Madidi National Park Day 1

We arrived at Rurrenbaque on time, which was good for making our tour, but slightly annoying because we had a couple hours to kill before the office opened and everything was shut.

A red tuk tuk picked us up and brought us to a local bakery that sold french pastries. They weren't open yet when we arrived, but the smell of buttery goodness was too much to resist, so once they did open we sat ourselves down and waited for the pastries to finish baking. How a french pastry maker ended up in a small, rural Bolivian village I have no idea, but his pastries were incredible. We had a pan au chocolat each as well as a pizza style pastry (like the pan au chocolat but filled with a pizza style filling). We also shared a hotdog pastry filled with a sausage and some caramelized onions and tomatoes. It was all very good.

Shortly after our lovely pastries were all finished, the Madidi Jungle office opened so they sent a tuk tuk and we went the couple minutes down the road to do some admin like pay our park fees. After about half an hour, we made our way to the river, boarded our skinny, long boat and made our way towards our lodge.

The boat trip was about 3 hours. It started on the Beni River and then we took the Tuichi. Apparently it rained yesterday which greatly helped the levels in the river. There were still points where it was a bit shallow and the boat hit the bottom. While we were on the rivers, we spotted some herons and egrets. It was a nice, peaceful journey and very quiet minus the noise from the motor on the boat.

Once we arrived at the lodge, we were shown to our cabana. Because it is very quiet, we were given a large private cabana with a private bathroom instead of a shared bathroom. We were immediately whisked away to lunch which was a salad to start (with a hardboiled egg), chicken in mushroom sauce with quinoa, and some chocolate pudding for dessert. After lunch we had a couple hours before our walk so we unpacked, showered, and had a lie down.

Our walk was along the Wabu Trail. It was about 2 and a half hours and we saw some pretty cool things. Early on we saw loads of cutter ants carrying leaves to their nests all the way up and down a very tall tree. We also saw lots of different butterflies including the huge wide eye owl butterfly. Along the trail we saw 3 different kinds of monkeys: capuchin, red howler, and spider monkeys. We had to go off the trail a bit to see the howler monkeys, but we could hear them very clearly a few times on the trail. Capuchins were small and liked to jump and the spider monkeys were bigger and swinging from the branches. We also managed to see a red and green macaw fly directly over us. I didn't get a picture because it happened so fast, but it was beautiful. On our walk tomorrow we should hopefully see more birds.

When we got back to the cabin, we had our cold showers and just sat listening to the sounds of all of the birds and insects. I think we will hear some really interesting things tonight and I'm really looking forward to it. It'll also be my first time sleeping under a mosquito net.Läs mer