Jungle bashing in Madidi National Park

Bolivia's slice of the Amazon Basin encompasses half of the countries entire territory and, being relatively undeveloped, is renowned as a prime (and somewhat wild) place to experience pristine rain forest.

The jewel of this region is the Madidi National park. More plant and animal species grace this park than any other preserve in South America (including an astounding 1100 bird species, over 10% of the world's total).

I read about the park in an amazing National Geographic article in 2001 and have been eager to explore the park ever since. I opted for a 5 day hike into the jungle with a local guide.

Ally and Russel who were not quite as passionate as me about clambering around in humid, sticky, bug infested jungle (what is wrong with them!) chose to do a one night camp over with me in Madidi and spend the rest of the time exploring the Pampas swamps nearby from the relative comfort of a river boat. There were times I wished I was with them (see last photo in this post!)

To get into the park, we had to take a 3 and a half hour boat trip from the small town of Rurrenabaque. Our travel companion in the photo is Michelle, an adventurous lass from Ireland. We also had a guide (Mario), boat driver and a cook so it was a full party. The cook and boat navigator left with Russel and Ally after the first night, and Mario and I were left to fend for ourselves.

The jungle was absolutely gorgeous - wild, overgrown, pristine and literally humming with life. Many of the trees had grown enormously tall in their frantic effort to reach the light and thick vines twisted from their branches like giant snakes. There were some simple paths that aided our entry into the deep overgrowth but Mario was regularly forced to use his enormous machete to open up areas that the vines and ferns constantly reclaimed.

Although Madidi is crawling in mammals and bird species, I soon realised I was unlikely to see a large number of them. They tend to be secretive and hide away in the tall canopy or deep ground thickets. You can hear them clambering about (particularly during our night walks) but actually seeing and identifying them is a whole new challenge. Photography is also difficult as, in a ddition to the wildlife being hard to see, the light tends to be poor.

Having said that, we did pretty well. I got to see countless species of insects (some of which were alarmingly oversized and creepy, though always fascinating). I saw 8 new species of birds including two gorgeous macaws and the strange, primitive Hoatzin bird that regurgitates its food like a cow and can only fly 20 metres at a time. We also saw 7 mammal species including 3 different monkeys, racoons, marsupial mice (very cute) and wild pigs. The jaguars, tapirs and giant armodillos stayed well hidden.

Fungi and mushrooms thrived everwhere, as you would expect in a hot, damp jungle. Many were absolutely beautiful.

Spiders, locusts, ants, catterpillars, butterflies and moths. They were everywhere. Many advertised themselves with their enormous size and beautiful colours. Others, like this spider, opted for a more shy and camouflaged approach. 

I loved the leaf-cutter ants. They cut the leaves into such myriad different shapes and their trails went on for miles. Sometimes an ant will not only carry a leaf many times its size, but also several lazy ants taking a ride on the leaf too.

The butterflies were very impressive too - though hard to photograph at times due to their restless nature. This one obliged though.

Toucans are amongst my favourite birds. There is omething absolutely irresistable about their outrageousaly oversized bills and flambouyantly coloured feathers. They also tend to be very playful although the ones in Madidi were challengingly secretive.

We saw this very cute little fellow on a night walk with torches strapped to our heads. It was very surreal to be in a jungle at night, particularly when we switched our torches off. Thankfully no critters took the opportunity to attack us in the dark, save for some pesky mosquitos.

I was thrilled to see this turtle in a side river but the feeling was not mutual. It cantered off as fast as a turtle can move.

Swimming in the river was a highlight after the sticky days and as we ventured deeper into the jungle and our water supply ran ouit, we even drank from the river. At times, we also drank from vines. It is amazing how much water they store (up to 4 litres). You simply cut off a length of it and let the water splash into your mouth. Tasted deliciously fresh too.

On the 3rd day, we scaled a small mountain in the jungle and emerged up and out to this great view of the park. It was quite a relief to regain a sense of space (and feel the sun) after the claustrophobic dankness of the undergrowth.

On my last day, after several days of just me and Mario, we met up with some more backpackers and had lots of fun. Here I am introducing them to the joys of mud.

I managed to avoid the mosquitos and sand flies most of the time. Then on the final day, I got carerless and they got me big time! Bastards... I am still scratching 3 days later.

New birds seen

• Black Skimmer
• Blue and Yellow Macaw
• Blue-crowned Parakeet
• Hoatzin
• Cuviers Toucan
• Razor-billed Curassow

Uyuni Salt Pans (Bolivia)

Our first port of call in Bolivia was the Uyuni Salt pans. We did an incredible 3 day 4X4 tour (with Cristal Tours, based in Uruni) through this famous region in the south west of the country. We saw hallucinogenic salt deserts, spurting geysers and eerie lagoons that provided vistas more surreal than a Salvador Dali painting.

Uyuni Salt Pans is the largest in the world - a sea of salt, in a fantasy world of its own. At an elevation of over 3600 meters, it covers more than 12,000 square kilometers and is the dried out remnants of an ancient sea that once covered most of southern Bolivia.

The salt pan looks like a sheet of ice that extends further than you can see, with a thin layer of water over it much of the year. Riding on the pan was a blinding experience with all the white salt and water, reflecting the light. The white surface crust of salt is 10 m thick, and the amount of salt in the Pans is estimated at over 6 billion tons. That is a serious amount of salt!

The amazing reflections in the salt provided some great photographic opportunities.

Of course, we made use of the eerie landscape for some fun photos too!

