Welcome To The Jungle

Eastern Bolivia is completely different from Western Bolivia in terrain, lifestyle, and climate. Santa Cruz is the primary city in Eastern Bolivia and it is known as a fairly rich city. Lots of folks drive SUV's, wear the latest fashions and there is no traditional culture present at all really. Here a lot of the farmers have big tractors and combine harvesters to work their fields and the highway is lined with dealers of that heavy equipment. It could be a city in the farmland area of the USA. I crossed much of this farmland on my way to the jungle. It was flat, dusty, and hot!

In contrast to the rich lifestyle there is a large Mennonite population here too. According to Wikipedia, in 2010 there were 60,000 Mennonites living in Bolivia. The men are all dressed exactly the same with these same blue overalls and they always looked new like they never really work in them. Maybe they have their "going to town" special overalls?

Okinawa was settled by Japanese immigrants who have successfully grown rice and wheat in the region. I did meet some Japanese folks who ran a store. Quite a few Japanese people still live here.

I was asking for a place to pitch my tent and the guy in red told me I could put it in his brother's yard (guy in white, Alvis) and he lead me to Alvis' house. When I started to put my tent up Alvis and his wife, Angelica invited me to stay in one of the rooms of their house instead, AND they let me take a shower too!

End of the nice pavement and on to the dirt.

This mom and son stopped and offered me some of their cold bottled water. They chatted with me for a bit then drove on and I ran into them again at a bridge I had to cross.

Lets just say I grew very used to the smell of road kill! Are vultures not the ugliest bird you have ever seen? Hideous animals!

I am willing to bet that this house belongs to some Mennonites.

Some other people told me that in this area of Bolivia near the Brazilian border everyone carried guns like the Wild West. I thought it was an exaggeration until I saw it a few times. I still think they may be on their way to go hunting.

Dead

The color of this water is part of the reason why I purify and filter all my water.

Alien tree with weird pods on it.

The litter was super disturbing. For some reason diapers pissed me off the most.

Jesuit mission in San Javier. In this region there were a lot of Jesuit missions and six of these former missions  collectively were designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site referred to as the Jesuit Missions of Chiquitos.

Site known as Las Piedras or "The Rocks." A priest of the Catholic church lives across the street from this place and has built a little chapel on the grounds of his house.

This is not the priest's house but is across the highway from his house.

Padre Ramon (Father Raymond) and one of the members of his congregation (I forgot his name, ugh) who he employs to help around the house. Padre Ramon migrated to Bolivia 26 years ago as a missionary. I met him because the woman who runs the shop at this site told me that he is American and likes to have company and that I should go over and meet him. Once there he  invited me to join them for dinner and offered me the guest cottage for the night. The next day he had to go to Santa Cruz and didn't know how long he would be there but said I could stay as long as I liked in the guest cottage. I stayed another night, he returned that night so I was able to visit with him the next morning.  I really had wished I could have stayed longer, he was very interesting and fun to visit with. I haven't ever known a priest before and this first encounter was great. He had a great sense of humor; making comments like he didn't know how extra virgin olive oil could be "extra virgin" because a virgin can't be extra virgin. When I saw some of the lightbulbs in the yard in the little alcoves for sitting areas and they were the curly type light bulbs in yellow and blue I said I had never seen them in different colors. He said that "the bulbs do come in yellow, blue and red but of course we don't use the red!"

The campsite of the two Argentinian cyclists I had met. They are working their way around South America by making woven bracelets and anklets. I would have been camping side by side with them but Padre Ramon offered me his guest room/cottage instead. Who am I to refuse?

Guest room/cottage at Padre Ramon's house.

Chapel on Padre Ramon's property. He holds service here for people from a community nearby. He also prints a newsletter every month and circulates it by mail to many people in the United States and other places. This involves printing it on his computer and putting it in envelopes etc then traversing to the big city of Santa Cruz which is more than two hours by bus to mail it. He has no internet or mail where he lives but rents a post office box in Santa Cruz. Much of Bolivia does not have access to a mail system.

Wild toucan spotted down by the lake on Las Piedras property.

Cicada bug. These guys are super loud. The sound from only one is overwhelming sometimes.

