El Livro de la selva...

Again, we survived after 7 extremely dangerous days....
First, the most dangerous road of the world. A bike ride (we were not crazy enough to do it by bus, though we may have had even more adrenaline...) from 4700m to 1100m. Just downhill. Fortunately, we had a guide to tell us about what happened previously at the different places: an italian guy went out of the road and killed himself 1 month ago there, a bus missed a turn so on and so forth...). If only I had a parachute... I could have been even more crazy on the road... but destiny doesn´t want me to jump in South America apparently... Well, I´ll try again in Brazil :)

After avoiding death few times, we finally made it from La Paz to Coroico, a small village with very very nice hostel (saunas, swimming pool etc). All we needed before the real adventure starts in the jungle. We then headed to Rurrenabaque, a bolivian city in middle of the jungle. That was maybe the most horrible bus trip we ever had. First, we almost died when a big explosion occured maybe one meter from us, as we were standing close to the tire. Our hears needed few minutes to recover. It was just a tire bursting, but it was not reassuring before going on one of the most dangerous road of the world... We actually met several people who took the plane after being strongly advised not to take the bus. Well, we are still alive!.. for now :)

From Rurrenabaque, there were two main destinations:
The pampa, a region filled with water with some pieces of lands around. We just use the boat along canals, in the middle of trees and tropical vegetation where birds are hiding, and fly away at the last moment when the boat is approaching. We could see toucans, parrots, huge other birds that I couldn´t name. We were completely lost.. so many big animals everywhere. From enormous red and yellow spiders, piranhas (well, we got our revenge by fishing them and eating them :)) to gigantic ants.... Fortunately, I manage to remember the tricks used in "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids" to survive the beasts.
We also looked for Anancondas but the weather was not good and they hide very well. We also swam with ... dolphins! well, a bit different from what you can expect. They are pink river dolphins, maybe as big as ocean ones with a more... weird shape I would say. We could touch them, and they were doing so as well... a bit too hard though! Our feet still remember them... And to our surprise, we found out that alligators are very very lazy animals... they need ages to move! the one we were studying closely still had the rice we put on his nose 30 minutes before! As for the monkeys, the ones we saw were relatively small. I actually recognised a bit of myself in them when we were giving them bananas from the craft: they are ready to risk their lives for food :). They don´t know how to swim, but were sometimes hanging on very weak branches just with one arm to grab the food!

As if we didn´t have enough, we looked for more adventure, more danger, so we headed to the jungle, sleeping in a small camp, in the middle of nowhere, but of this huge trees, with creepers all over the place. We did several trekks with different themes. One being the trees and creepers and their medicinal properties. Have you ever thought of the jungle as a huge hospital? Well, it turns out that the trees and creepers can cure a lot of things... but they can hurt as well. Some creepers are very toxic and are used as poison on arrows to kill animals.
The second theme was: "how to survive in the jungle", by eating el corazon de palmeras, drinking water out of a creeper and so on... We also went out twice at night and saw small tarentulas, but survived luckily after encountering the geant ants who strongly bit us, avoiding anawares webs of colourful and scary spiders and snakes on small branches ahead of us...
Well, you must be wondering: but how did they make it after all that? Well, look at our face! We haven´t shaved for almost a month, we are dressed like adventurers, we had also a big anti-spiders web with Amance´s hair... all the ingredients were gathered to come back alive! Oh, and we had a impressive guide as well. He grew up in the jungle and knew everything, from the birds that we were hearing in the forest, to the merest risk an insect could be.

We also a visited small village in the jungle with no electricity. The pueblo is living from agriculture and poultry farming. It was very interesting to see how they live, how they build houses, how they get water (they actually drink the water of the big river that we used to get to the jungle from Rurrenabaque).

We then spent maybe one of the most boring day in Rurrenabaque after our flight was cancelled because of the weather. Fortunately, we have our new playing cards, that prevent us from writing our travel notebook (even if we are more than 3 weeks late...) :).

