Jayson is Thankful for the Mundial

Although some days are more packed than others we still manage to be quite tired when the end of the day rolls around. I thought I would give you a sampling of one of Jayson’s most recent prayers to help you appreciate this. After he had been sleeping for an hour or so I woke Jayson up to say prayers. Jayson started out praying in English in his usual prayer mumble, but when you combine the prayer mumble with the tired mumble the intensity of the mumble multiplies. As a result I didn’t really understand the first part of the prayer, but then he said something that caught me off guard and I couldn’t contain the giggles. He said in his prayer that he was thankful we had the opportunity to watch the mundial (world cup) on television. It would have been one thing if Jayson and I had actually watched the mundial and he really desired to express his gratitude for that opportunity, but it turns out we hadn’t actually watched the mundial that day. When he heard me laughing he then started speaking really fast Spanish and ended his prayer sooner than normal.

*As evidenced by Jayson’s prayer, the mundial is a really big deal here. People are obsessed! We have found it necessary to stay up to date on all the current games in order to have conversations about what everyone is talking about all over Bolivia (Does anyone else find it slightly ironic that Bolivia doesn’t even have a team to cheer on in the competition?). Fortunately the success of Bolivia’s South American neighbors (Argentina and Brazil) provides plenty of opportunities for Bolivians to express their mundial excitement through firework displays.

Multicine

Last night we decided to take the kids we are staying with to the Multicine, one of two movie theaters in La Paz playing the latest movies. Gabriel, 11 years old, was absolutely ecstatic about going to the movies. I didn’t really know what to expect going to a Latin movie theater, but Stephanie and I have never been so entertained on a trip to the theater. When we entered the building everything seemed normal aside from the fact that we were the two tallest, whitest people in the crowd. As we passed all the little department stores the crowed thickened. I had no idea why there were some many people around. We found the line to buy the tickets, which, was abnormally long, and got tickets to Toy Story 3. After we bought the tickets, Gabriel came and found us and took us down a couple of flights of stairs to the popcorn line where the kids had just bought 5 sodas and 3 jumbo popcorn buckets. They were quite relieved to see us because they had run out of money and needed a few extra Bolivianos to complete the deal. This is where Steph lost it and started laughing hysterically. Apparently there is an unwritten rule here that if you are going to watch a movie you have to buy popcorn and drinks. I don’t know where all the people came from, but there was about 4 times the people buying popcorn as there were in the ticket line. After the popcorn and drinks we had to stand in line for them to check our tickets. In short the entire floor of the room was covered with people standing in one line or another, not even Disneyland on Christmas is so packed with people. Needless to say the Bolivians love to go the movies. We watched Buzz and Woody on the silver screen and had a ball.

Steph with the kids in front of the 11 screen Multicine!

We promise the kids had fun, Latins just have a natural instinct to put on their game faces for any photo.

Just waiting for the movie to start and eating our popcorn.

Day 3 in Las Pampas

June 17 - Day 3 began with an early morning boat ride to a giant field where we watched the blood red sun rise over the horizon. It reminded me of the time when my friends and I woke our dates up (Stephanie) at 4 in the morning to watch the sunrise over the Tetons; even though we didn’t make it in time and the sun came over the mountains as we watch from the van window.

Later in the day we met one of Victor’s good friends, a caymán name Peter. Supposedly feeding any animal in the pampas is forbidden; however, Victor, and I am sure all the other guides do it as well, feed certain animals to make the tour better. Victor has fed this caymán so many times that he can go to Peter’s territory, tap on the water and Peter will come right up to his hand looking for food. When he called Peter for the first time we had no idea of Victor’s feeding routines, so we were quite impressed at the friendliness of such a fierce looking creature. Later we played around with Peter a bit as we feed him meat that was intended for fishing piranhas.

After lunch, our stay at the pampas ended. We loaded up our gear and headed back down the Yacuma River headed for Santa Rosa. The ride was quite relaxing as we saw all the animals we had seen on the way into camp. Our journey doubled in length because halfway down the river our boat broke down. Apparently someone had played a joke on us and poured water in the gas tank. Luckily the boat carrying 500 one-liter empty beer bottles back to civilization passed us and we tied the two boats together. We couldn’t go too fast but we made steady progress. Just before we got to Santa Rosa our rescue boat died as well, not too surprising considering all of their engines appear to be from the 1970’s. For the last couple hundred yards our guide used a long stick he had found and brought us to the little town gondola style. How’s that for dedication to customer service?

