Rurrenabaque

June 14 - Our week was most adventurous. I think the pictures are worth 1,000 words. As soon as we arrived on the little prop plane into Rurre I knew we were in for a treat. The climate here is warm and humid and the air is thick and sticky. When we hopped off the plane and we were immediately shuttled on to these little moto taxis by this lady who seemed overly concerned that our plane had arrived late. (When we set up our tour beforehand in La Paz we weren´t planning on people being there to pick us up from the airport so Jayson and I were both confused when this lady was there to meet us at the airport and telling us to hurry and hop on the motorcycles that were going to take us into town). Next thing we knew Jayson and I were headed up the Beni river with some members of an indigenous tribe that were going to show us there village and be our guides through the jungle.

The boat ride on the Beni was muy bonita (full of beautiful lush greenness all around us)! Once we arrived at the indigenous village (22 families total) we were taken on a walk around the village. Everyone there lives without a lot of what we call necessities but they are very happy and seem to enjoy their way of life. They have tons of fruit trees there—(almost as impressive as Dad’s orchard). Orange, cacao, grapefruit, mango, papaya, lime, lemon, coconut, banana…etc. trees grow in abundance around the village and they grow their own yuka, corn, potatoes, wheat, sugar cane and pineapple too. The raise chickens that run freely around the village and jungle but always return in the morning and evening for breakfast and dinner. Our guide shared a lot of the medicine uses of different plants and some of the myths that sprung up from long ago and are prevalent in the village. We returned from our walk just in time to drink some fresh coconut water and have chicken soup. They say the chickens come for breakfast at 8 and are on the table to eat at noon.

After lunch we went on a trek through the jungle. The sounds in the jungle are incredible. There were thousands of birds cooing and cawing along with the ruffle of lizards and other creeping animals in the bushes. We were most impressed by some of the trees we saw. Jayson and mine’s personal favorite is the walking tree that looks like it has 20 legs and can and quite literally move 1 meter every year to a place with the best sun. When we arrived at the top of the hill/mountain we saw the jungle from a different angle as we took a series of zip-lines from the tops of the trees back to our original destination. (I am always amazed at the lack of safety regulations other countries are able to get away with; needless to say this zip-line would have never passed inspection in the U.S. but it made it all the more exciting. We were standing on these little wooden platforms on the tops of the trees with nothing more than our helmet to protect us from a 100 ft fall). We took a short swim in the Beni river when we returned from the trek and made it back to Rurre just in time to grab some pizza and find a hostal for a good night’s sleep.