Day 17- welcome to the jungle baby

Tues November 19, 2013

Day 17- welcome to the jungle

So we woke up at 4am and headed to la Paz airport to catch our 6am flight to rurrenebaque! Aka the amazon! Our friend Tu was flying in and his flight landed at 2am and we told him to stay at the airport and wait for us! And he did. It was awesome to have another addition to our traveling group! We checked in our bags and headed to the gate. Definitely one of the smallest airports ever. Ate an empenada at the airport for breakfast. :) 

Airport food

We board, and by boarding I mean walking outside across the Tarmac to our tiny plane. It held 19 people. It was fully packed haha. It was a 1x1 plane, meaning only one seat on each side. Everyone has a window seat! Great views of the Andes mountains and the jungle amazon. When we landed it was even a better experience. There was no runway, it was just dirt. The airport looks like a tiny little house. There is no baggage check, just take it off the plane and hand them to people. Now THATS the smallest airport I've ever been to. 

It's like a toy plane

Group selfie in the plane 

Smallest airport ever.

The runway

Tu standing in the middle of the runway

We jump onto a bus taxi that took us into town just a few minutes away. They ride more mopeds here and it's very very small. We head to max adventures whom we had our tour booked with. Awesome place with lockers and jungle looking deco. We repacked and left our things in lockers here and got briefed on our tour. 

Tiny town

Max adventures

Cool table

Hot fresh saltenas 

The ride was crazy. 3 hours in a "4x4" but really it's a small car. Eddie our driver was even crazier, driving as fast as he could on a rocky bumpy dirt road for 3 hours. Tu and Joaquin picked up so many beers and right when they got into the car, they started crushing them. All of them, Theresa Sylvie and including the driver. Haha they then realized they didn't buy enough beer and we did another pit stop for alcohol. And many pit stops for the bathroom. Drunkies! 

Ordering more beers to go

Salut.

We finally get to the lunch spot and was given a great Bolivian soup and meal. Headed to the boat area, or canoe rather. Loaded the canoe up with our stuff and food for the tour. Our guide headed us off on a great day of sight seeing in the river. We saw plenty of birds. All sorts of species! Cranes, turtles and then monkeys! We saw all these cute little monkeys. Little monkeys carrying baby monkeys. So awesome. 

Cows on the dirt road 

Tu trying to speak horse.

Bolivia!

Canoes for the tour

Group selfie again.

Theresa and I

Me taking a picture of everyone taking a picture 

Straight chillin'

The lion king like tree

We got to our camp site about 4pm. 3 hours in the sun. I got a decent tan:) well in my arms and legs only. The camp is decent! We thought it was supposed to be "rustic" meaning hammock and mosquito net. Instead we have cabins and wooden beds with mosquito nets. We were all prepared to not shower for the next 3 days but there was a decent shower. Not hot water but whatever it's like 100 degrees out anyway. 

We watch out guide cut acorns and things to make jewelry for us. And of course while doing so, tu and j are still crushing alcohol. Hard liquor now! They busted out the bottles hah. 

A rain cloud moved over us and it down poured for a few minutes. Fun experience. Gave tu a chance to take off his shirt and go dance in the rain. Barf. 

Dinner was then served soon after. Great meal prepared in the middle of nowhere. Noodles, lomo all sorts of goodies.

Then we put on long sleeves and pants and found our Mosquitos net for some crocodile hunting!! We went out on the canoe and the guide went hunting. We saw birds again flying all around, fireflies and of course crocodile eyes! Good stuff. Beautiful night with stars all above too. 

Great first day in the pampas!

