Down the River without a Paddle Part Three

This is the boat being packed up for day two on the river. Spot the blue plastic! After a few hours down the river, we stopped off a at 'the last place on the river where you can buy provisions until the end'. For many, this meant 'last chance to buy cigarettes, booze or chocolate' (things not provided by Silvia, our cook).


So, this is the main street. Below are a few photos that give you a closer look at the market stalls.


You can see that plastic goods, fruit and small household items are popular.

I particularly like this shot of a guy using a hack saw to chop up his meat (and the expectant dog below).

This is the pirate DVD area. You can buy 'illegal' DVDs and CDs all over Bolivia. The police, however, don't seem very interested. What I particularly like about this photo is that it illustrates the average Bolivian taste in films. You get a lot of action (accion) films. Note how Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damme get their own sections. There is also a small comedy section (with its own Jackie Chan subsection). Travel on any long distance bus in Bolivia that has a working TV/video and you will inevitably watch a Van Damme or Steven Segal film. I have two theories on why these films are so popular. While living in Ecador, a friend of mine who had done his year of military service mentioned that every night in the army barracks, they would get films as entertainment. In order to toughen them up, they were shown action films that had a clear good vs bad guy element (like Segal's movies). Bolivia also has a compulsory year of military service for young men. It wouldn't surprise me at all if they do something similar and create a fan base for such movies. Another explanation is that these action films don't have much dialogue and so are easy and quick for the pirate people to translate and subtitle. I have seen a few of these pirated films myself and the translation from the English into Spanish subtitles isn't 100% accurate, so I am assuming that the translation wasn't 'officially' done by the Hollywood studios guys.

We finish shopping and head back to the river for our next stop.


This a small village that has an 'arrangement' with the tour company. We docked our boat and walked a short distance from the shore to the village. Below, you can see some meat (wild boar and fish) drying in the sun. Up in the Andes, it is quite common to freeze dry meat in the open. At night, it is freezing, at day, the sun is quite intense and evaporates some of the water. Freezing again over night drives more water to the surface and so on. The Inca used to do this and used freezed dried meat on long trips. I had no idea they do this in the Amazon basin.


We had been told that were were going to have lunch in this village. We all looked at this drying meat with some degree of horror. We were reassured that such delights were not for us. We were allocated a bench and picknic table under a tree (clearly constructed for 'touristas' on the boat trip). Silvia then disappeared into one of the huts with her supplies to cook us lunch. We had been told by Ivan, our guide, that this would take about an hour. In the meantime, he suggested that we play volleyball.

Mamoo asked in one of her comments: why does everyone where white? It is because all of the guide books say that mosquitos (who can be carriers of malaria (but apparently not in this part of the world at this time of the year) don't like white or light colours). Robert, to his credit, joined in the fray. Playing volleyball in a sweltering heat was not my idea of fun. I very quickly volunteered to be scorekeeper (which involved using a stick to keep score in the sand). The Australians turned out to be excellent at jungle volleyball. Lunch was served. This consisted of soup as a first course, followed by stew with rice and then more fruit. While eating, some spotted something odd happening with our shelter tree.

Take a close look. These are caterpillars that join together from head to end in order to appear as one longer creature (and hence scare off predators). We all thought that this was very cool. I especially took this photo for Mira, who likes insects. She would like the jungle.

After lunch, the boats were packed up and continued along the river. We were handed over to a local guide. The general idea was that he would take us on a jungle tour and point out important plants. We would then end up where the boat crew has set up camp further along the river. I gather that the village got a cut of the action for this service. What I quite liked about this was that the village hadn't been turned into a 'tourist trap' with villagers putting on 'native' shows or trying to sell us 'native' handicrafts.

The jungle has all sorts of strange trees, including this one below. Apparently, the cone like things can be cut off and eaten if you were lost and hungry in the jungle. Our guide cut one off for us. The cone was hard and woody and it was quite hard to imagine how one could survive by eating this (but I guess that one has to be starving and lost to find out).


Other interesting trees include this one. By looking at the person in the photo, you can get an idea of the size of the tree.

We also saw lots of leaf cutter ants. They run on trails. They strip bits of leaves down and cart them back to their nest. They don't eat the leaves, but the mould that grows on the leaves plays an important role in feeding the ants. Apparently, these guys can strip down a nylon tent over night. We had read this in the guidebook. Robert had thought that it was a myth. However, when we asked Ivan about this, he confirmed it. Unlike Silvia and Peta, Ivan is not from the jungle. He is from La Paz, but loves the jungle. He said that on one of his first tours, he didn't know enough to check out any potential campsites for leaf cutter ant trails. In the middle of the night, the tourist tents were literally chewed apart. Everyone ended up spending an unhappy night huddled in the boat.

We continued along a jungle trail...

To this rather brackish looking pond.
This is where we tried piranha fishing. A number of people who have commented on my blog have asked: 'what is there under that river water'. Believe it or not, the answer is 'rayfish'. You are thinking: 'does she mean like manta rays? Those kite shaped salt water fish with very dangerous and sometimes lethal spikes? The answer is yes. I didn't believe it myself until Peta actually managed to catch one with his fishing line on day three (it escaped before I could photo it). We found out about the ray fish thing when one of the tourists asked Ivan if the river was OK for swimming. He said: 'Yes, but you have to through a rock in first to scare away the rayfish, because they like to lie in the shallows and will sting you if you step on them'. One of our Aussies thought about this for a full minute and then realised that he could throw a stone in to scare the rayfish away when he went in, but how would he get back out. I mention this because we all thought that piranhas lived in the river and were surprised to be taken to this pond. According to our guide, they don't really like fast running water (like the river). They prefer ponds. Fishing piranhas involves using just a simple line and hook. Our guide produced a number of lines and hooks from his rucksack and baited them with 'meat'. I am unsure of what the 'meat' was, but it looked like fish guts. I am glad to know that they have a use.

So, we took turns on the shore of the pond with our lines and hooks. You tossed your line into the water and waited for a nibble. When you had one, you had to jerk hard to hook the fish. When you put your line in, you could feel the fish nibbling at the bait. Each time I jerked back, I didn't catch anything, but you could see less and less meat on your hook each time you recast. One of the Aussies (part of our volleyball championship winning team) actually caught not one, but two of them. Here is her first catch!

Our guide removed the fish from the hook to toss back into the pond. However, before he did that, he used a stick to show us its teeth. Sorry about the blur, my zoom isn't very good.

I know that Simon and Liam enjoy fishing. I hope they enjoy the piranha photos.

After the excitement of fishing was over, we were lead again through the jungle and ended up on a beautiful and extensive flat bit of beach. Our tents were set up. Silvia had the food almost ready. We had a few minutes to claim our tent and unpack our personal kit.

The day ended with a great sunset. Interestingly, this is something I haven't seen very often in my South American travels. In the mountains, there is usually something large and snow capped in front of you, so the horizon isn't low enough for you to see the sunset.

The next post will finish off our boat trip.