The sunrises and sunsets were particularly gorgeous thanks once again to the reflections.

There are hotels on the salt pan made entirely of bricks of salt, cut from the pan. We stayed the night in one and it was quite surreal although thankfully no-one tried to lick the walls. We have always wanted to stay in an ice hotel so this made a warmer substitute.

The locals mine the salt. People use hand tools to scrape the salt up and pile it into mounds. Then, after it has dried, it is shoveled into ancient dump trucks. The workers heave the salt 12 feet into the air, over the side of the truck, with shovels. If Volvo were to donate some excavators, they would be much appreciated!

The pan has islands that rise out of it - eerie hills in a sea of salt. We visited the spectacularly beautiful Isla de los Pescadores which is populated with cactus plants up to 12 meters high (and 1000 years old!) and provides 360 degree views of the endless salt pans surrounding it.

The 4X4’s don't particularly like skimming across the corrosive salt water and they complain bitterly by breaking down regularly. The drivers do use big tarps wrapped around the bottom to try to protect the engine but it didn't help us much and we had to stop every ten minutes to clean out the over heating engine. Eventually our driver made a makeshift barrier with some cactus vegetation and it seemed to do the trick. Nice to see a mechanic using natural remedies for a change.

After exploring the salt pans, we continued to head up into the mountains, seeing less and less of the scrub vegetation as the air dried out more and more. At points we hit totally barren dessert, the northern reach of the Atacama Dessert of Chile, portions of which have seen no rain in over 400 years.

And in the middle of this stark land, we found incredibly beautiful lakes, surrounded by snowcapped peaks of extinct volcanoes.

One of the most memorable lakes was Lago Colorado which is a brilliant red colour.

Laguna Verde, was a stunning blue lake that turns green as the morning breeze hits it. It provided nice reflections of its neighboring volcanic mountain. The lake stands at a breath gasping altitude of 5000 meters. Needless to say we didn't run around much.

Much to my delight, most of the lakes were teeming with flamingos (3 different species).

In addition to flamingos, we saw foxes and llamas.

On our 3rd day, we went to a field of geysers at 4800 metres, steaming and fuming, mud pots bubbling as the sun peaked over the horizon.

Another lake had a wonderful hot spring bubbling up beside it. We basked in the hot water, eating breakfast. It was such a relief to warm up and feel our feet after an extremely frigid night. The region can get very cold indeed, reaching minus 40 degrees celcius in winter. Thankfully we only experienced minus 10 degrees but it was still the coldest I think I have ever been, except perhaps for Nepal.

The region is also rich in surreal rock formations that stand out against the red desert sands.

We did the 3 day tour with a wonderful group of people. Russel, our visiting buddy from South Africa, provided excellent and zany entertainment. Then there was Andy and Neil from England (check out their photos) and Morten from Denmark. Ally did an admirable job of putting up with all our boys' talk.

On the way back to Uyuni, we got stuck behind this vehicle. Spread right accross the road it did and it took us close to half an hur to pass it. Imagine this on a London street!

And finally, a lovely picture of Ally and I. Isn't my new hat the bomb!

Videos

From Ally's journal

The morning we arrived at 2:30 am and we had a few hours sleep before strolling down the main street in search of a tour leaving that day for the salt pans. We joined up with 3 guys (2 Brits and a Dane) which made it into a testosterone filled 3 day tour but as our lovely Danish friend kept saying, ’it is all good’.

Our 1st stop was at a village on the edge of the salt pan where they gather the salt into piles , then heat it up to purify it and crush it with an ancient looking device where it is packed into 1kg packets. At peak production this ancient practice can make 2000 kg per day and they sell 50kg for Bs8 (R6.50). This supports 6 families.

That afternoon we drove across the salt pans and we were surrounded as far as they eye could see by flat glaringly white salt crust. It was so dry I could feel my skin drying up. I felt that the salt pans were more barren than a desert – blinding during the day and freezing overnight. If marooned, I would rather be stuck in a desert.

After about 5 hours of driving we arrived at an island made up of rocks and very tall cacti. One was 1200 years old and was 12m high. It was extremely strange and surreal to be on an island with living cacti surrounded by completely flat mirror like salt pans. The 4x4 cars driving away looked liked they were driving on a massive ice-rink.

On the second day we left the salt lake and headed up into extremely barren land. It went up to 4500m so we were all feeling the altitude with shortness of breath and headaches. But we knew it would pass.

In the middle of the barren snowy capped mountains we would come across the most beautiful salty lagoons where the flamingos flocked to eat their shrimps. It was so beautiful to see their flashes of colour as they took off against the varied colours of the lakes.

On the trip we were extremely well fed but they gave us soup with cabbage in it which meant that the trip in the land rover the next day was not the freshest. By the third day we were all glad that we had not chosen the 4 day tour as our legs were cramped and our insides were hurting from being jiggled around so much.

After a freezing early start (the mist froze on the inside of our car window) we made our way to a set of bubbling geysers. The earth was literarily spurting the mud up and huge bellows of steam were coming off the hot mud pools. The smell of sulphur was over powering.

Last but not least we had a swim in the natural hot spring on the edge of a lake. Through the steam we watched the sun rising. It was VERY cold getting into the pool but heaven when you were submerged in the hot water.

At the end of that day was were thrilled to get out of the land rover only to discover that we had a 10 hour bus trip ahead of us along an extremely bumpy road as the train staff were on strike. I was not a happy camper but we had to move ahead as we needed to get to La Paz.