Sunset at Las Piedras

Leaving Padre Ramon. When I got all ready and adorned  my helmet, cycling gloves, sunglasses, and iPod he stated, "Wow, you really do look like an alien! I bet people here really look at you funny because they have never seen someone like you before!" Sadly, it is probably true.

In these parts there were a lot of white cows. One of the ranchers who gave me a lift told me that they are a special breed of cows that do well in hot weather. My niece Melanie says they are called Brahmans and do well in the southwest of the USA too. These particular cows saw me stop for a photo and all started coming towards me to look at me (I guess like Padre Ramon says, I look like an alien!). After I took a photo and got on my bike and rode away, they started following me down the length of the fence as if I was herding them. I stopped and they stopped, I continued and they continued. It was very amusing! The things you do for fun when you are on a bike for too long!

Some of the hills in this "flat" area were pretty steep. Padre Ramon warned me that I would have some doozies on the way to Concepcion and that "I've even seen burly guys walking their bikes up them" so of course I never walked up any of them no matter what!!!

Another mission World Heritage Site.

I stopped here to find some shade and decided to hitchhike when I saw a truck coming by.  My time was limited in Bolivia and I knew I would have to hitch and/or bus at times to get out of the country before my visa expired. Notice the umbrella sticking out of my right pannier. I bought it after a long couple of days out in the sun where there was no shade to be found. I used it as a sun shelter, not a rain shelter.

These are the kind gentlemen that gave me a lift as far as they could. The one in the cowboy hat was a rancher and the other was his helper. This is the guy who told me about the breed of white cows that handle the heat better.

I rode as far as this town and camped just in front of the town store. I was meant to get a ride further from a friend of the ranchers later that evening but that friend didn't show up before dark so I decided to camp here. He eventually showed up at about 9pm and of course saw my tent on the side of the road and apologized for not arriving sooner but it was late and I didn't want to pack up and leave so I declined his ride. When I woke up in the morning it was around 5:30am and the kids were already in school and doing gym exercises in the field next door.

These are the ladies that ran the store where I camped. They had given me something cold to drink when I showed up and also fed me some soup.

I took a spill on my bike here. The sandy road all of a sudden became deeper and I lost control and spilled. My GPS handlebar mount broke but other than that I had no other casualties.

I hitched a ride with a gentleman named Fernando.  Tankita was pretty comfy in the back until we reached a road block of a fallen tree (see next photo).

Tankita had to do the limbo to get under this one! I had to offload here and say goodbye to Fernando. He had to turn around and go back and try to find someone with a chainsaw to clear out this tree. He later caught up with me and gave me another ride until he was going to go straight and I was turning off to head to the national park Noel Kempff Mercado.

Wild parrots near where I camped.

Cool bird's nests

My camp spot on the side road to the park. 

Not a tan line, a dirt line!

I awoke to the loud buzzing of hundreds of bees. I had arrived the evening before just before sunset so I hadn't encountered the bees. Later I learned that bees are not out at night so it was not until the morning that I was exposed to the massive number of bees I had heard inhabited this area and in Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. 

They are attracted to the sweat of my body so any place that there had been sweat they were all over it!

Fortunately someone had been down this road before me and cleared some of the road. I was told that in a matter of 2 or 3 days the road could become completely impassable because of downed trees from the many rainstorms.

Hostal in Florida (the village bordering the national park) where I organized my stuff, left some behind and arranged for the mandatory guide to take me into the park.

The day I arrived in Florida I found out about a wildfire which was rapidly approaching the village. The hostal owners took me with them to go see how close it was getting to the village.

This is a palm tree burning just off of the side of the same road I had just ridden on to get to the village. Any closer and it would have choked off the road. I wondered what I would have done had I come across this fire earlier and if I would have ventured on or not. There would not have been any way to know if the fire was blocking off the path ahead of me or closing off the path behind me. It could have easily trapped me in on a section of road. Just after this shot was taken, it started raining really heavy and was the saving grace for the village.

Big ants, toe in there for scale.

Plane that came to pick up three Dutch guys that I met at the hostal. They had just come out of the park that day. Their trip ended with hauling their buddy out of the jungle on a hand made litter because he was severely dehydrated. It turns out that the village nurse said he was very close to dying. He had received intravenous re-hydration and was able to walk on his own by the time they left.

