Amazon Basin, Bolivia: 24th Feb 10

Today we travelled in a motorised dug-out canoe for 6 hours up the Beni and Tuchi rivers into the Amazon Basin. Our destination is the Chalalan Lodge, in the Madidi National Park. The park is famous as it has the highest concentration of bio-diversity of anywhere in South America. The lodge is owned by members of the local community, so all of the money stays to help the locals. Since the ten years that it’s been open it’s been responsible for the building of a secondary school, amongst many other projects.



The river was lined by jungles on both sides and we saw lots of birds, including Macaws, and also some giant rats! They really were huge, and strangely cute!


One dramatic moment came when the boat hit a submerged log and we all lurched forward. We turned around to see the driver struggling to keep the motor on board, and then realized we were heading at full speed straight for a cliff. Arrggghhh! Luckily we managed to get straightened up and carry on – but I do love a good drama!

We arrived at the lodge in the afternoon and after a quick lunch headed into the jungle. There are 7 guests at the lodge – it takes 20, but this is the quiet season. We’ve been split into 2 groups, so Matt, Tania and I have our own guide, a local chap, aged 30, called Alejandro.

You can imagine our surprise when after walking for about 10 yards into the jungle, we stumbled across my worst nightmare, a huge tarantula! It was literally about 6 inches across and really hairy! Alejandro had spotted its legs sticking out of a small hole at the base of a tree and coaxed it out. I HATE spiders but for some reason since starting this trip I’ve become a lot less squeamish, so I wasn’t too freaked out!

We also saw some ants over an inch long, which apparently have a nasty bite – we’ll be avoiding those!

After a while we heard some grunts and a wild pig appeared on the path ahead of us – we all stood really quietly as more and more pigs appeared – they seemed oblivious to us until one stopped and took a look at us – he then made some really loud clicking noises – then suddenly we were affronted with the most terrible smell! It turns out they have glands, rather similar to skunk and can release a pungent odour when they feel threatened – it really did reek, not pleasant at all!

Alejandro had told us that when they are threatened they can be very dangerous and surround their attackers, before launching a coordinated attack. At one point we saw pigs running in all directions and suddenly feared that they were surrounding us – a large noise from behind really freaked us out and Tania and I grabbed hold of each other and got ready to run –Alejandro reckoned it was okay so we continued our walk.

Chalalan lodge is located on the edge of a large lagoon, so in the afternoon we went for a swim. It’s very hot and humid here in the jungle so any opportunity to cool down is welcome. We were unaware at the time that the lake is home to 10 foot Caymans (the cousins of alligators) and also a large school of Pirhanas. When we found this out later we were a bit freaked out but were ‘re-assured’ with’ “oh, they only attack if they’re hungry, but they have lots of food here”. Hmmm, needless to say swimming in the lagoon was henceforth off the agenda – I don’t want to become a snack to any curious omnivores!



In the evening we went into the jungle again for a night walk, for which we had to bring our torches. We saw 2 more tarantulas, as well as several species of amphibian, from a huge grey toad 10 inches across, to a small cute green tree frog about 2 cm across – and a tiger toad, which are quite rare to see!

We also saw a sleeping kingfisher – and a huge 8 foot Amazon Boa! This snake is apparently very had to spot as it normally lives high up in the tree canopy, Alejandro was beside himself when he saw it, declaring it to be his favourite snake – and as it was hanging in a branch at eye level he said the snake must be very hungry and we were very lucky!

We’ve had a great day today and look forward to seeing more beasties in the days to come!