Sloth Journeys

The second part of our jungle tour actually wasn’t in the jungle at all but we did spend a lot of time on boats!

This part of the tour took us into the Pampas for two nights. The Pampas is essentially a wetland environment, and a lot more open than the jungle, offering opportunities to see a different habitat and different (and probably more) animals.

After having effectively a private tour in Madidi, we weren’t initially sure if we might have others joining us for the Pampas section. However, on arrival at our Pampas lodge it turned out that not only did we still have a private tour, but we actually had the whole lodge to ourselves that night!

It also became clear pretty quickly that we were indeed likely to see plenty of wildlife that we’d not seen in the jungle. Looking out from the dining room terrace, we immediately spotted two Caiman in the river beside the lodge.

Following yet another hearty lunch of some food*, we headed off in a small boat in search of more wildlife.

* She clearly can’t remember what they ate either!

And we certainly saw some! Dozens of different bird species including toucans, storks, flycatchers and one bird species endemic to Bolivia named a Hoatzin (or ‘Watson’ as Richard kept calling them!), which is a strange clumsy looking bird, and apparently has few predators once it’s full grown due to it smelling (and presumably tasting) awful! We did try to catch a waft as we sailed past (Admin – is that the right word if you’re on a boat with an engine?!), but couldn’t sniff anything. Maybe you need to be a bit closer?!

Oh, and after years of not seeing any back home, to the point we were becoming convinced that they were fictitious, like unicorns, we finally saw a kingfisher! In fact, we saw two different species and several different individuals of each!

We also saw turtles, capybara, loads more caiman (both Spectacled and Black), coatis, monkeys and one species I really didn’t think we’d actually see, the pink river dolphin!

Ok, so we didn’t see all of these on our first trip down the river, but over the course of the next couple of days we saw all these and more! Unfortunately, photographing a lot of them wasn’t easy from a moving boat with just a phone camera, and many of our photos of the animals aren’t really blog-worthy, so just in case you are disappointed we don’t have a photo of the pink dolphins, here’s one of a sleeping cat.

We also went on a night boat trip, during which we startled a poor tapir that was just thinking of crossing the river as we came round the bend. We clearly made its decision for it, as it tore across the river, undoubtedly scared by us (which I feel bad about), but it was nonetheless amazing to see it. 

Later that boat journey, things got even more eventful when we broke down in the Caiman infested waters! It turned out that some material had got caught around the propeller, so our guide wrestled with that (using nothing but a pair of nail scissors supplied by us from our first aid kit – you can’t say we headed out into the Amazon unprepared!), whilst we nervously watched the twinkling eyes of the Caiman all around us! Thankfully, he eventually managed to free us (Admin – when she says ‘eventually’, she means about 10 minutes later!) and we made it back to the safety of the lodge!

The following day we were off anaconda hunting! Not real hunting, obviously, just trying to spot some! We had read reviews about some of the tour operators being less scrupulous about how they interact with the animals, but thankfully ours lived up to their good reviews and kept a responsible distance so as not to disturb the wildlife too much. So off we headed to the local swamp, armed with some wellies and a stick! Not to prod the anacondas with mind you, just to help us not slip and fall on our arses in the swamp!

After an hour or more of searching, we’d not found any anacondas ourselves, although we had watched two giant storks find and gobble down two relatively small and unlucky snakes! What I did manage to come across though, was an angry wasp (or at least that’s what we deduce it was), that promptly stung me on the nose, causing me to flail about and throw my sunglasses into the swamp! Thankfully Richard saw where they landed and I managed to retrieve them before they sank. And so, with that, we decided it was time to head back to the safety of the lodge again!

The final morning saw us take another river trip, including an opportunity to try to catch some piranha. Neither of us are particular fans of fishing (as we don’t imagine it’s especially enjoyable for the fish), but since we reckoned our chances of actually catching anything were pretty low, we thought we’d have a go! Needless to say our prediction was right and we caught sod all! At least the piranhas got a nice lunch, having felt stripped all the meat we used as bait was cleanly from the fishing hooks multiple times! Our guide (a native of the area and a dab hand at fishing this way having done it all his life) did, however, catch a couple to show us very quickly, before setting them free.

And with that, our Pampas adventure drew to a close and we reluctantly headed back to Rurrenabaque to await our 13 hour overnight bus journey from hell back to La Paz!