Day 2 in Las Pampas

June 16 - Day 2 of the pampas consisted of going on a hunt for anacondas, boa constrictors, and cobras in the marsh land. With nothing but a pair of galoshes and Jayson’s knife to protect us we set off for a three hour trek through knee deep water and mud to find the snakes. I failed to mention one detail and that is that the way you find the snakes is by stepping on them (or disturbing them in their own habitat). You can imagine that my every step was fairly slow while Jayson was trudging through the marshland with lightening speed. Fortunately or unfortunately we did not happen upon any anacondas in this trip but we took some sweet pictures of the storks and other birds in the area.

In the afternoon we went on riverboat ride to find the pink water dolphins. According to Victor (our guide) if you find the pink fresh water dolphins then you can swim in the river without worry because the dolphins protect people from the alligator and piranhas. Whether Victor was being serious or not we accepted his advice and jumped into the alligator/piranha/anaconda river once we happened upon the pink river dolphins. However, I am not convinced that the dolphins were enjoying our company. When we were on one side of the river they swam to the other and when we swam to the other side to be by them again they tricked us and went right back to the other side. Either it was a funny joke between the dolphins or they don’t really like offering their protective assistance to humans.

After the swim with the dolphins we went piranha fishing and Jayson and I each had success in catching one piranha even if they were both pretty small. Our guide caught a piranha that was big enough to take back to camp and cook but between 8 people the meat didn’t go very far. That night we went on another little boat ride to a central area where a bunch of pampas tours had come together to play some soccer and watch the sunset. It was quite a melting pot of people from all over the world coming together to play in the universal sport of ‘futbol’.

Day 1 in Las Pampas

June 15 - This morning we woke up and went to a little restaurant nearby for breakfast before beginning our journey to the pampas (or wetlands). I must admit I was a little bit disappointed when Jayson and I ordered the “Amercian Breakfast” which claimed to come with pancakes but the pancake turned out to be a thin crepe smothered in honey. For the past two ½ weeks all we have had for breakfast is tea and bread. So you can imagine that for someone who likes breakfast food as much as I do I was just slightly disappointed that I have yet to have enjoyed some “real American” breakfast food. We then met up with the tour agency and took a three hour jeep ride on the bounciest dirt road you can imagine to Santa Rosa where the pampas tour began. On our tour we met Matt from Ireland, his girlfried Katie from Scotland, another boyfriend/girlfriend couple from Australia, and two girls from Holland. Jayson and I had a real taste of what other college students around the world do for fun as we were highly entertained in our discussions during the few days we spent with them. We learned a great deal about the Irish conflict, life at Cambridge university, the best brands of rum, whiskey, liquor, vodka, etc. Most of them had been traveling for quite some time and still had a few months to go. Both Jayson and I decided that we would go absolutely crazy being on holiday for 7 months (even if it meant seeing the world in the process).

Our ride to the pampas took an eventful turn when our driver suddenly stopped, jumped out of the vehicle and yelled “anaconda”. Only seconds later he was running back towards us with a 2 meter anaconda dangling in his hand. We all jumped out of the jeep to take pictures of the snake and next thing I knew Jayson was holding onto the snake and doing a little dance up and down the road so as to not let the head of the snake get to close to his body. This was just the start to a very eventful day. When we finally arrived in the wetlands on the Yacuma river we boarded the boat with the rest of the group and took a three hour boat ride to the little hut where we are staying the night. Within only minutes of the boat ride we happened upon a crew of about 5 alligators (correctly termed caymen). I couldn’t understand why are tour guide didn’t let us stop very long to take pictures until only 30 yards down river we happened to see some more and then the whole three hours were spent seeing caymen on the banks of the river. We also so capybara (the world’s largest rodent). They are apparently sacred to Bolivians because usually they are pretty rare but the pampas has plenty and for my favorite part of the day we were able to see these squirrel monkeys and even feed them some bananas. They were quite vicious in their attempt to eat the bananas. By looking at the picture of my face it’s hard to tell if I was happy or scared of the monkeys but when it was all said and done I thought it was fun. The whole day was like a glorified trip to the zoo.

Las Pampas

Our ecolodge on the Yacuma River.

Our mototaxi ride from the airport to Rurre.

Having some fun with Peter.

Dad, I think peter could use a little dental work.

Victor promised Steph that Peter is a nice caymán.

The beautiful sunrise in Las Pampas.

The piranha shared between 8 people.

Pucker up!

The caymán that watched us swim with the pink fresh water dolphins.

An interesting prehistoric bird that breathes like it just ran a marathon.

One of the many wasps nest we had to be careful not to step on. A man the day before was not so careful and was attacked by the killer wasps.

Anaconda hunting...

What we saw instead of anacondas.

Two week old cayman eating dinner.

They are not as friendly as they look when you have a banana in your hand.

A weird mix between a pig and a hamster called a capybara.

Luckily we found a 2 meter anaconda on our way to the river.

Posing for a picture after our hike through the jungle.

A safe landing on the 1500 meter jungle zip line.

Feeding our pet caiman.

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.