Rumble in the Jungle
Hey all.
Little late in getting things uploaded. Have been out of civilization for the past little while. I did indeed head into the jungle in Bolivia last week though. Did a 3 day tour in the Pampas, starting off in Rurenabaque, just north of La Paz. Our boat consisted of myself, Abi, Tahnee, Bonnie, Cor and Petra, and then a German couple.
Was everything that I was hoping for. At first, I was kind of thinking that it would be a bit like Survivor. You know how they show all the people setting up camp, and then to make it look dangerous they quickly insert an image of an alligator, even though the alligator is actually on the other side of the island....3000kms away. That is what I was expecting.
That was proven wrong quite quickly. There actually was a gator that had to move out of the way when we were pulling into one of the camps. It was hilarious. There were tons of them. We also had a big group of crazy little monkeys jump onto our boat and try to steal all of our bananas (yes, they did indeed kind of look like Ross' monkey from Friends). The amount of wildlife that we got to see was awesome. On the way in, we had a big group of pink dolphins come and hang out by the boat for a while (they are actually grey, with a little tinge of pink). We spent a couple of trips playing with the dolphins. We also got to see an animal that looked like a giant Guinea pig. Tons of huge birds....lots of wild Turkeys, some crazy astrich looking things, and some other huge ass white ones. We did tons of gator hunting boat rides, including one in the evening. At night, the way we could find them was by shining our lights into the swampy part, and then you could see these sets of red eyes glowing. It was kind of creepy. Not to worry though, as it was perfectly safe. The gators are actually scared shitless of us. As soon as they realize that they have been spotted, they usually try to take off. Most of them were pretty small (maybe 5 to 6 feet), but of few of them were real big bastards. One of them we pulled into the brush with our boat, and he was literally 5 feet in front of us. Wasn't the most comfortable feeling.
On day two, we did a 4 hour walking tour into the swamps to look for anacondas and cobras. Yeah, it didn't seem to make much sense to us either when he told us. The swamps kind of stink. I would say that they smell like shit, but it would actually be more like shit in a frying pan with some olive oil. That was what the general consensus was in our boat anyway. During the tour, the water was generally just under waist high, but there were times when it was up to my armpits (and therefore over the heads of some of our female participants). We did end up finding a couple anacondas, but they were only small (maybe 2 feet). Apparently another boat had found a couple of real big ones.
The camps that we stayed in were really nice. The food was really great once we got in there, but our first meal on the way in was a little disgusting. We found some little wormy maggot looking things in our soup, etc. And yes, I was so hungry that I did indeed eat around them. The biggest issue was the bugs......there were tons of mosquitoes the whole time. Some of the girls got bitten pretty badly.
Anyway, twas a pretty unique experience. Maybe one of those first AND last experience thingys. I've attached the jungle pics below, although I'm not sure if it is officially considered the jungle. I've also attached a few other pics from Chile and Bolivia that I wanted to get uploaded.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=8ab2nqp.bkubvywl&x=1&y=203aga
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=8ab2nqp.3n0k6zlh&x=1&y=9ni8xz
Little late in getting things uploaded. Have been out of civilization for the past little while. I did indeed head into the jungle in Bolivia last week though. Did a 3 day tour in the Pampas, starting off in Rurenabaque, just north of La Paz. Our boat consisted of myself, Abi, Tahnee, Bonnie, Cor and Petra, and then a German couple.
Was everything that I was hoping for. At first, I was kind of thinking that it would be a bit like Survivor. You know how they show all the people setting up camp, and then to make it look dangerous they quickly insert an image of an alligator, even though the alligator is actually on the other side of the island....3000kms away. That is what I was expecting.
That was proven wrong quite quickly. There actually was a gator that had to move out of the way when we were pulling into one of the camps. It was hilarious. There were tons of them. We also had a big group of crazy little monkeys jump onto our boat and try to steal all of our bananas (yes, they did indeed kind of look like Ross' monkey from Friends). The amount of wildlife that we got to see was awesome. On the way in, we had a big group of pink dolphins come and hang out by the boat for a while (they are actually grey, with a little tinge of pink). We spent a couple of trips playing with the dolphins. We also got to see an animal that looked like a giant Guinea pig. Tons of huge birds....lots of wild Turkeys, some crazy astrich looking things, and some other huge ass white ones. We did tons of gator hunting boat rides, including one in the evening. At night, the way we could find them was by shining our lights into the swampy part, and then you could see these sets of red eyes glowing. It was kind of creepy. Not to worry though, as it was perfectly safe. The gators are actually scared shitless of us. As soon as they realize that they have been spotted, they usually try to take off. Most of them were pretty small (maybe 5 to 6 feet), but of few of them were real big bastards. One of them we pulled into the brush with our boat, and he was literally 5 feet in front of us. Wasn't the most comfortable feeling.
On day two, we did a 4 hour walking tour into the swamps to look for anacondas and cobras. Yeah, it didn't seem to make much sense to us either when he told us. The swamps kind of stink. I would say that they smell like shit, but it would actually be more like shit in a frying pan with some olive oil. That was what the general consensus was in our boat anyway. During the tour, the water was generally just under waist high, but there were times when it was up to my armpits (and therefore over the heads of some of our female participants). We did end up finding a couple anacondas, but they were only small (maybe 2 feet). Apparently another boat had found a couple of real big ones.
The camps that we stayed in were really nice. The food was really great once we got in there, but our first meal on the way in was a little disgusting. We found some little wormy maggot looking things in our soup, etc. And yes, I was so hungry that I did indeed eat around them. The biggest issue was the bugs......there were tons of mosquitoes the whole time. Some of the girls got bitten pretty badly.
Anyway, twas a pretty unique experience. Maybe one of those first AND last experience thingys. I've attached the jungle pics below, although I'm not sure if it is officially considered the jungle. I've also attached a few other pics from Chile and Bolivia that I wanted to get uploaded.
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=8ab2nqp.bkubvywl&x=1&y=203aga
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=8ab2nqp.3n0k6zlh&x=1&y=9ni8xz
posted by Ryan D. MacIntyre | 2:15 PM
3 Comments:
cool!
neato! did you get to eat any aligator?? hows the food down there? did i spell aligator right?
keep them coming, wish i was there!
Sly
Ryno
Out of surgery and feeling ok - first day back at work and greeted with a mere 500+ emails, of which perhaps 60-70 were anywhere near "important" - I love life at a big company.
I have decided to stop looking at the photos you post, as they tend to spark feelings of hatred and envy deep in my soul...
Glad to read/see/hear that you're still having a good time.
Stay healthy,
Stinch
PS - Sennies have won 8 of their last 9, I believe it is...
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