Day 16- La Paz and the moon valley

Day 16-- la Paz and the Moon valley 

Today we woke up late for the first time since I've been on this trip. We didn't have any tours planned or any bus or flight to catch. It was nice! Got the usual breakfast down at the hostel. (Always the circle bread in which I can't seem to get away from them) and it's everywhere! Peru, here, every street corner. Haha 

We just started walking. Walking down the street, everyone's setting up their "market" of whatever. We go down one street and it's like Costco! Bulk size things of items that we see sold elsewhere. But it goes from cookies. Candies to shampoo, toothpaste, ramen noodles, food seasonings, brillo pads, pots and pans. I mean seriously, everything you name it, it's there being sold somewhere. I feel like it's Office Depot, Home Depot, Costco and dollar tree all over. 

We were really on the hunt for breakfast/a snack of some sort. I see all these cholitas selling lechon. Uhm, deep fried pork with a side of deep fried cheese for breakfast???? 

Yes please!!!! 

Fried queso. I can't get over it. I don't even love cheese. But I love this cheese!!

After a bit of walking through streets, we find a few more snacks like saltenas and chicharon. (Yes, more deep fried pork) haha I can hear all the arteries screaming now. Going to do a lipid fat check when I get back. It's probably crazy! 

Sylvie eating her chicharon! Fob style of course. 

Afterward, we decide to follow a tripadvisor tip. "Jump on a local bus and go till it stops" so we did. Here in La Paz, there are a lot of busses/taxis. All shared, meaning the taxi will have 4 locations listed on the front and if that's where you want to go, you hop on! Sometimes you get a seat, sometimes you don't. The driver doesn't care, more money to him if there's more people. So there maybe 16 people packed into a tiny van or maybe you'll be lucky and get on a bigger bus, but it's still crowded. People are just out and about all day! We jumped on a random bus and it was 1 bolivianos. (Like 15 cents) it takes us uphill in this la Paz shaped bowl. At the top we get out and get on another bus than went back down. It was like almost free sight seeing. Haha. We hop onto another bus that went through maybe the "financial district" I say that because everyone in this part of town actually is dressed in office clothes and business suits. It's not as "poor looking" like the other neighborhoods. We hop into another taxi and it leads us to a really rich area. From there we take one last taxi bus to the desert moon valley. 15 bolivianos to enter the park. (About $2.20) 

 On the bus

Valle de la lunes, is what it's called. Again, moon valley. It's awesome. About 5km outside of la Paz. There are at range art like stalagmites. It's an area that had been eroded and it's made of clay, not rock. (It started to sprinkle a little towards the end. Clay+ water = messiness) haha. It's perry cool scenery, lots of good points for pictures and just an odd thing almost random to see when you look out and and beyond the horizon, you see normal brown and green mountains. Definitely worth the odd trek we took to get here. Didn't cost us much. :)

I know, a lot of pictures! But that's all there was to take pictures of! :)

Afterwards we headed back into la Paz downtown and went to search for something to eat. Walked through streets and streets of markets again and finally come across my favorite. "A little ghetto restaurant!" It's odd, sooo many markets and food, produce, meat, potatoes and things being sold, but no finished products! Maybe we are in an odd part of town where there's not many restaurants. It doesn't matter though, all we need is one. One cheapo awesome place! The sign said silpancho for 7 bolivianos. 7!!! That's like $1.14 !!! For a full meal. Omg. I wanted to order 3 dishes. Haha but I didn't, I stuck with silpancho becuase I know it's a Cochabamba dish. Cochabamba is another city in Bolivia, so they have their certain city dishes. So since I wasn't visiting Cochabamba, it's nice to see it here! And it was soooooo good. I can't believe I pay 12 bucks at home when I can pay 1 here!!  Flattened and slightly breaded pan fried meat with eggs, potatoes and of course my favorite, a fried egg! 

Did a little bit of souvenir shopping since it's my last day in the city of la Paz since tomorrow I'm headed to the amazon jungle. Bought snacks for that trip back in the "Costco" area for cheaper prices. Haha. I'm good to go. Gotta repack now for tomorrow.

Tomorrow: a flight to Rurrenabaque aka the Bolivian amazon and day 1 of the tour