Rurrenabaque

7th – 17th June

The bus pulled up at the Terminal in Caranavi, and looked very nice. We were a little concerned as to whether or not we would have seats, as this was the bus from La Paz and looked very full. Worry not said the driver, and changed the seat numbers on our tickets as we boarded. The back row beckoned – we knew it would be a bumpy ride, but surely it couldn’t be that bad… it was and 11 hours of hell later we were in Rurrenabaque.

Rurrenabaque is a jungle town on the Rio Beni. It is the main starting point for tours of the Bolivian Jungle and Pampas. It is also a major attraction for Israeli travellers – over 15,000 passed through last year, retracing the steps of a young Israeli who was rescued by a local several years ago.

We decided to rest for a couple of days before starting the first of our trips to the Jungle, and we were greeted by tropical weather which was a big change from the cold temperatures of the Andes.

See our post here for details of the Jungle trip.

On returning from the Jungle, we had 2 nights in Rurrenabaque before we started our Pampas trip. We ran into Jose and Sheiba again and arranged to go out for dinner, Mexican food which was a welcome break from the Jungle food! It was also a good opportunity to have some hardcore internet café time, and get caught up with the Blog and photos!

Next was our trip to the Pampas. See here for the story.

Back to Rurrenabaque again, and we were now ready to get the hell out of the town for good, but due to flights being booked up, and bad weather delaying the departure of some flights, we had another 2 nights before we could leave. It seemed like everyone we met over these two days had the same idea of getting back to La Paz and had also spent longer here than they would have liked!