we arrived at our rainforest home (a small collection of electicrity-less huts). After something to eat we headed off into the trees with our guide, José Luis, pushing through vegetation, scambling over fallen trees and balancing our way over logs to cross rivers (I tried my best to put in some moves from Dirty Dancing on the latter but it wasn´t to be). During our two days of exploring we were lucky enough to encounter a variety of animals from frogs of all colours and sizes (whose eyes lit up in José´s torch light on our night-time sojourn), a tarantula (roughly the size of my two fists put together), monkeys, a herd of wild boar, maccaws, huge butterflies and a family of ant-eaters wending their way along the branches. The calls of the distant howler monkeys (more like roars than howls) gave the whole feel quite a Jurassic Park feel!

In addition we also learnt a lot of interesting facts about the rainforest vegetation. Many of the trees are used by indiginous peoples for their medicinal qualities, including one leaf which had an anaesthetic effect on our tongues when we chewed it! Rob was also impressed by a small fruit whose taste resembled a mango but whose stone turned out to contain coconut... maybe we´ll try to export some when we return home!

And so it was with some reluctance but amazing memories that we headed out of Bolivia (not before seeing yet another change in its scenery - this time the red rocky crags and cacti of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid´s territory in the south)... next stop Argentina!

Amazon Asombroso

Cuidado... es una selva alli!

Esta semana hemos estado testigados al increyible numero de differentes medios ambientes que contiene Bolivia, y el razon porque tiene uno de los mas grandes biodiversidades del mundo.

Después que salimos de Sucre bonito, fuimos al región húmido del Amazon, en el norte. En nuestro avion muy pequeno, pasamos arriba de La Paz y el altiplano y entonces afortunadomente pudimos subir (sacudiendo un poco!) bastante para pasar los montagnas cubiero de nieve al norte de la cuidad. Cuando las montagnas desaparecieron, el paisaje cambió y hubo un mar grande de arboles verdes, con rios marrones.

Pasamos unos días fantasticos en el región de Beni, y tuvimos la suerte de tomar una excursion de barco privado en el rio, hasta nuestra destinación en la selva. Exploramos la selva con nuestra guia, José Luis y veímos unas ranas (sus ojos billaron en la luz de la antoccha de José) una tarantula, unos monos, unos chanchos, una familia de hormigueros, maccaws, y unas mariposas bonitas.

Además, aprendimos mucho sobre los arboles y plantas, cuales son usados para las personnas indíginas por sus effectos medicinales. Por ejemplo, hubo una hoja que probamos que tuvieron el effecto de anaesthetic sobre nuestras lenguas! Rob se gusta tambien una fruta que tenía un sabor similar al mango pero que tenía coco adentro. Tal vez trataremos exportar unas cuando regresseremos a Inglaterra!

Y pues, salimos de Bolivia, con un poco de tristeza pero con muchas memorias asombrosas. Proximo: Argentina!