The Amazon

So here it is, the big one – The Amazon!  Superlatives don’t really do it justice; even the tiny propeller-pane that we took from La Paz to Rurrenabaque (the town on the periphery of the jungle) was a thrilling experience in itself.  Ems and I left the cold altitude of La Paz for Amazonia’s sunshine and humidity, touching down on a dirt track airport.  We had discovered that the most interesting of Amazon tours were in fact the 3 day Pampas tour, and so off we went, where upon boarding a small long-boat, we navigated the wet-season channels and were afforded the most abundant and wondrous sights of Amazonian wildlife: river hawks, black hawks, herons, kingfishers, turtles, squirrel monkeys, capuchin monkeys, howler monkeys (less a howl, more like a guttural roar – absolutely thrilling), capybaras (the world’s largest rodent – imagine a guinea pig the size of a Rottweiler and you are half-way there), Caiman crocodiles and the stars of the show, the splendid pink dolphins.  Words can’t really do this place justice so I will leave it to Emma’s fantastic photography to try to convey some of the sights that we encountered; whether it was caiman spotting after sunset, cruising through the canals on our trusty longboat, or trekking knee-deep in the swamps searching for anacondas, it was an experience to cherish.

PS – special mention to our good friend Kingsley: we tried to get a photo of the capybara but just as Ems was about to snap, the battery went dead!  Gutted!

Leaving the TAM Airport, La Paz, Bolivia

 

Sights from the plane

(Above two pictures) The River Yacuma

A young river hawk

The ubiquitous heron – so graceful.

 

Beauty in nature’s symmetry

Squirrel monkeys (the 2nd pic is with an infant)

The intensity of those piercing eyes of this handsome Capuchin Monkey in the first photo are a knockout.

A fearsome male howler monkey – these beasts are big and their roar shakes you to your boots.

    

Caimans – smaller crocodiles (2-4 metres, depending on type), still very dangerous and now to be trifled with!

N.B. I absolutely love this photo but I have no idea what type of bird it is…

… and Ems loves this one.

The fabulous pink dolphins.  It was quite a surreal experience to swim with them in their natural habitat and a little alien as their smooth, yet mottled pink torsos and fins ripple past each part of your body.  They are heavenly creatures.

Another majestic heron – they almost seem like the watchmen of the marshes.

Me and my girl x

Just fabulous x

Tiwanaku, La Paz Markets and the Dinos in Sucre

 

Ok so this is going to be little more than a photo story, rather than a fully-fledged blog entry, as we also have to update our Amazonian adventures so here goes….

Tiwanaku is home to an extremely valuable archaeological site of pre-Incan ruins.  The race were superb architects, shaping a polishing sand stones to create near-perfect sheer city walls and intricately inscribed monoliths and statues.  In addition, these people were phenomenal astronomers and had used there calculations of the sun’s trajectory to create the ‘Sun Gate’ which would capture the sun at specific points in their calender.

What we found most beguiling was that this is built on the Altiplano of Bolivia – 4000m elevation; and yet it is situated on a flat plain.  A great day out.

 

 

 

 

La Paz boasts the accolade of being the capital city with the highest altitude in the world (between 3400m and 3700m depending where you stand!), thankfully we had acclimatised in Salar and so didn’t feel the effect too much (apart from me being a little grouchy at times).  Ems was in here element as we trawled through the exotic Witches Market, where the ladies trade every lotion and potion, charms and dried llama foetus (honestly) to the willing punter.  In a country as cheap (or more accurately really good value) as Bolivia my darling girlfriend still managed to burn about £100, mostly on 100% alpaca wool, which I am told is as rare as rocking-horse droppings back in the UK.  It’s a colourful, busy, crazy city, where I ate the hottest curry of my entire life and will be unique in our memories if only for the views from atop our hotel (see the top pic).

 

  

 

This last mini-entry is a quick description of our day out to see some genuine dinosaur footprints in Sucre, Bolivia.  The footprints in the large picture were made by the largest dinosaur of all time, the Argentinosaurus (answers on a postcard if you can guess how this dino got it’s name).  It was discovered by miners quarrying the park: to put into context, these tracks are now vertical tracks that have shifted due to tectonic movement (they were previously at horizontal ground level).  A unique day out learning about dinosaurs was made all the more fun by our fabulous guide Juan-Carlos, who had a genuine enthusiasm for all thing dino.  

Just a quick note to say thanks to everyone that posts comments – we want to reply but the blogspot system doesn't seem to let us :( Your thoughts and contributions are greatly appreciated and we love hearing form you! x