After thoroughly enjoying the nightlife in Sucre my first weekend, I decided it was time to explore some other sights that Bolivia had to offer. A group of students from my school had already planned on visiting Cochabamba and the nearby jungle of Villa Tunari for a 3-day weekend so I attached myself to the group. Unfortunately my camera decided it was allergic to batteries and promptly drained itself after the first day, but since there were 7 of us I should have enough material to cannibalize for Part 2. Also I am having technical difficulties uploading videos, so for now just pretend that they exist.
There are two ways to get to Cochabamba from Sucre: a 30 minutes by plane or 10 hours by bus. Clearly on paper that would be a no-brainer, but the plane has two issues: it is 4x more expensive, and it isn't guaranteed to take off because the Sucre airport shuts down every time there is a storm. Even with the significant price differential I had been leaning towards the plane to avoid 10 hours of misery, but it poured all of Thursday and I didn't want to risk getting left behind.
There are three types of busses in Bolivia: Full-Cama, Semi-Cama, and Regular. Full-Cama has seats that recline all the way back to form essentially a bed, semi-cama reclines part of the way, and regular seats laugh at you when you think about reclining. To Cochabamba our only choices were semi or regular, and for 10 hours we splurged on the semi. Our itinerary was to leave at 8pm Friday night from Sucre and arrive in Cochabamba around 5am or so, where we would be picked up by our guide and driver around 8am and then drive the 4 hours to the jungle.
The bus station in Sucre is comparable to bus stations all over the world - a ticket area, a few shops, and some benches to sit down. But after spotting this gentleman I knew it would be a great trip:
We got around 4:45am and grabbed a few empty benches for a few more hours of rest. That proved to be impossible as we were serenaded with constant shouts advertising other prospective bus destinations. No worries, our guide showed up a few hours early and after a quick breakfast we hop into our van towards the jungle. 4 hours later we pull off onto a dirt road and drive half a mile through some dense vegetation before arriving at our jungle lodge. We had been given 3 choices on the hotel and went with the budget option, but I thought the accommodation was more than adequate.
Lunch was at a clean restaurant with a variety of meat and rice plates and one page of exotic jungle dishes. I was legitimately hungry so stuck with the safer chicken option, but one of the other guys went with the armadillo. One bite was enough for me. Also, despite being next to the jungle in one of the more remote countries in the world, we still got to enjoy the Barcelona-Madrid soccer game.
After lunch we drove to the jungle for an afternoon of hiking. To get to the jungle trails we first had to cross a river, which was one of the coolest parts of the afternoon. Our guide ferried us across the river in two groups:
After disembarking we set off on a 2 two hour jungle hike. Here's the thing about the jungle... you really don't see that much. Most of the animals are nocturnal and the ones that aren't are active in the morning and at night. If you go on an afternoon hike you almost never see anything except trees and bugs, with the occasional bird or monkey if you are lucky. That can be a little bit of a let-down-- I certainly expected to see a plethora of wildlife the first time I went to the jungle-- so what I do each time I go is try to look for something I have never seen before. The tram experience filled that quota, so everything after that was just a bonus.
One other item about the jungle... it is one of the least comfortable places on earth (at least for me). It is hot, humid, you are probably getting rained on, and there are a fuck-ton of mosquitoes. On the flip side, the sounds of the jungle are incomparable to anything else you will hear. There is just so much life and energy that you can viscerally feel it every second you are there.
Anyways, we hiked for about 45 minutes and stopped at a cave. This part of the jungle was famous for the Guacharos, a nocturnal bird that sounded absolutely terrifying. With the exception of the birds and another cave of bats we didn't see to much. For me, two hours hiking is just the right amount of time before I started to get irritated. This was the perfect hike to enjoy the jungle.
After we returned to the lodge we went for a quick swim in a nearby swimming hole. All of my hard work avoiding mosquito bites evaporated in about 5 seconds, but the refreshing bliss made it almost worth it. The rest of the day passed without too many other events until our return from dinner. We discovered that our triple had added a 4th guest:
It is a little hard to see how big this guy really was from the picture but if you wrap one of your hands around your fist you will have an idea. At last, some wildlife in the jungle!
There are two ways to get to Cochabamba from Sucre: a 30 minutes by plane or 10 hours by bus. Clearly on paper that would be a no-brainer, but the plane has two issues: it is 4x more expensive, and it isn't guaranteed to take off because the Sucre airport shuts down every time there is a storm. Even with the significant price differential I had been leaning towards the plane to avoid 10 hours of misery, but it poured all of Thursday and I didn't want to risk getting left behind.
There are three types of busses in Bolivia: Full-Cama, Semi-Cama, and Regular. Full-Cama has seats that recline all the way back to form essentially a bed, semi-cama reclines part of the way, and regular seats laugh at you when you think about reclining. To Cochabamba our only choices were semi or regular, and for 10 hours we splurged on the semi. Our itinerary was to leave at 8pm Friday night from Sucre and arrive in Cochabamba around 5am or so, where we would be picked up by our guide and driver around 8am and then drive the 4 hours to the jungle.
The bus station in Sucre is comparable to bus stations all over the world - a ticket area, a few shops, and some benches to sit down. But after spotting this gentleman I knew it would be a great trip:
Green Bay Packers... the world's favorite team
We boarded this bus at 8 and were quickly off. Cochamaba isn't actually that far away from Sucre, about 300km, but the road is a series of twists and turns with the occasional stretch of less than ideal pavement. With no ventilation and a seat in the back the first hour wasn't the cheeriest of stretches, but I blended a delicious cocktail of motion sickness and sleeping pills and arrived in Cochabamba in no time!
Sleeping pills can make anything tolerable
Who needs hot water when you are in the jungle?
Lunch was at a clean restaurant with a variety of meat and rice plates and one page of exotic jungle dishes. I was legitimately hungry so stuck with the safer chicken option, but one of the other guys went with the armadillo. One bite was enough for me. Also, despite being next to the jungle in one of the more remote countries in the world, we still got to enjoy the Barcelona-Madrid soccer game.
You can't stop the power of the Classico
He wouldn't let me drive
One other item about the jungle... it is one of the least comfortable places on earth (at least for me). It is hot, humid, you are probably getting rained on, and there are a fuck-ton of mosquitoes. On the flip side, the sounds of the jungle are incomparable to anything else you will hear. There is just so much life and energy that you can viscerally feel it every second you are there.
Anyways, we hiked for about 45 minutes and stopped at a cave. This part of the jungle was famous for the Guacharos, a nocturnal bird that sounded absolutely terrifying. With the exception of the birds and another cave of bats we didn't see to much. For me, two hours hiking is just the right amount of time before I started to get irritated. This was the perfect hike to enjoy the jungle.
One more hour and there would have been no smiles
Not exactly who I wanted to share the double bed with
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