Bolivian Pampas, part one: Getting there

 

Saturday, December 7

Hostal Sol Andina, La Paz 

Here I am, sitting on a bed with two thick and heavy lama wool blankets, contemplating if I should slide my feet in to warm them up when this morning just after sunrise rivulets of perspiration were already running down my back on my way to the 'Amaszonas' airline office in downtown Rurrenabaque.

We left La Paz only four days ago, but it felt like a small eternity when we returned this morning, so far removed from the by now familiar highland scenery had we been. We had found out about the Pampas tours from the travel agent conveniently housed in the lobby of our hostel and had made a quick decision to choose this as one of our Bolivia experiences.

On Tuesday evening we boarded the small plane from Air Amaszonas at 4,060m above sea level at the La Paz airport, and forty-five minutes later we touched down at an altitude of 229 m in Rurrenabaque. To reach this small town northeast of La Paz by road takes twenty-four hours on difficult roads winding through mountains and, later, jungle. Most people prefer to use one of the small aircraft of Air Amaszonas or Tam that come in three times a day. Pleasant as this option is, it, too, is not without challenges: often enough flights are cancelled because of poor visibility. There was no problem for us, however, and we soon enough stepped out into the sweltering heat of the lowlands.

Touching down in Rurrenabaque

The airport - all of it

Airport shuttle

The road to town

 To our surprise we were greeted by a representative of 'Dolphin Tours', and after the incredibly unorganized unloading of the luggage of this small group of passengers at the smallest airport I have ever seen we headed into Rurre, as it is called locally, and were delivered to our hostel.

The next morning we shouldered our packs and walked the few blocks to Dolphin Tour's office. It seems there are hundreds of motorbikes in this town of about 14,000 in the middle of nowhere. Men, women, teenage girls and boys, families of four squeezed together, a husband with his stately wife perched sideways behind him on the seat – there is a constant up and down of motorcycles in the streets, honking, swerving around obstacles and pedestrians. Shoulder to shoulder stand the little stores, restaurants, and bars, in the main street for tourists, one street removed mostly for the locals. Mango trees, heavily laden with still-green fruit, give welcome shade, and most of life takes place in front of houses and shops. 

During the night it becomes quiet for a while, but by sunrise life picks up again, albeit at a more leasurely pace than in the bigger (and cooler) centres. 

 

We had no clear idea what expected us in these next three days, only the broad outlay of information we got from the travel agent and our brochure, so all we knew was that we'd spend three days in the pampas, the extensive grasslands, and that we'd be housed in a lodge along the river Yacuma, a tributary of the Río Beni flowing through Rurrenabaque.

There is one tour operator beside the next along that stretch of street, and everywhere tourists were waiting to be picked up for their sojourn into the wetlands. Nearly all of them were backpacker type young people, hardly anyone seemed to be much over thirty – why, I have no idea. Interestingly, however, the only two people joining us at Dolphin didn't fit that category: André from Belgium was in his mid seventies, and José Luis from Spain in his early fifties – we could easily have been everybody else`s parents. 

Shortly after nine Joaquin, our driver, was ready to leave. Our bags and some supplies meant for the lodge were loaded into a white Toyota four-wheel drive seven-seater, and we were headed north along the bumpy road leading out to the airport. Soon after we passed it the semi-paved road abandoned all pretense of being anything but a gravel road, and not a very good one to boot. 

The sun was shining now, but it had rained heavily the few preceding days and in some spots deep ruts were still filled with water. With exceptional skill Joaquin negotiated big rocks and deep holes, changing lanes as necessary, getting the speed up to eighty kilometres per hour for short stretches before encountering yet another area where manoeuvering was difficult. Trucks, buses, motorcycles and a few vehicles like ours, loaded with tourists headed for adventure, shared the road with white, grey and brown Brahma cows on their way to a different pasture, herded by cowboys on small, tough horses. Once we passed a team of big oxen hitched to a wagon.

We passed the small town of Reyes, then stopped for a short break at a shack/restaurant in the middle of nowhere, the half-way point of our car ride. After about two-and-a-half hours we had a pre-ordered lunch in Santa Rosa, a neat looking town of maybe five thousand people with businesses and paved streets, and only ten minutes from there our road travel came to an end. It was time to say goodbye to Joaquin and change the means of transportation.