I reckon that the jungle has three predominant and over-excessive features...the color green, every kind of stinging,biting, and generally obnoxious insect possible, and the ability to cause the human intruders to produce unnatural amounts of sweat. The first atribute is a lovely one, the last two can be done away with...remind me to have a world with God next time He designs a world (maybe He can put in an eight day week next time to iron out some of those nasty details).
In fact, there is another variable common to most jungle environments...extremely shitty transportation. I made a giant loop through Bolivia´s Amazon Basin from Santa Cruz to Trinidad and then to Rurrenabaque. S.C. to Trini was fine and in Trini I purchased a bus ticket to Rurre, the clerk assured me I would be in Rurre before 10pm that same day. The first shock came after only half an hour into the journey when we were forced to leave the mini-van and get in a boat, something the clerk failed to mention. Second shock was that the boat took three hours, namely because the entire country is under a few meters of water and there is no road. However, it was a lovely, if hot, boat journey. The rest of the road journey was not...I´ll just mention driving no faster than 35kmh beacause of the goliath sized ruts, four kilos of pulverized dirt entering the car every sixty seconds through inconceivable orphices, and the failure to meet the promised arrival time by fifteen hours (can´t say I was too surprised, though).
The destination was definately worth it. Rurrenabaque is a lovely little village situated on the Beni river (a tributrary of the Amazon) and surrounded by pristine jungle, including the Parque National Madidi...a massive chunk of jungle with some of the highest levels of plant and animal diversity in the world. I ended up spending three days in the national park mostly sweating, swatting bugs, scatching but also doing a bit of trekking. Besides the color green, we saw lots: different types of monkeys, massive herds(?)of wild pigs that make disturbing noises and release and intersting (read ´offensive´) smell from a gland on their back, tarantulas, turtles, macawas, other parrots, giant cities of ants that cut leaves in order to grow mushrooms, other ants with pincers so big you can stich up cuts by letting the ant bite you and then decapitating it while leaving the head and pincers in your silky skin, and, we almost saw a tapir and jungle turkey (we heard them as they ran away from us but didn´t quite catch a glimpse).
The first picture is of a tree that walks...yes, it walks to find sunlight
I´ve now ventured up to the highest capital city in the world, La Paz. It is completley different than I had imagined...and I think I love it. A few more stops in Bolivia are in store for me (Tiwanaku and Lake Titicaca) and then the call of Peru will ovetake me agianst my will and I will have to leave Bolivia.
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