the amazon!

so the amazon did not disappoint!  it was such an amazing experience!  in bolivia you can visit the jungle and/or the pampas.  the difference being that in the jungle you are in the thick vegetation so the experience is more about the plants, and insects with some animals but fewer sightings.  the pampas is a wetland savanna and here you are able to see further and see more animals.  we decided to do a combo tour and thus spent 3 days in the jungle and 2 days in the pampas.

first we had to get there.  we took a small plane (i'm not a fan of the small planes....getting there was okay but coming back to la paz was a doozy!) from la paz to the town of rurrenabaque.

this flight drops from over 13,000 ft down to about 750 ft.  rurrenabaque is the small gateway town to the amazon, tucked against big green hills and bordering the rio beni.  we also went from wearing our puffy coats and fleeces in la paz to hot and humid jungle conditions.

we booked with a tour company called mashaquipe.  this is an organization run by the indigenous community and thus the profits presumably go directly back to the people.  these community run projects cost a bit more but ultimately help sustain the communities and preserve the richness of the rainforest.  they preach respect for culture, environment, and wildlife....and seemed true to their word from what we saw.

we took a boat ride from rurrenabaque up the rio beni for about 3 hrs and then a little bit up the rio tuichi.

 along the way we briefly stopped at one of the indigenous communities where we were able to enjoy grapefruit directly from the trees and also squeeze some sugar cane on this big machine thing (i was probably told what the machine was called but i forget). the sugar cane juice mixed with some fresh lime juice (from another tree of course) was soooooo delicious!

we ultimately entered the Parque Nacional Madid which is said to be one of south america's most intact ecosystems (it is apparently over 1.8 million hectacres).   we spent the first day and night at mashaquipe's ecolodge.

our guide sandro was a wealth of knowledge. he grew up in the jungle and knew so much about the plants, birds and animals.  he could spot animals and make calls that were amazing!  and particularly interesting to me he showed us many many plants used for medicinal purposes.  he was with us for the entire 5 days and we all just adored him.

on our first jungle walk sandro painted our faces.....which the kids thought was pretty awsome. lucy even got a special jungle girl headdress.

there are giant trees in the jungle.....

....and 'walking trees'

....poisonous spiky trees (don't trip!)

....and little pineapple plants!

.....we slept at the ecolodge the first night and the kids loved sleeping under mosquito nets!

one of the other reasons we chose this tour company is that they offered the opportunity to camp away from the ecolodge in a more rustic environment. so the second day we hiked 3.5 hrs through the jungle to the other camp.

there was no ecolodge there.....just all the tourist lined up on a platform under mosquito nets! without any walls it definitely felt like we were sleeping in the jungle!

the camp had this little coati named teamo who was semi-domesticated.  at first blush he was super friendly and cute, but after climbing into another tourist's lap and peeing on them we kept our distance!

in the afternoon we took another jungle hike, stopping to learn how to weave the leaves that makes the roofs of all the structures and taking in some amazon vistas.

ultimately we ended up at the top of a cliff where we watched stunningly colorful macaws fly over the amazon canopy....truly breathtaking!

and to top it off, that night we took a night walk and saw a tarantula!

at some point during the day we realized it was the 4th of july.  no fireworks, but we did have some fireflies on our night walk!

the last day in the jungle sandro helped us build a raft and we rafted back to the ecolodge instead of hiking back.  it was actually a nice float.....muy tranquilo.

once back at the ecolodge the sky opened and it rained! so we spent the afternoon making jewelry from coconut seeds.

once the rain stopped there was a beautiful rainbow!

the kids tried their luck at fishing.  we didn't catch anything but another guy caught a giant pirana!

we watched a stunning jungle sunset.....

and then the next morning we headed back to rurrenabaque to catch our ride out to the pampas (a few hours in a car)

on the ride out to the pampas it was just pouring rain.....after the car it was then a short boat ride to the pampas ecolodge.

lucky for us, after lunch at the ecolodge, when we headed back out to tour the pampas by boat the rains had stopped!

we saw lots and lots of animals!
scary caiman....

....tons of capybara (very large rodents)

beautiful heron....

another bird (i can't remember the name of this one but i'm sure the birders in my life will surely be able to identify it!)

a sloth!

cute little yellow monkeys...

and the highlight for me were the pink river dolphins playing alongside the boat!

the next day (our last in the pampas) we tried fishing for pirana.....we didn't catch a pirana, but riley caught a little catfish.

then we went out to an area where the anacondas are known to live and walked around looking for one.  we were lucky and found a 6 footer dozing in the grass.

a family in the pampas of bolivia!

in the end we felt like we had a brilliant adventure.  riley was certainly very ready to leave as it turned out he was the tastiest member of our family (despite using copious amounts of repellent!)

it was hard to say good-bye to our guide sandro but we will all remember him fondly.

so we are back in la paz now. tomorrow we leave and head back into peru and then towards the sacred valley (where macchu picchu is).  we have a volunteer gig set up next week in a little town called pisac which we are looking forward to.
hasta luego!