My wish was simple. I wanted to swim with pink dolphins. Searching for anacondas and fishing for piranhas sounds great too, but dolphins.

 

 

 

DIY Booking A Tour and Transportation

The best advice I can give is to organize everything by yourself in La Paz, before going to Rurrenabaque. As counterintuitive as that sounds, all my expenses clocked in at just about $100, hundreds of dollars less than booking through a travel agency inside a hostel.

Because all the tours offer the same services and activities, I went haggling on Calle Linares behind Plaza San Francisco and annoyingly crammed with tourism offices, until one agent in the Nuevo Continente office offered me $72 under Fluvial Tours. When I ended up arriving in Rurre, the rest of my group had their flight cancelled and I was moved to a new group with Sunset Tours. It’s classic for many companies to work together and provide identical itineraries to their clients, despite the different names and logos.

Included was two nights stay in a jungle lodge, transportation to the national park, meals and water, and an English-speaking guide who drove us up and down the river in a canoe with a motor stuck on it as we went wild-life spotting and sought out dolphins, anaconda, and piranhas. Again, this was the standard package.

My overnight bus left from Parada a Rurrenabaque in Villa Fatima, a ways out of the city center. Catch a combi labelled “V. Fatima” to reach this station, which was also where I purchased my tickets.

As if I hadn’t gone through enough hell on the previous day, I missed my bus. Thinking I was early, I left my bag and took a walk. I returned to an empty office and a disappeared bus, realizing I had forgotten to change time zones on my phone. I was so thankful the office was unlocked, and the company across the street had one seat left that I quickly pounced on. The staff watched me running back and forth out of my mind, and offered me some beer. Sometimes, you just gotta take what life gives you and chug.

I didn’t realize busses obviously use the Death Road until we were physically driving on it—absolutely terrifying. There was so much cargo the bus was swaying from side to side. Waking up multiple times because my forehead bashed the seat window from the potholes and unsteady ride was a new low. The arrival time was always ambiguous and for all these reasons, many choose to fly. I had the travel agent write on my receipt that if I arrived too late for my tour I could just start the following day.

The final expense to be aware of is the $20 entrance fee to Madidi National Park, paid at the gate.

 

 

Discover Las Pampas

 

Day 90

Three hours on the road covered us in dust as we drove towards Santa Rosa, a town that I could’ve easily mistaken to be Cuban.

I welcomed lunch with joy because it included plenty of veggies.

At the river we waited for the finishing group to return. The 10 of us piled into the 8-person canoe with our gear, cartons of eggs, water, etc.

We spotted wildlife all the way to our wooden jungle lodge, where other groups had already arrived. I was amused when we had the type of snack time I associated with preschoolers. They fed us popcorn, cookies, and a brightly colored juice.

At night, our guide Juan Carlos took us to a cleared field for viewing the sunset. There seem to be several properties of this sort on the same side of the river, owned by families. All have bars, soccer goals, and volleyball nets. We played scrimmage until we could no longer see much past the cloud of mosquitoes that had begun gathering above each of our heads.

On the way home we used headlamps to watch the caiman eyes glow like fiery dots on the water.

 

 

Day 91

After breakfast, we threw on rubber boots and were boating along the river once again.

All the tours gather in the same spot of swamp. To get there, we cut through some bush and I was glad that ticks didn’t seem to be a problem.

We waded in mud for hours and tried not to think about how searching for anacondas means throwing ourselves in their way. It seemed unproductive until at last Julian, a boy from Spain, spotted one. We rushed over, then the rest of the groups rushed over. She was a small beauty, and probably terrified at that she was surrounded.

Piranha time! I was handed fishing line and chopped up sardine. They come in white, red, yellow, and orange colors, with red being the largest and most dangerous.

I caught and released five little ones. Among our whole group, we had five large enough to make it to the dinner table.

 

 

Day 92

I skipped the sunrise viewing and I don’t regret it. Instead, I woke to fresh fruit and both sweet and cheesy donuts for breakfast.

Our last activity was swimming with the freshwater dolphins of my dreams. We’d already seen them surfacing throughout the past days. Although they have come close and allowed people touch them in the past, the most I saw was blowholes, fins, and fleeting rose-colored tails. I know I sound so blunt, but really was so cool to have been able to experience. I couldn’t see them, but knew intelligent, curious mammals were circling me. Their presence was everything.

I felt nice and clean on the breezy motorboat back out of the jungle, but everything changed for the van ride back to Rurrenabaque. Choking on dust, I was certain I was melting into my seat and spilling onto those next to me.

The first bus back to La Paz was at 5pm. I waited for my friends from the tour while they retrieved the rest of their bags from hostels. The five of us caught one at 6pm, their company providing comfort as scary roads lay ahead.

In hindsight, I should’ve gone to town with Marie, explored the markets, used some wifi, and enjoyed the street festivities. For the first time, I was homesick and lacked motivation to see towns.