Welcome to the jungle ...

We got a taxi to La Paz international airport and caught our plane for Rurrenabaque. It almost looked more like one of Steven's toy planes, it was so small! We cramped ourselves into this 19 seater plane and took off. The views were amazing as we were flying really low, we flew through, not over, the Andes, and flew by Waynu Potosi which was pretty impressive! The flight was pretty bumpy too. We arrived in Rurrenabaque after about 40 minutes of flying. It was like a movie because the airport (if you can call it that) is bang in the middle of the jungle. The terminal is a little hut and the airstripe is a dirt track. I actually thought for a second we had landed in Jerusalem because there are SO many freaking Israelis! Seriously! I think it's a sect! They are like ants.. Everywhere! We got into a tiny mini van with our hebrew friends and put our bags on the very safe looking roof. No, I wasn't worried my bag may fly off at any second!
We got to the town of Rurrenabaque, which is beautiful. It's right in the middle of the jungle. And it's so so hot, you don't even have to move and you're already sweating! We walked around for a bit and then went up to the Mirador, it's a swimming pool of the top of the hill with amazing views. And guess who was there? The whole freaking population of Jerusalem! I think we may have been the only foreigners there! Even the menu is in Hebrew! It's not even in Spanish, just Hebrew and English!! So, anyway, besides that, the pool was amazing, the view over the jungle and the Rio Beni was amazing, we even saw the sunset. We came back down to town for dinner and some drinks. I forgot to mention, the taxis in this town are moto bikes. There's hardly any cars. It's kinda scary at first but we tell them to ride together so we're not alone.
The next morning, we went to the tour office and caught our 18th century jeep to start our trek. We drove for a few hours to Santa Rosa on a very uncomfortable dirt road, where we had an amzing lunch of soupe, rice and meat. Then we drove to the Rio Yacuma where we caught a really long motorized canoe with our guide Victor. We 'canoed' for a couple of ours to our lodge which is on the river. Amazing! We settled in, jumped in the water from a rope they attached to the tree. The water looks so calm but the current is actually pretty strong, I could hardly swim back! We then had popcorn and cookies and went out on our canoe to Sunset Bar, another hut on the river to watch the sunset! Amazing! There were so many mosquitoes (funnily enough I didn't get bitten that much), you could see them flying over in swarms! We got back to our lodge, showered cos it was sooo hot! The minute you got out the shower you were sweating again, it was pointless! Then we hung out in the hamac room which was packed with people, which was a shame, but luckily they weren't Israeli!
That night, it was absolutely impossible to sleep and then we were woken up in the middle of the night by pourring rain! The next morning, we woke up and met Frederico, the aligator which lives around our lodge. Yes Frederico lives in the water we had just jumped into the previous day! We then went out to look for the anaconda. Apparently, they're not as dangerous as we thought. We walked through this swamp with water up to our waists for about 2 hours, until we got to this muddy little island, where we searched for the anaconda. Unfortunately, we didn't find it, but I did see a baby turantula! And I touched it's leg! I almost ran a mile though (well there was only 10 metres to run)! We walked/swam back to our canoe and on the way Victor stopped us and went ahead saying there were aligators ahead! Lol! All was safe and went back for lunch. The food was pretty good at the lodge, rice, pasta, salads, meats, and lots of it. Nothing like our meals in Arutam, where I almost starved! I pigged out on cookies for desert and had a pretty bad tummy ache for a while. In the afternoon, we went out again to fish for piranhas, which they too are not that dangerous. They only atack if you bleed in the water. The fishing was quite unsuccessful. So Liv and I sunbathed and the guys caught sardines, one trout and a baby piranha. The guide showed us the piranha up close and we touched its teeth and tried bitting us! Then we 'canoed' around to several different spots looking for more piranhas and also looking for dolphins. We swam in one area to swim with the dolphins and Victor was fishing for piranhas about 20 metres away! It was quite funny!
The next day, our last day, we went out to swim with dolphins again. We jumped in and they started splashing around us and swimming around us. It was pretty amazing but quite scary because you can't see them because the water is dark. And we couldn't actually hold them or anything, I think you can only do that with trained dolphins. We went to fish for piranhas again! Or did we? And then went back for lunch and then Victor took us back to Santa Rosa on the canoe, where we caught our jeep back to Rurrenabaque. We spent about 30 minutes in the bank, trying to get cash out. The only ATM in town doesn't take Visa or Mastercard! Luckily the bank was open when we got back.
It's 9.45 am now and the heat is absolutely unbearrable! I can't wait to get back to La Paz and colder places! We catch our flight back to La Paz this afternoon at 3.30 pm.

So what can I say the differences are between Yacuma and Arutam!
Yacuma is unbearrably hot, Arutam was nice and it got cold at night. I guess it's because it rained alot in Arutam so it cooled it down!
I got molested by mosquitoes in Arutam, not here! Suprisingly!
We had amazing food on the tour.. I almost starved in Arutam!
Arutam was in the rainforest, Santa Rosa/Yacuma is a pampas area, which I think means river/swampy areas. It wasn't the actual rainforest. Had I known I may have done a jungle tour instead of a pampas tour. don't regret it though!
I would have loved to see indegenous groups on the tour too but we didn't! Although, this was much more the 'jungle' experience in comparison to Arutam.


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