Hanging out at the river after a swim and surprising the mass of butterflies that had congregated on shore.

When I was researching how to get here I read some blogs that warned about swimming in this river because of the presence of piranhas and caymans (alligators) but with the locals doing laundry in it I figured it was safe enough for a swim. It was worth the risk to get out of the heat and it felt like Heaven.

Crossing the river Paraguay with my guide on the way to the park entrance. They don't look like it but these boards were thick and super heavy and difficult to put up on the pontoon raft. One of the three Dutch guys I had met told me that my guide and I would have problems with this task since we would only have two people to lift these boards. He said we would probably have to get help from a village member because we wouldn't be able to move the boards onto the pontoon raft by ourselves. On their trip they had to use both guides and the driver to lift these boards. As I struggled to help lift one end of the boards I had a brainstorm and switched to sitting on my butt and using my legs to push the board towards the pontoon. Of course my legs were more up to the task than my arms so that method worked and away we went to the other side of the river to offload our bikes and ride into the park.  Work smarter not harder right? 

All checked in with the rangers and ready to go.

Cashew nuts in their little "husk"  hanging at the bottom of the fruit on which they grow. The fruit comes in yellow or red and is really juicy and good. We had no way to husk the nuts and nowhere to roast them so the nut was discarded but I ate a bunch of the fruit.

An abandoned lodge. We stayed here for a night on the way into the park and out of the park. It looked like it used to be a nice lodge but it seems that lack of business forced its closure.

Much of the road had to be cleared like this. Apparently storms often fall trees that block the road. This road was just traveled by the Dutch guys three days before me and they had driven on it in a vehicle so they had to have it cleared wider for them to pass. All of this happened in three days.

The wilderness experience of a lifetime or so it says! Noel Kempff Mercado National Park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its biodiversity.

We rode our bikes through jungle and pampas/savannahs (grasslands like this) to get to the hiking trail. It was here in the savannah that Juan had problems with his chain and I was able to put to use the chain tool that I owned for 18 years and had never used.

We parked our bikes here and continued by hiking.

Aye aye aye! I don't know how to describe this encounter well enough to do it justice. It makes me laugh when I think about it but it could have had a really bad outcome. This snake was laying across our path and the guide, Juan pointed it out to me, I took a photo and then the snake started trembling much like a rattlesnake. I said to my guide "El no le gusta" (He doesn't like) which was dead accurate because all of a sudden from in far in the brush the head popped up and the snake started coming towards us with his head and part of his body elevated about six inches off the top of the brush and moving fast. I tried to ask Juan in Spanish if we should run or not but the words wouldn't come into my head so I just blurted it in English and he just pushed me to go in the opposite direction. I turned around and started walking fast on the trail from where we had just come and he ran in another direction.  Let's just say that I have never been chased by a snake before and fortunately this wasn't my first time either only because the snake chose to chase Juan instead of me!!! Maybe it likes dark meat. ;)
I watched in horror and disbelief as the snake continued to chase Juan for about 40 feet all the while I was yelling at him "machete, machete" in an effort to encourage Juan to use his machete on the snake if he had to use it. Eventually the snake slowed down and stopped near the base of a tree which maybe held it's "nest."  When I knew Juan was safe and we resumed our hike I started laughing uncontrollably but I don't think Juan felt the humor the way I did.

I don't know what kind of snake it is and my searches in Google have been to no avail for Bolivian snakes. My sister Laurie found a likeness with the Matildas Horned Viper but that only exists in Tanzania and is a new discovery at that so I don't think it is an immigrant.

Reaching the top of La Meseta after a steep and hot climb. The breeze felt great

An oasis in the dry table top. Lots of parrots lived in the palm tops.

Camping behind a bit of a wind block. The wind was the only thing that kept the bees from descending upon us up here at the top.

The land is recovering slowly after a big fire. At night we could see another fire burning in Brazil about 24 miles (40 km) away.

The swimming hole we hiked to for a dip.

There was less wind here so the bees showed up in record time.

Look carefully, what seems like a harmless palm frond is a palm frond with nasty thorns. 

Hiking back down.

