Jungle Diaries: 1

Day of the turtles The evening that the final piece of rescue centre paperwork arrived, I joked to Douwe and Olivia that tomorrow the animals would start arriving. In my defence I think I joked it would be jaguars. Early the next day a rumour was circulating in the nearby village that the ministry was on its way with 20 turtles. 20 was nothing to worry about. But as the day went on the number had risen to 200, a bit more of an issue. Douwe went across to the village to try and contact the ministry, but they’d already left to come to us. With nothing else to be done we waited. I will admit at this point I joked that knowing Peruvians it would be 2000 turtles. I was wrong. When the ministry arrived they had 2 enormous buckets almost overflowing with confiscated baby turtles. Carrying the buckets as quickly as possible to the house, the decision was made to empty the turtles onto the floor of the volunteer house. A landslide of live, dead and semi-live/dead turtles covered the floor and we worked to spread them out before too many suffocated. Of course some were very alive and instantly went running before we could barricade the other rooms. (The last of these was recovered from behind the toilet the next morning and was reunited with his buddies!) With the ministry workers helping we set about getting the live ones ready for immediate release back into the river. The first thing we did was grab the turtles that were still trying to run around and organise them into groups of 10. These were placed into the large buckets 200 at a time. With the first lot ready to go we headed down to the river to do the single biggest release of Esperanza Verde yet. We sent around 1000 of these baby turtles back into the wild on the first go. The ministry had brought some press and cameras with them so videos of Lauren and I looking like we knew what we were doing were played on Peruvian TV for the next week. Lauren even gave an interview, but we’re not sure if it made the cut. Back at the house the process was repeated several times until all of the turtles that seemed fine were released. The other volunteers had finished the afternoon feed at this point and came to help. Of course the stress and the transportation meant that in total around 10% of the turtles were dead on arrival. In the hopes that some still had some life in them we lined them up to make it easier to see if one moved. The turtles had been poached as they were hatching along the banks of a river. Judging by the number of turtles it was a large number of nests. The culprit had been trying to sell them from their house and a group of children from a nearby school telephoned the authorities to report them. This seems a good sign for the future of nature conservation in the area. Some of the last turtles stayed with us for several weeks until they recovered sufficiently to be released. And before we knew it the last of the 3,300 were back in the river where they belong. It goes without saying that I’m no longer allowed to make jokes about animals arriving. Thousands of turtles were a challenge…but Jaguars…

Esperanza Verde Peru: Volunteering at an Animal Rescue Centre

If you are interested in volunteering with animals in South America then check out our new video about life at Esperanza Verde in Peru. Esperanza Verde is an Animal Rescue Centre and Reforestation Project in the Amazon Basin. It was started 5 years ago and is home to an array of animals. It was also home to us for the past 9 months and we hope this video will give you an idea of what kept us there so long. Sorry for the lack of blogs recently but hopefully this makes up for it.

So if you’re asking yourself “where can I volunteer in South America?” then look no further…

If you’d like to volunteer or simply make a donation then get in contact with Olivia at info@esperanzaverdeperu.com or via the website at http://www.esperanzaverdeperu.com/

Wildlife in the Amazon

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Turkey Bird

Turkey Bird

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Squirel Monkey

Pink River Dolphin

Pink River Dolphin

Pink River Dolphin

Pink River Dolphin

Pink River Dolphin

Pink River Dolphin

Sloth

Sloth

Pink River Dolphins and Piranhas: The Pampas

After the wet days in the Amazon Jungle and the continuous downpours in Rurrenabaque, our journey to the Pampas was never going to be easy.

Like in many rural areas in South America, the roads around the small northern town of Rurrenabaque are unpaved. What should have been a mere three hour journey along the dirt track turned out to be closer to six. In all honesty we were surprised we made it to the Pampas at all. But we weren’t the only ones stupid enough to attempt the journey…

In three people carriers without 4WD, the journey was more chaotic than our trip across the salt flats! Each car took its turn to get stuck…ours was so deep in the mud, the doors were jammed shut and we had to escape though the windows…

The farm animals and those on horseback trotted by, whilst we dug out the cars with pick axes and a ball of twine as a towrope. I say we…most of us tourists could barely stand up straight in the mud…thank goodness for the experience of our drivers…

Instead we tourists made ourselves useful by playing with this little sloth by the roadside. He really didn’t seem to care as we stood below him snapping away and instead focussed his efforts on his afternoon nap. Way to live up to the stereotype, Mr Sloth.

So was the journey worth all the trouble? Without a doubt! As we eventually disembarked the beaten cars, ourselves coated in mud, we were greeted by the second wildlife encounter of many. Our lodges were a little way up the river and as we waited for our boat to transport us, the playful pink river dolphins made their first appearance.

Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity to swim with them, we dumped our bags at the lodge and grabbed our trunks and bikinis and were in the water within minutes…

Despite trying to entice them near to us with all the tricks we’d learnt from watching “Flipper” as children, these dolphins were very much disinterested in us. Instead they were fixated with the plastic water bottle toy our guide had made for them…

Although our pictures do not show this well, they really are pink in colour! As we watched from the boat we could really see the various shades – as the dolphin gets older, the pink intensifies.

As dolphins have been one of my favourite animals since childhood this really was a fantastic experience for me. Swimming with dolphins was certainly on my bucket list. Swimming with alligators and piranhas, however was not. As we travelled back up stream to the lodge our guide took this opportunity to point out the various caimans and alligators along the riverbank and also announced the river was infested with piranhas. Best we knew after our swim I guess…

After a good rest and some wonderful food back at the lodge, on Day 4 we donned our wellies (or rubber boots to some of you) and set off in search of anacondas.

