As I headed to Santa Cruz Bolivia, I couldn´t help but think of all the trouble being caused in the country by the city. Because it is the financial powerhouse of the country, the lowlanders (residents of the Santa Cruz region) have been very forceful in their request for financial independence of the regions of Bolivia. They feel that they should be able to maintain their wealth like a state in the US, as opposed to sharing it with the much poorer Andean regions. Lots of protests, arguments, and demonstrations are occurring all the time to this effect.

I had no desire to take any part in this. My sole purpose in Santa Cruz was to buy some camping gear and to find out about transport to the very remote Noel Kempf Mercado National Park. This park is visited by about 600 people per year, but is meant to have some of the most stunning scenery and highest levels of biodiversity in the country. The tabletop mountain located there was a candidate for the inspiration of Arthur Conan Doyle´s Lost World. Works for me.

I stocked up on food and supplies and made my way further east to the little town of San Ignacio. From here I was renting a 4x4 with an Australian couple (Joe and Richard) to take us north to the park entrance. San Ignacio was a reasonably happening town (considering there were no paved roads to it) which attracts a trickle of tourists, though most are coming to visit the Jesuit mission located there, rather than try to go to the park.

Our 4x4 cost us $300 for the 5-day tour ($20 per day per person) and was a large, very well worn Suburban. Our driver, Rafael, was a hilarious parody of a man. If you were to think of a stereotypical, sitcom Latin American, you would probably be thinking of Rafael. He loved to overreact, tell outlandish tales, and delighted in dropping his few english phrases at any oppurtunity (ex. "Okay! Nokay!"). I´d seen maps of the country which clearly showed the road we were taking, so I suspected we needed the 4x4 for when we reached the park. I was wrong.

Our entire trip we were bumped and thrown around the spacious cab of the Suburban. It was like driving a 130 mile logging road. It only got worse as we got closer to the park, though we only had to stop to cut one tree out of the road, and the truck made it the entire way only getting stuck 500 meters away from town. The "town" was La Florida, a community of 20 families located on the opposite side of the river from the park. There were two families that offered accomodation here, but no stores of any sort. We set out to find our hotel while Rafael went to find a tractor to pull out his truck. The next day, we hired our guide from the village, a terrific guy named Candelo (or something along those lines), manuevered our truck onto the large pontoon, pulled it across the river, and set off into the jungle.

Joe and Richard had come to the park because it was so infrequently visited that wildlife sightings were very common. I came because I wanted to see the jungle. We got along great. Our first day we started a hike out to the El Encanto waterfall. A 450 foot single drop water fall which plummets off the tabletop mountain to a lovely swimming hole below. We got a late start from El Florida due to weather and were dropped off around 3:30 to start the 14-km hike. Sunset was at 6:00, dark at 6:30, and we arrived at the campsite at 7:00. I´d be lying if I said that I really intended my first night in the jungle to be spent blindly walking along behind our guide praying that there were no trees, snakes or spiders across the path. It was all manageable, though, because within the first thirty minutes of our walk we had spotted a group of 15 spider monkeys swinging through the trees, and a handfull of parrots and fantastic macaws. Just like in the movies.

The following morning, I awoke to a disheartening sound...buzzing. Upon investigation, I found our campsite engulfed in bees and butterflies. The opening created in the forest was a harbor of thousands of flowers and therefore had attracted all sorts of flying friends. The array of butterflies was more fantastic than anything I´d ever seen. Metallic blues and greens, all shades of orange, purple, yellow, you name it, they were there. And the bees. I´d read a sentence or two somewhere that there was a fantastic outbreak of bees in September and November around the campsites. Since it was May, I was a bit upset to be engulfed, but I made due and packed my bag.

We left most of our stuff at the camp for the day hike out to the waterfall (only 5Km). This walk was much better than the previous day as we were trapsing along a streambank. In the morning dew, we encountered numerous huge spiders which had set up nests in the night.

We crossed fantastic, picturesque streams.

Throughout the forest, there were palm trees which seemed to be growing upside down. They had a tepee type configuration of stems converging where the main stem formed and grew to the canopy, like the actual canopy had been stripped of leaves and partially buried upside down in the ground. Naturally, there were plenty of giant trees as well.

Plenty of sights to go around. We saw more spider monkeys and a second species called "silvedor", as well. It was one of these that gave us perhaps the greatest moment of the trip (best in my mind, second for Joe and Richard). Some of them were throwing leaves and limbs at us to distract us while the others escaped. Meanwhile, we were watching one escapee in a nearby tree. He/she reached out from the tree, grabbed a vine, and actually swung from one tree to the next. Even the guide was a bit shocked. Here was the inspiration for Tarzan staring us in the face. Outstanding. I tried to snap a photo but my camera zoom was so poor all I got was dark blobs mixed in among tree limbs and leaves.

Arriving at the fall, it was like a scene out of Blue Lagoon. The waterfall was fantastic, and the surronding area was covered in a lush green vegetation from the mist coming off the water.