This tree had fallen since we hiked in only two days earlier!

The vines were crazy on the trail where we rode our bikes and they would just catch me out of nowhere tugging on my clothes and ripping my shirt. Innocent looking fern-leafed-like vines had long spines on them. Tree branches would jump up and grab at my pedals! My pannier covers were shredded and falling off if it were not for the duct tape I brought (don't leave home without it). I thought about not bringing my helmet before the trip but I was glad that I did bring it as it served me well as protection of my noggin' since there were lots of low branches that would knock me on the head too. My cycling gloves were my hand protection and since I usually wore two pairs layered on top of each other I had a pair to share with Juan whose hands I realized were getting ripped up. I wore my sunglasses all the time for eye protection. The day we hiked down from the La Meseta trail Juan and I got caught out kind of late by the time we got back to the bikes. I had lost my head lamp on the trail much earlier in the day because I pulled it out and put it so it was more accessible on my backpack for later when I would need it (go figure). When it got dark I couldn't see very far in front of me and had to ride as close to Juan's rear tire as I could. It was super dark but kept my sunglasses on even then as they were invaluable eye protection.

Just as I was thinking it was great that I hadn't had any flat tires or problems with my bike, I got three in a row! In no time the bees were on me. Juan would use a branch full of leaves to fan me to try to keep them off of me while I fixed each flat. At times we just had to walk away and walk down the trail 50 feet or so just to get them off of us for a moments' reprieve only to have them descend upon us again once we returned to the bikes to finish up the patching. It was enough to drive me mad at times, all that buzzing and crawling all over me! I had bought this long sleeve shirt just for going into this jungle, it worked to an extent to keep bees off my skin but the plan backfired when the bees got in underneath it. By the end of the trip I had figured that I had been stung about eight times. After awhile I didn't really notice them as much. To be fair they didn't usually sting unless they got caught in some fold somewhere. I think the noise was worse than actually being covered by them. Earplugs might have helped!
This photo doesn't even show them in their glory. Sometimes my whole back was covered. I took this photo myself as I didn't have the heart to ask Juan to take a photo of me amidst getting swarmed on himself but I stopped briefly for this one as I wanted some proof. I counted about 47 in this photo when I zoomed in on it. I felt like a poster child for a Care advertisement except instead of flies all over me, I had bees all over me!

The bee net headress I made from my scarf and extra tent screen. It served only to trap the bees underneath it and make them mad!

I saw this guy outside of the park and had to really zoom in on him. It has to be some kind of jungle cat as the tail looks too long for a house cat and there were no houses around but I don't know what kind of cat it is.

Souvenir bites and stings.

Sign indicating "coca for sale" as in the leaves from a coca plant which is used to make cocaine. Lots of Bolivians chew on coca leaves, it is legal to do so here but not in most of the neighboring countries.

Tankita and I got a ride on this truck with some returning hunters.

One of the buses Tankita and I took to get out of the far east side of Bolivia to the border with Peru so I could get out of the country before my visa expired. You can see Tankita riding on the roof way in back behind all of the bananas (see next photo).

Photo of the mountains seen from the bus as I reached the Altiplano again, back at high elevation.

Back in the land of traditional clothing.

Someone asked me if my trip to the jungle was worth the detour, time and energy it took to go to Noel Kempff Mercado National Park. I hate to say it but my answer was "no." I am very glad that I did it because it was an interesting experience and I would never have known until I went but the park was not that impressive for the trouble it took to get there. On my way out of the park I had to ration my water as I had not loaded up enough in my water bladder at the last water hole to allow for the extra time it took to deal with the flat tires I had. I was super low in energy and just wanted to lay down and sleep in some shade somewhere but the bees wouldn't allow that and I still had miles to go to get to the river where the pontoon boat was and then get out of the park.  I made it, of course, but I have to say surprisingly it was one of the toughest things I have ever done or endured.

Map lines in orange indicate where I rode and black where I took a bus.

Same as other map where lines in orange indicate where I rode and black where I took a bus.

This blog takes you through Bolivia up to October 1, 2012. I am in Panama now as of this posting on May 23, 2013. 

*Photos and blog posts to come from Peru and my break from the trip to go to the US:

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Being Robbed In Peru