Day: 400
So, 400 travel days have passed in the last couple of years and I am still here, much to my own surprise.
I remember back in February of 2006, Mom foresaw it would last “a couple of weeks then you’ll get bored of it and we’ll hardly ever hear from you.” Unfortunately for the internet, she was wrong and I am still plugging away from wherever I am at in the world trying to complete the three years I set out to do, oh so long ago.
Glad you’re all still here.
Day: 399
The days here on the steamy shores of the Amazon are drifting in and out of similarity, unable to seem to know where to land. It rains, the sun blazes and we constantly lounge around in hammocks loving life. Quite a nice break if I dont say so.
Day: 398
Our days are pretty simple, eating and relaxing, trying to avoid the worst of the days heat in the shade, then eating again. We manage to rally the energy to buy plane tickets for 3 days from now, when we´ll be leaving the Amazon basin and heading up to lake Titicaca, which makes me smile everytime I say it.
Day: 397
It rained most of the day and we are still wasting lots of time together. We did manage to get Felicia´s visa extended (mine is for 90 days, here was 30), so we don´t have to rush out of Bolivia.
Day: 396
After our Amazon adventure, we realized we were exhausted from traveling and have decided to stay put for a while here in Runnenabaque for a few reasons: the aforementioned exhaustion, its cheap, and we still have a couple weeks until we meet Ed in Cusco and there is only a couple of other places to visit between here and there.
Day: 395
After a morning of making assorted jewelry out of forest nuts and branches (I swear its like summercamp here), we hike the 2 kilometers back to the river and boarded the boat, with the utmost caution of the quicksand, to head back upriver for 4 hours to return back to Rurre for the next few days until we can get a flight back to La Paz.
Day: 394
To answer your questions (Grandpa), yes we do have repellent. Actually we have three types, REI Jungle Juice, and aerosol can of OFF, and a 30 DEET Cutter Glue stick type thing. We also have mosquito coils constantly burning in our lodge and sleep under mosquito nets. Everytime we go out we apply layers of all three, and it seems to work to some extent, yet for some reason the mosquitos here seem to be dying of hunger and about one percent of the clouds of millions seem to have a DEET immunity and still fly through my array of defenses, leaving Felicia and I with numerous bites. We have met a few people without repellent, and all I can say is I really don´t envy them and there skin which appears to be covered in some awful disease.
Anyways, today was spent partly on a boat looking for birds (where Felicia had to row, whilst I took pictures) and partly in the jungle looking for monkeys with our guide, Señon.
Day: 393
We walked through the endless jungle looking for animals, assorted plants and sweating the combined equivalent of 3 gallons of water. It might just have been me but the furry tree anteaters seemed to be cooler than my poor Southern Californian ass…
Anyhow, we did manage to see all sorts of jungle creatures, and even manage to each only get about 30 mosquito bites each throughout the day; that was until we decided to go looking for Caimans on the lake after dark with only the full moon and our flashlights to show the way.
When you shine the your light across the lake you see these evil red eyes everyware, they are Caiman (a sort of croc.), its pretty cool to see, but the major danger was the armies of mosquitos who number in the millions and swarm all over you and your flashlight. I have never before been unable to breath due to the fear of inhaling hundreds of mozzies. Quite disgusting.
Day : 392
After a late breakfast and waiting an extra 45 minutes after our supposed departure time, Felicia and I boarded a river boat and headed downstream on the Beni (pronounced Behney) for the next three hours, checking out all sorts of going ons (aka nothing really other than a really wide river).
The absolute best part of my day was when we arrived at the riverbank to hike the 1.8 kilometers up to the jungle lodge we were staying at. The boat pulled up to the bank, and with only Felicia and I on the boat I walked up to the front to jump off, I saw a couple guys on the shore bringing over what looked like a gangplank (to walk down off the boat), but it was only about two feet to the shore, so I just jumped. As soon as my first foot left the edge of the boat I had four guys screaming ¨NO!¨ as I cleared the edge of the boat I realized I might have made my first mistake in the jungle…
Within moments I found myself thigh deep in river quicksand. I couldn´t move and Felicia, being to paralyzed by laughter didnt manage to get a picture of me buried in mud, or the proceding process of two guys using all their strength to extract me from the muck.
Anyways, after a moment like that, the rest of the day, fishing for Piranha, watching glorious sunsets or treking through the jungle seems uneventful…
