Sep 5, 2018 - Trinidad to La Paz

Today a lazy start. Breakfast at the Hotel and another mediocre breakfast. The bare minimum provided. Only one other guest at brekkie. We repack and reorganise our bags from the small black bag back into our suitcase. Lots of dirty clothes, so the laundry service in Santiago is going to be busy. At 11am we wander out for a coffee. The only coffee cafe we can find makes their coffee with Nescafe instant. Oh well! We get one BOL4 < A$1. On the way back we see a children's store and get 4 outfits, 2 for boys, 2 for girls - covering all...

Sep 4, 2018 - Pink River Dolphins

Today breakfast is at 8.30 overlooking the lagoon and then we all, (Miriam, Efrem, Hugo, Taya, Gabrielle, Phil and I pile into the car and head to the River Imbare. We also have on the roof rack of the car an esky with food and drink and the coati in its special cage, as today we are to release it into the wild. We reach the river in 10 minutes and load everything on board and Efrem carries a 40hp honda motor down this steep hill to the boat. Its very heavy but he manages. This port area has quite a few boats as this river leads to the...

Sep 3, 2018 - Chuchini Eco Lodge

Today breakfast at 8.30 again overlooking the lagoon. Today we are going to fish is the breeding ponds. We take our hand lines and try to catch something but despite the fact that there must be lots of fish in these ponds, nothing jumps on our line. Efrem is the only one who catches something and it looks like a catfish! We then have a walk through the jungle and Juli accompanies us to translate. Its a pleasant walk in the shade and we reach another lagoon. Here we try fishing for the second time today. I catch a pirhanna. Small but it has...

Sep 2, 2018 - Chuchini Eco Lodge

After arriving back from San Carlos at around 5.30 last night we found an urgent email from Mirriam at Chuchini saying they would have to pick us up at 4am!!!! because today Trinidad and all the streets are going to be blocked off. Not ideal but we have just checked into Hotel Colonial so we can't abandon that accommodation and spend an extra night at Chuchini. So its up at 3-45 (yeah!!!) and we throw some clothes on and meet Efrem downstairs for the 14 km drive to Chuchini. It doesn't take too long and on arrival he shows us straight to...

Sep 1, 2018 - San Carlos Ranch to Trinidad

Today we are up at 5am, eat breakfast, and are heading back to the the place where we saw the night monkey the other day and are hopeful that there will be more animals there this early in the morning. We leave today so it's our last chance. Unfortunately nothing much around so back to the ranch and we pack to leave. Marisella's husband has been at the ranch for the last day or so and he is leaving now too with Lucho and some of the ranch kids. We follow his car on a different route through the other ranches heading towards San Ramon. Not...

Aug 31, 2018 - San Carlos Ranch

At 5am we are woken by Nick and off we go down the bank back to the river. We sit there until 7am waiting and hoping to see either a tapir or a jaguar, but unfortunately nothing. Still plenty of bird life but no mammals. By the time we get back to the campsite, Lucho has dismantled the tents and packed everything (not that there was much) and we started the walk back through the jungle to meet the ranch hands that would bring the horses. We get to the edge of the jungle and no horses (you know in ‘Bolivian time’) so we continue walking. We...

Aug 30, 2018 - San Carlos Ranch

We Up at 5am today and breakfast first and we leave at 5.30 to go animal spotting. Lucho comes with us as he is great at spotting animals and knows the ranch like the back of his hand. We drive to a part of the ranch where we can go walking. Within minutes we see some peccary pigs, great food for the jaguar. There is a group of them hiding amongst the foliage. There is also an agouti which is a largish rodent. We have seen them before in central America. We also come across a deer, the smaller variety found in this area. In the trees we can...

Aug 29, 2018 - Trinidad to San Carlos Ranch

We have breakfast at the Hotel Colonial and there are 3 of us. The brekkie is ordinary. Nick comes to pick us up at 8.15. We leave our big suitcases here and have packed a smaller bag to take with us for the next 4 days. We meet Marisella who is part of the family that own San Carlos Ranch. She is driving a Great Wall twin cab. Our bags get loaded in the back of the ute in a mountain of plastic sheeting, so I presume it is going to be dusty. We make our way out of town and at the checkpoint on the outskirts of Trinidad there is a traffic...

Aug 28, 2018 - La Paz to Trinidad

We arrive in Trinidad at 3.30 and catch a taxi to our Hotel Trinidad is a small town. It has the usual square only here there are motorbikes galore that seem to drive around the square and not too many people, actually sit in the square. We have a bit of a look around and find the restaurant El Tabano where we are going to have dinner tonight. We can’t seem to find a ‘bar’, so we go back to our Hotel and have a drink beside the pool. Phil can have a beer but they don’t have any wine, so I enjoy a agua con gas! I haven’t seen any other...

Aug 27, 2018 - Cuzco to La Paz

We were too early for breakfast this morning as we catch an Uber to the airport for our flight to La Paz arriving at 10.20. We are supposed to have had a connecting flight at 3.20 straight to Trinidad but this flight has been cancelled and the flight Kiwi.com have re-booked us on is at 10.30. Not going make that! Kiwi.com reservations were supposed to fix this but of course we have heard nothing, so we are going to have to sort it once we get into La Paz. We arrive in La Paz and head straight to Bolivianas de Aviacion counter where they...

Jan 27, 2018 - Off to Copacabana, Isle del Sol then to Peru

An early start to Friday 26th Jan 2018 at 6:15 and our last day whilst travelling through Bolivia. We added another form of transport to growing list for at the river crossing at San Pedro de Tequina. Where we boarded a local a very old and decripid river taxi along with other local folk going to the market. Having survived this trip wearing luminous life belts which were issued by the company. We looked out of place with the locals and the driver looking particularly unhappy. I think we were questioning his crafts capability to stay...

Jan 25, 2018 - Day 2 in La Paz stuck back in hotel

Hoping to go golfing but weather currently raining in town but hopefully clear in mountains. Unfortunately it was not weather that stopped mr playing but a bloody 24 hour walk out by the taxi unions. There we were ready to leave at 09:30 and were told that no taxis would be operating today as no taxi private or local authority would dare to operate and cross the picket lines across the capital. So not only are we not going golf but cannot travel anywhere as the possible threat of violence was high and neither the hotel or the Bolivian Tour...