Jungle Trek

 

Hola again amigos. Due to computer problems (aka my computer refused to boot up) I’ve been a little bit delayed posting. However, a hero and computer genius by the name of Victor saved the day and got my computer working again. So thanks to Victor here is another blog post, short and sweet.

After about 5 days of hanging around the hostel sick, I finally found out about some antibiotics you can buy over the counter and got healthy again for a jungle trek. I spent 6 days in the Bolivian jungle with a group of 5 other Israelis, which was interesting. The trip started out with a van ride down some of the worst roads I have ever seen, but with beautiful views.

Driving down the "World's Most Dangerous Road"

The first day we hiked up the side of a river to our first camp site. The jungle was hot, and the numerous creek crossings were appreciated to help cool our bodies down. The second day our guides led us up a smaller river into a canyon.  The water was really clean, the walls steep, and the forest untouched. 

In the pictures you can see I’m wearing a White dress shirt I bought from the tour guides for $1.50 to help protect against mosquitoes and sun; of which I saw very little of during the trek. It was mostly cloudy and it even rained the third day, making the trip cooler than I was expecting.

The third day our guides helped us blow up inner tubes, loaded all our belongings on to a home made raft, and we tubed down the Rio Verde for 2 hours or so to our next camp site. The tubing was quite fun with lots of obstacles and rapids to help make it exciting. The home made raft was later hi-jacked by some local pirates (below).

Our guides built a bigger home made raft for the fourth and fifth days, which all 8 of us rode on with all our belongings. To my  shock and amazement, the raft stayed together despite some extremely turbulent water!

After the first canyon, our group split into two for the other canyon excursions so that the more confident members of the group (including me) could do some more challenging canyons without being slowed down.

Essentially, we hiked, waded, and swam up fast flowing rivers inside canyons. There were even small waterfalls that needed to be scaled. At a few places in the canyons our Ironman-like guide named Limber had to scale a tricky section first, find a long vine or stick, and dangle it down the river to help pull us up. It was a ton of fun. There was only one time during the canyoning that I thought I was going to die. While climbing across a small waterfall, the current swept my feet from under me and I landed flat on the rocks. Luckily Limber and the other group members grabbed me and dragged me to safety before I got swept away.

However, there was another time that I thought Ironman Limber was going to surely fall. He was cruising up a waterfall, not missing a step despite the raging waters, when he got to an exceptionally smooth and steep section. His feet lost their grip, and he slid for about 15 feet before coming to an abrupt halt on the tiniest of ledges. If he had kept going down the rock face, it definitely would not have been pretty.

I didn’t see too many animals unfortunately, but we did glimpse one monkey way up in a tree, and there were plenty of huge blue butterflies wherever we camped.

Since the last post I’ve been up to a few activities, including an awesome day of downhill biking and a 3 day tour of the Salt Flats from Uyuni. I’m hoping the bike tour company will send me a few photos so I can write a post on that. Either way, a few posts should be coming soon assuming I have access to internet. 

Unfortunately Bolivia has not been very internet-friendly. Tomorrow James and Jordan and I are going on a tour of a working silver mine in a Bolivian town called Potosi. I’m looking forward to it because it is one of the most striking results of Spanish occupation in South America, and millions of indigenous worked at the mine while under slavery.