We dove in and swam about for a while. The water was a bit chilly, and the sun never reached us, but it was really fantastic. Upon returning to the campsite, we found our gear engulfed in even more bees and butterflies. Unfortunately, the temperature had gone up as well, which meant the bees were a bit friskier. I managed to escape with only one sting in the shoulder. Joe got one in the hand while poor Richard collected three. As we hiked back to meet the truck, we encountered the only other people in the park. A second group which had just arrived and was headed to the waterfall. They informed us that our guide had refused to drive in to the meeting point. The previous day when he´d dropped us off, he´d hit a tree and crushed in the passenger side door pretty good, and a vine had sent a crack rippling across his windshield (not the first, but still). Normally, this would be an inconvenience, as we´d have to hike a couple more hours to get to where he was located. As it was, though, we all had run out of water, and there was no place to fill up. We were burnt out and not able to go on. We arrived at the meeting point and sure enough, no truck. We dropped our packs and waited while the guide and the driver´s assitant made the hike, sans packs, out to meet the driver. As luck would have it, the bees found us here as well, and Richard managed to collect two more stings before the sun went down and the bees left.

It´s a bit discouraging to be abandoned in the middle of the Amazonian rainforest in the middle of the night. Even more so without any source of water. We were very fortunate that the guide (armed with a machete) was able to convince the driver it was in his best interest to pick us up. As we started the slow drive to our new campsite, we had our windows open for fresh air and were getting slapped in the face by all sorts of vegetation. At one stage, I looked up to see the reflection of a massive spider feeling its way along the driver´s headrest. It spanned the entire side. We weren´t terribly pleased with the driver, but I didn´t want him to die either. I tried to flick it out the window with my hat. A few minutes later, the driver started slapping at his hair and back in a rather wild fashion. I had to admit a morbid amusement. This was until I looked at my own leg and realized he´d managed to fling it back on me!! Those of you new to the blog may not realize that I HATE spiders. This one was bigger than my knee. I gave out a squelch and whacked at it with my hat. The truck was stopped while we searched. In true ironic fashion it was found descending from the steering wheel on a web, inspiring oohs and aahs and AAAAHH!! from all around. The driver began to spray it frantically with some inferior bug spray and thwacked it out of the car. He then began relaying his tale of battling the spider while it was on his back. I decided not to tell him how it got there. The rest of the ride back was a little creepy as every itch and touch produced jumps from everyone.

Because we´d been left for dead by our driver, the park guard had some pity on us (it was about 11:00 PM before we made it out). We had paid for a campsite but he allowed us to stay in one of the very nice cabins. This was terrific news and alleviated most of our anger, even more so when we awoke the next morning to the familiar buzzing and realized the everpresent bees were here as well. By the end of the day, Richard would have three more stings and Joe one more. I shudder to think what would have happened had we been in tents.

We were all pretty tired from our exploits the previous night and decided to take a relaxing walk near the camp instead of the seven hour torture hike up the mountain. The scenery was very similar to the jungle near the waterfall, but I was happy to run into one of the scourges which had always fascinated me. Army ants. As we walked along a very poorly marked trail, our guide looked down and inspired us to start trotting along to keep the ants from climbing up our legs. They still had my feet pretty covered despite my wild runnings. Pretty impressive little devils. I managed to avoid any bites.

The rest of the day we relaxed in the shade as the heat and humidity were really potent. It gave the driver the chance to relate the story of the snake he´d woken up to in the night. It had dropped on him from the roof while he slept and our guide had locked the door on him so he was trapped with it. He did a really good job with the story. Hilarious. In the afternoon we walked through the seasonally inundated termite savannah, amidst huge termite mounds and scores of animal footprints, the largest of which was the softball sized tapir footprint. As we were returning to the truck, what would happen to cross our path but said tapir. We had a bad view due to distance and the sun, but a tapir it was. Good fortune for us as they typically are out at night.

Speaking of night, it was our final one in the park and we decided to do one final night hike to see what we could see. As we headed out, we spotted a fox just outside the camp. A little further on (we were actually walking down the airport runway which was a reasonably flat grassy field) our guide flashed on the light and spotted a pair of eyeballs staring at us. Attached to those eyeballs was a very large puma. It was intriguied by our light, and didn´t seem to be the least bit scared. In fact, it actually started approaching us and got within about sixty feet. At about 100 feet I found myself transforming mentally from an interested tourist watching wildlife to stalked prey. It paused at about 60 feet and just watched us for a while before trotting back into the woods. This was the highlight for Joe and Richard, and it was definitely a great moment for me. The next three hours we spent walking through the jungle night not seeing a thing. Our luck was spent.

The following day we got out of there bright and early (only one more bee sting for Richard) but did spot a couple of mongoose crossing the road on the way out of the park. The drive back to San Ignacio was long, bumpy, and relatively uneventful. We did get stuck in the ruts of a logging operation on the way and got pulled out by a skidder. This was a good moment for me and reminded me of home. Good stuff.

From San Ignacio, I said goodbye to Joe and Richard and trundled off to Trinidad, further north and a jumping off point for river travel on one of the many navigable Amazonian tributaries.