If I could ever ask God for one thing, I would ask him to make sand flies extinct.
So I said to my fellow travelers on the boat ride to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia´s tropical capital for jungle and pampas tours. Now that I´m back to dry La Paz and out of the reach of sand flies and mosquitoes, senses came back to me and please God, I will keep my prayers of winning the lottery.
Sand fly bites are the worst I have ever experienced. It seems to make your whole body itch and I was quite ready to murder some small animals every time when it hit. The also attack in groups so I was covered in millions (ok, maybe that´s exaggerating a bit. Let´s go with THOUSANDS) of bites in a couple of days. Insect repellents only works for about 27 seconds and as soon as you put the bottle away, these exles of evil are all over you again. And they bite through clothing. I haven´t slept through one night without waking up scratching like a mad person.
Well that aside, there was a few things that we saw and experienced. I guess it was kind of cool when the Pink Dolphins came out to play with us. They are river dolphins that live in some ponds in the Bolivian share of the Amazon jungle. Being highly intelligent animals yet without proper TV programs to entertain the population, the Pink Dolphins are a deprived bunch who rejoyce at the presence of their human toys. They particularly enjoy the tourists, who are meeting them for the first time. They´d watch for the tourists jumping off the boats for a swim, sneak up to them from below, and give a fake bite on their unsuspecting feet. Though they know better than breaking the skin with their gnarly sharp teeth and strong jaws, the dolphins bited just hard enough so they could enjoy the screams and giggles let out by their new toys. We all sported quite a few dolphine nibbles by the end of the day.
We did saw a few hawler monkeys moving about their huge nets. These are some large monkeys, almost the size of some apes. The males are all black while the females are nicely golden in color. They are my favorite animals amongst all that we saw.
Here´s a list of the other stuff we saw. You can make up your own mind whether or not they are worth the thousand itch bites.
- Pirañas that we fished out of some ponds. I got three, one of each type - red, yellow and white. All them have sharp teeth. Most of them are only the size of a palm, but some of them are known to group-attack humans swimming, and yes, to eat them.
- Squirrel monkeys who ate bananas right off our hands. Small but greedy little suckers
- A sloth who somehow manage to climb all the way up a really tall tree. At the speed it moves while we are straining our necks to watch, I estimate it must have taken him about 34 years and a few months to get up there...
- Ants that are an inch long each. And yes, they bite. From the way Anna and Dave looked, they stung as HELL!
- A couple of alligators who hang out under our floor of our elevated dining camp everyday. The tour guides named them Pedro and Pedra. Pedro is about 9 feet long and Pedra is a petite 7 feet.
- A caman (a south american crocodile) who came over to visit Pedro and Pedra every couple of weeks, according to the locals. He´s a reserved-looking fellow yet the guides seriously warned us about this guys´ poker face and that he could never be trusted too close by, which in the jungle standard, basically means a safety distance of about a few steps. Mr. Caman is big-boned 12 feet bloke.
- A golden turtle we grabbed right off the river while he was floating around. And he really is golden yellow in color.
- A pensive-looking toucan
- Whole bunch of other birds that live around the river. Didn´t remember all those names.
- Half a hairy tarantula while she was retrieving into her tree hole of a home.
And lots and lots and lots of SANDFLIES....
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