Madidi jungle

Tour was with Mashaquipe; 2,540B plus 100B jungle park fee and 150B pampas fee. Anna chose this operator, one of the more expensive, due to their good reviews and they didn't disappoint. We had our own private guide for just us, called Alejandro the entire time who was a jungle guru, and we barely saw another tourist the entire time.

We set off at 8:30am, walking to the jetty and getting on a small boat with a French couple, who had a crazy guide called Tarzan. We motored down the river and stopped at a small indigenous community who farmed rice, maize, bananas and yuca potatoes. We used their large wooden grinder to make sugar cane juice which we drank with a touch of lime out of coconut shells - lovely and refreshing after the hard work of pushing the stick round to make it.

Back on the boat, we went a bit further down the orangey brown river and arrived at the Ecolodge via a temporary bridge made of logs to cross a river. There were monkeys playing in the trees to greet us and tons of leaf-cutting ants carrying their wares.

Lunch was plentiful as always in Bolivia and delicious - soup, spicy chicken, rice and veg, and fruit with yoghurt. Lunch is the main meal in Bolivia so we had some time after to digest.

Suddenly the wind picked up and then the rain came - luckily not torrential but a steady flow. However we had exploring to do so we donned our ponchos and headed for the boat.

I had told Alejandro I wanted to see a sloth (perisozo). He said this was unlikely in the jungle but he accepted the challenge despite his fellow guides laughing at him. The boat dropped us off on an island where they'd been seen 2 days earlier but there was no sign of them. The jungle looked fairly impenetrable but Alejandro was undeterred and took out his machete and hacked us a path. Every minute or so he'd stop hacking, look around, sniff and listen then hack some more... After about an hour we found one! High up in a tree. Despite calling to it, it wouldn't move to show it's face. Anna spent the best part of the next hour trying to get a good photo - mission impossible with her phone and camera with a broken zoom, but combined with the binoculars she was eventually satisfied. We have regretted not bringing the good camera with us!

Photos done, we hacked our way back to the edge and pretty much fell down out of the jungle onto the shore. We walked / scrambled back to where the boat was waiting, completely covered in mud.

Back in camp we had hot, freshly baked plantain chips (banana chips, not fries) and hot chocolate; followed by a lovely dinner of freshly caught catfish for everyone except me.

The lights in camp went out and we set off on a night walk. We saw a gecko, tree frog, fire flies, bats and coaxed a tarantula from her nest. Alejandro spotted a small spider from the shine in it's eyes from far away! At times we turned off our torches and stood in pitch black, which I wasn't too keen on!!

Lights and electricity went out at 10pm so we had a brief splash from the cold showers and put up our mozzy nets. I didn't sleep well, picturing tarantulas coming to get me! I woke in the night needing the loo but was too scared to go out as there was lots of animal noises!En savoir plus