How Could Anyone Eat A Monkey?

Rurrenebaque

Ok so after surviving the death road we ended up in the quaint tourist "trap" of Rurrenebaque. I say trap because there was literally no way out. Like we mentioned before, there was no way we were going to risk the death road again, so we decided to fly, but the airstrip was not paved and the amount of rain we were getting each day was making it impossible to fly. Where there is normally 4 flights a day to La Paz there was none, and the town was swelling with Gringos from all over the world who had, had their flights bumped back day after day. Well we decided to go on with our excursion that we had planned into the wetlands known as the Pampas. There are 2 tour options available from Rurre. One is to the jungle where the focus is on plant life. The second option (Pampas) had a focus on viewing the wildlife. The group we were supposed to go with was stuck on the death road somewhere so our tour got shifted back a day which was alright. The next day we headed off in a jeep with 2 Swedes, a Yank, and a couple from Switzerland.

In particular order... this is what we got to do and see. Over the 3 days we spent in the Pampas we saw 2 species of monkeys, (Howler and Chichilo) pink freshwater dolphins, pirhanas, aligators, a boa constrictor, an incredible swath of birds, a few large-ish turtles, and mosquitos. The small Chichilo monkeys were adorable and could even be coaxed to eat some small fruit out of my hand. The Howlers were a little more elusive but they´re low pitched calls could be heard in the mornings around sunrise. We swam with the dolphins twice. I wasn´t able to get a picture of one, but I can describe them as pink full sized bottle nose dolphins. Actually pink! They were extremely playful and would usually introduce themselves to us by nipping at our feet as we tred water (They drew blood from me!). Once they were comfortable they would swim directly below you and slowly float upwards. The end result was that I actually stood on its back completely upheld by it.

Our guide took us for a walk in the wetlands which was more like a wade. We had hoped to spot aligators and anacondas. What we found were frogs and mosquitos. The anacondas were a bust although we did find a dead one. Later that night we went out to see if we could spot an aligator and we had some success! He/she was only about 1.5 feet long but it was an aligator all the same. We saw many others in the bushes around but they would either take off or be to hard to get to. (the next day one of our party members spotted a 2 meter long one about 10 meters from us)

Melissa also proved herself quite the fisherwoman when it came to Pirahna fishing. Our bait was little chunks of Vaca. (Cow) I caught the first one for the group, which turned out to be my only one, but Melissa caught 4 which was even more then our guide. There were 2 species in the area we fished in. They ranged in size from about 4 inches long to about 8 inches and probably a third of a Kilo. Nasty little suckers. One of the smallest ones got loose in our boat, and drew blood from our guide when he tried to gather it up again. Those things are all teeth!

The grey looking picture is of a Howler Monkey.

PICTURES OF THE PAMPAS

ps. We later learned that the week before we arrived in Rurre. a jeep load of tourists (5) went over the side along the death road and all were killed. We met a girl from Virginia who informed us that she witnessed the bus in front of hers roll over the side killing 5 or 6 as well.