Long story short we failed to find any but we spent a good few hours traipsing through mud, grass and ponds deep enough to almost render the wellies pointless…

Somehow looking back walking in long grass looking for one of the largest snakes in the world seems like a bad idea, but at the time the intrepid explorer in all of us took over…and the ponds didn’t disappoint with other wildlife.

Slightly disappointed not to have found an anaconda but relieved to have made it out of the bog un-constricted we set off once again up the river to see what other wildlife we could find. And wow…we could now understand why the Pampas is famed for the endless wildlife on show.

We literally sat back and floated along, not knowing where to look first…

After seeing the capibaras, caimans, alligators, endless birds, turtles and monkeys jumping tree to tree we finished off the day with a spot of piranha fishing. In a few hours our group had caught 24, enough for a decent dinner.

Then we watched the sunset before returning to eat our catch.

The final day finished on a high. We set off in search of squirrel monkeys and before we knew it they were in the boat with us. I’m not sure who found who more fascinating…

Some admired their reflection in my lens…

Whilst others were clearly in a stand off with the monkey looking back…

And this one got a bit grumpy when Sam wouldn’t share his banana…seriously…

When it was time to leave they looked at us blankly as we attempted to encourage them off the boat, but as we pulled away from the bank they elegantly jumped back into the safety of their tree. And with that the wildlife adventure was over.

Sad to leave all the animals behind, that afternoon we made our way back to Rurrenabaque. Thankfully the mud had dried out so the return trip was less eventful than the previous…yet we still managed to bump into this anteater along the way….

This was right before we ran out of petrol and had to flag down a passing car to beg for a loan. Who said travelling is easy…

Once back in the little town we relaxed for the remainder of the afternoon and the next day made our way back to the airport…if you can call it that…

Although our fears of finding a tiny propeller plane waiting on the runway had been quashed on our outbound flight this time we weren’t so lucky!

With just 20 seats and two captains that we could wave at from our seats at the back, the journey started off fine. That is until they announced our plane would be diverted, as there was an “incident involving a plane” at La Paz. As a result we experienced what we can only be described as a hair-raising near vertical landing into Cochabamba. Give me a muddy track and a people carrier any day.

 

Rain in the Rainforest: Rurrenabaque

From La Paz it’s actually a simple process to get yourself down to the Bolivian Amazon. There are two options, bus or flight. The bus takes the better half of a day, has a safety record that you’d never mention to your mother and is meant to be one of the worst experiences on the continent. The plane takes 30 minutes and has great views. That’s right…we went for the plane.

Sam and Lauren were initially a bit worried as we’d heard we’d be crammed into a 12 seater twin prop aircraft. In fact we were crammed into a 50 seater jet and shot off towards the rainforest. An interesting fact, going from 4000m above sea level to 0 causes your Pringles tube to implode and crush all of your crisps.

 

Rurrenabaque airport has recently upgraded to a tarmac runway, the “terminal” is still the same though. I guarantee you’ll be using gate 1 in terminal 1, there isn’t a duty free, there are refreshments but you have to milk the cow yourself.

 

We’d booked onto a 4 night 5 day combined rainforest and pampas tour and would be departing the next day. After a quick orientation at the office we headed to the hostel for an early night.

 We awoke that morning to the type of rain you’d expect in a rainforest. The empty swimming pool at the hostel was now half full, as was reception. We took it in our stride and headed to the boats.

As we headed up river I couldn’t help thinking of Indiana Jones and wondering whether there was a seaplane or rolling boulder around.

The rain abated and the sun came out just as we got to our halfway point. A sugar cane farm. We were handed a machete and shown the best way of chopping down the canes. Next we headed to the press and used a bit of muscle to get the sugar. After adding local citrus to the drink this stuff is far more potent at waking you up than coffee. We also got our first introduction to the biting insects of the rainforest that seem to think our insect repellent was an interesting sauce.

A bit of river wading was of course necessary to get back to the boat.

The jungle lodge really is set in the heart of the jungle, after getting off the boat we waded a couple more rivers and then trekked up to the lodges hidden in the trees.

Our guide Ron was excellently versed on the local flora and fauna and took us off into the rain to explain all the bees and trees to us.

There were of course local plants that will do pretty much anything, from pregnancy tests to painkillers. We did catch on pretty quick though that the majority of the plants, spiders, ants and bugs are just there to kill you.

Ron did warn us to watch where we put our hands, with trees like this you can see why.

Humidity also started to be a problem for the cameras…

After multiple more river crossings and a few more machete sessions we were all feeling like true jungle explorers and were happy to head back to the lodge for some more of the excellent food.

There’s only one solar panel at the lodge and it hadn’t exactly been sunny, so there was enough light for dinner and then bed.

The second day was unsurprisingly wet, so wet in fact that there was no point heading into the jungle to look for animals. Instead we lit a fire, made rings and necklaces out of local nuts and played around with the bows and arrows.

That evening we went for a trek in the jungle. When we stopped and turned off our torches the darkness was absolute, you couldn’t even see your hand in front of your face. It did give us the chance to hear the sounds of the forest though. We didn’t see much wildlife except an Ocelot and some type of jungle rat, probably the Ocelots dinner, but the walk was still worth staying up late for.

The next morning we jumped on the boat to head back to Rurrenabaque and the next part of our adventure, the pampas.