I Survived the Jungle – Rurrenabaque, Bolivia

Rurrenabaque, Bolivia is a small town on the Beni River known as a gateway to the rain forests and pampas of northern Bolivia. There are two ways to Rurrenabaque from La Paz, Bolivia. You can take a twisty, scary bus ride for approximately 18 hours or a 30 minute flight. It won’t surprise you that I chose the flight. Rurrenabaque is the tourist town with several tour agencies offering tours to the jungle and pampas. I decided to spend 8 days in the jungle doing a 3 day jungle tour and a 3 day pampas tour.

Jungle tour:

My excitement the day before leaving was insane. I was so pumped for this tour with Max Adventues. Adventuring into the jungle was something off the beaten path that not everyone makes time for while traveling in Bolivia. It felt unexplored. I was stoked.

The eco lodge with Max Adventures was outstanding. I stayed in a tree house with my fellow tour mates, Deborah (pictured above with me), Janne and Ruben. The food at the lodge was the best food I had in Bolivia which was quite impressive considering we were in the middle of the jungle.

We trekked through the jungle where our tour guide, Renaldo, would use his machete to hack down a walkway through fallen leaves and trees. 

We learned a lot about different types of trees during our treks – check out these fun ones below!

This tree is being consumed by the smaller outer trees and will eventually die.

This tree can walk! It can move up to 2-3 meters in 5 years on it’s search for sunlight.

My least favorite, the devil’s tree (el arbol de diablo). It got it’s name due to the fact it harbors fire ants which are little red ants that can cause a lot of pain with just one bite. I was bitten 3 times while we stood near this tree waiting for our guide to use natures bathroom.

We also saw lots of big trees!

We went to a parrot clay lick, where the parrots were having their siesta during the lunch hour. Sorry I am not tech enough like Justin to insert videos in my blogs.

The afternoon hike on our second day lead us to our camping spot in the jungle. On the way, Renaldo made the three ladies fans out of bamboo!

We slept in the jungle the second night with a sleeping mat, sleeping bag, and mosquito net.

On our last morning, Renaldo made us this really amazing deep fried breakfast that reminds me of funnel cake.

Then we built a raft with logs and made our way back to the Eco Lodge. Have I mentioned how amazing this place was yet? Here is a photo of our tree house and their showers (cold – but cool).

Funny story alert: So the first night in the jungle we slept in our tree house in the Eco Lodge. After dinner we headed back to the room. As I walked up to my bed, I saw this big spider on my pillow. My natural instincts were to scream…loudly. My friends ran in behind me to see what happened. The spider was about the size of a quarter. One of them was convinced there was a large animal in our room not just a spider. Well, sure enough a few minutes later my guide comes knocking on the door. They heard my scream from way back in the lodge (about a 3-4 minute walk).

After we returned to the lodge after sleeping in the jungle, I went to the bathroom at the lodge. In order to reach the toilet, you follow this swirly path. The bathroom had no door. As I stand up, I see there is a HUGE black tarantula on the side of the wall. Of course if a spider the size of a quarter made me scream, this big, black tarantula made me squeal! I scream so loud it got scared and climbed back into a hole on the top of the wall. A guide came running over to my rescue once again. Later a guide was upset I didn’t take a photo of the spider. Sorry everyone – I didn’t have my phone with me.

When I returned to my hostel, I immediately ordered the margarita on happy hour because I just survived the jungle. It was hot, but we typically wore long pants and shirts to protect from bugs.

The Pampas tour is most popular for tourists who only have time for one tour. Rightfully so because this tour is much easier than the jungle tour and you see a ton more wildlife. You mainly sit in a boat and watch wild life. I was lucky to be with the same tour guide and mates!

This tour starts with a 3 hour bumpy river. On the way, we saw a sloth. I didn’t know that what we were looking at was a sloth because my guide said “lazy monkey”. I didn’t want a photo of a lazy monkey, but I do want one of the sloth!

In the pampas, we saw pink dolphins, toucans, squirrel monkeys, one howler monkey, lots of alligators and crocodiles, a baby alligator and a baby crocodile, turtles, storks, and a bird in the turkey family.

Toucan!

We also went piranhas fishing/ I caught one large sardine, which I attribute to helping catch the 26 piranhas we caught. The tour guide caught 23!! We got to eat them for dinner 🙂

One morning we went anaconda hunting… it was the worst experience of my entire 3 months in South America. Go read the ugly section of my The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly of Bolivia blog for more details (coming soon).