Jungle Paradise Day 2

11/22/09

This morning Shannon is sick. It's nothing serious, but she is not happy, able to eat (or even leave the vicinity of our hotel room). So Carmalyn and I abandon her and go visit parque Carrasco. It is a giant conservation area in the middle of Bolivia. We have to cross the river in a cart that runs across two steel cables. The cart has a runner / pulley at each corner that runs along the cables. It is pretty exciting in itself, but not as exciting as the other way to cross. In our experience, the cart is always on the other side of the river (It naturally rests in the center if not tied up). The way our guide (Jose) has to cross to get the cart looks like fun. He has a rope with three loops in it. Two loops go under his bum and the third under his arms. Then he has a contraption that is two hooks on either side of a pulley. He puts the pulley on one of the cables, puts the rope in the hooks and pulls himself across the river. Carmalyn wants to go across that way, but he won't let her.

Once we get across, we go for a walk in the jungle. We see lots of lizards, bugs and snakes. Only one of the snakes we saw was venomous, but it was a small one, which are more dangerous. If my Spanish is correct (about a 50/50 chance), Jose tells us that younger smaller venomous snakes are more dangerous because they lack experience. An older (larger) snake will only inject the minimum amount of venom in case the kill is not successful. Then he still has some venom left for other attempts. A younger snake will inject all the venom it has, making it more dangerous to humans. In any case, they all run away at the sound of us approaching. Jose is good. He can spot a two inch lizard standing absolutely still from ten feet. It takes me a few minutes to see it even after Jose points it out with a stick.

Our walk goes to two caves. First is the Bat Cave. There are way to many types of bats that live here. Most live on fruit or insects (anything that kills insects is a friend of mine), but some live on birds. A couple are vampire bats and one catches fish. Apparently they swoop down over the water and pull out fish with their claws, like eagles. The cave is really interesting. There are bats hanging everywhere. And more flying around. It is cool to watch them fly up to the ceiling, flip over, grasp some invisible ledge and then swing there for a few minutes. I'm not convinced their sonar is all the accurate. I had a couple of them bounce off me and I'm hardly a hard target to miss.

After the Bat Cave is el Caverna del Repechons (Cave of the night birds). The birds look like peregrine falcons, about the same size with curved beaks, but they eat fruit. They have giant eyes (they are night-birds). It is mating season and most of the eggs have been laid. There were a lot of giant eyes looking at us suspiciously from nests high up on ledges. There was also a lot of flying around, but nobody really left the cave. We walked back through more snakes, lizards and a couple of monkeys. Carmalyn still couldn't convince Jose to let her try the rope to get across the river.

This afternoon is free. Shannon is looking better, but not ready to leave the hotel room yet. We drag her up to lunch for three whole spoonfuls of broth and this almost kills her. So Carmalyn and I abandon her again and take the trails down to the river to look for the swimming holes. We find them. The water is cold! It is wonderful. The first time we enter a pool, we throw a few rocks in and edge in slowly, by the end we are wading from pool to pool with no regard for personal safety. We head back to check on Shannon and discover that she has migrated to the pool. We convince her to join us at the swimming holes. This time we wander upstream and find even more. We even find a natural water slide. There are supposed to be 14 river pools, but we only make it to 12. I reckon that if we keep walking either up or down stream we could find as many as we wanted to.

I was so exhausted at the end of the day that I fell asleep despite the massive tropical rainstorm outside our room. Lots of thunder and lightening and, based on the evidence in the morning, lots of rain, but I slept through the whole thing.