And we are eventually back to La Paz. After seeing the Puerta del Sol, we will head to the very famous Salar de Uyuni, the Potossi mines, Sucre before crossing the Brazilian border, and before we... break up for 2 weeks! Will the separated couple survive this new adventure?... you´ll know soon enough in the next bulletin of "Amancio y Matiaso en America del Sur". As our kind jungle guide jungle said: "Todo es possible pero nada es seguro..."

Matthias

Une rapide mise a jour du blog apres notre sejour dans la jungle...En gros on est descendus en velo sur la route “de la muerte”, puis on a enchaine avec, sans conteste, le trajet de nuit le plus inconfortable du voyage jusqu’a Rurrenabaque, porte de l’Amazonie bolivienne. On s’est promenes pendant six jours dans les mangroves puis dans la foret et on a vu des animaux et c’etait beau.

On pourrait s’arreter la... Mais bon pour le blog de Matthias et si on veut etre un peu plus precis, dans la vie il y a deux types de gens: celles qui sont allees dans la jungle et celles qui n’y sont pas allees. Fort de ce postulat de base, la jungle c’est une sensation, une emotion, ca se vit finalement…Nous pouvons cependant tenter de la rapprocher de certaines references communes. C’est un peu comme le Christophe Colomb de Ridley Scott, debarquant dans la jungle des premieres antilles remontant doucement la riviere a la rencontre des autochtones, comme un reportage de Frederic Rossif avec des plans pris au ras de l’eau a partir d’une barque amazonienne, comme le Robinson de Michel Tournier se laissant finalement conquerir par la “selva”…Ou mieux encore, les 4 premieres planches du premier album du Marsupilami, sorties tout droit du cerveau degeante de Franquin, ou l’on voit une foret de “Palombie” en apparence tres sereine, mais qui se revele un veritable enfer vert si on s’y penche un tantinet, chaque etre vivant organisant son auto defense, sa survie…

Plus serieusement, nous avons vu la jungle sous deux aspects differents. Une jungle des mangroves et des marais, ou les animaux sont tres concentes car isoles sur des parcelles de terre ou dans des champs de hautes herbes (dont l’indebuscable anaconda). Puis une jungle des forets, ou l’observation de la flore prend davantage d’importance, la faune fuyant les randonneurs, sauf la nuit…Pour resumer, nous avons vu myriade de singes, alligators, kapibaras, insectes, on a meme nage avec des dauphins roses d’Amazonie (qui sont tres joueurs, cools mais pas trop vus qu’ils aiment bien gniaker du “Frances”. Nos pieds s’en souviennent et je peux meme vous dire avec une infime precision le nombre de millimetres separant deux dents de dauphins roses d’Amazonie…)… Du cote foret, on a plutot rencontre des arbres, beaucoup d’arbres, mais aux frontieres de la condition animale!! Ils sont capables de synthetiser des odeurs&substances chimiques toxiques comme therapeutiques, reproduire des formes&couleurs, developper des racines hors du sol pour pouvoir se mouvoir ou encore des piques pour se proteger des aggressions exterieures…Et j’en passe...

Bref on ajoute a cela un bon anti-insecte, deux guides boliviens autochtones, aussi competent, gentil et serein l’un que l’autre, le cocktail fut parfait!! Nous avons beaucoup appris aux cotes des guides, de leur patience a leur rythme de vie, en passant plus concretement par les plantes medicinales et globalement comment survivre dans la jungle: comment trouver de l’eau dans une liane, recolter des coeurs de palmiers… Plutot instructif pour nous autres culitos blancos nes avec des chaussures au pied…

Ed ecco!! Nous venons de regagner notre cher Altiplano a La Paz pour la deniere fois destination Uyuni, Potosí puis Sucre avant de redescendre definitivement sur Santa Cruz puis Braziiiiiiiil. C’est qu’il ne nous reste plus que deux mois mas o menos!! Surtout qu’on a eu quelques legers imprevus: nous avons du attendre quelques jours notre avion pour La Paz a Rurrenabaque et ce pour cause de mauvais temps. Mais cela valait le detour du survol de la jungla a celui de la Paz, capitale literallement incrustee dans un canyon, je le dis et le repete, cette ville ne finira pas de m’etonner…

Hasta luego todos!! (On commence a se mettre au portugais pour dans quinze jours, promis ;))

Amancio