Day 1,090
Wild Life
We set off with clean clothes! We were clean too! It was wonderful and lasted a whole 5 minutes or so. Ah well, it was good whilst it lasted!
We had turned a corner, left the narrower less travelled road behind, and now were on a bigger link road across the country. Still in the Amazon, still on dirt, but we felt a sense of achievement. Stage one complete, ready for stage two. This was a 200 mile section and would stay dirt for 75% of that. It took 3 and a bit days to complete. We had one night in a hotel, the other 2 we camped. We were the filthiest we've ever been, a 24-hour rain soaked and muddy mountain bike event barely left a mark on us compared to how we looked now.
We stopped by watering holes, spotting caiman, more butterflies, and lots of birds. We sought shelter and refreshments where we could. Fresh food seemed just about unattainable. We ate a lot of bread and biscuits. Little did we know much worse was to come.
On our final night of stage 2 we couldn't find anywhere to camp, so asked at the local school. No problem, the kids popped back to check us out and I spent a happy hour or so teaching them some English, and I ended the lesson by getting them all to do the Hokey Cokey. Then we all stood to attention whilst a young boy lowered the Bolivian flag, and the night was over. During this section we were humbled to see how hard people worked, no running water, it needed to be hand pulled from the well. No sanitation. Only the tiendas seemed to have any electricity, powering a fridge. Clothes and people were washed in the river or watering holes whilst carefully perched on some planks to stay away from lurking caiman. The kids from the school had no plans for the future. The song ‘It’s a hard life’ could have been written for them.
Then that was it, stage 2 complete, and we reached the road junction at El Triangulo. We had been looking forward to this for days, no more dirt, we were back on a tarmac road! So we could cycle bigger mileage, though we were still wearing the same sweaty filthy clothes. We were wildcamping every night, so no chance to wash them or us! To our surprise there was much less traffic but the downside meant no shops. The first day on stage 3 was particularly hard, the heat was a killer and now we had no option of any shelter or the chance to buy a cooling drink or food. At one ‘town’ we had hoped for a shop but nothing! A man suggested we try at the football pitch where a match was underway and a soccer mum came to the rescue!
2 hours later we were flagging again, but our saviours were at hand. Nathan and Dixon pulled up and handed us 3 ice pops each and a beer! Then it was another wildcamp, and yep you guessed it up into the same smelly clothes. Repeat. Repeat.
A fellow tourer asked if this route was worth it. It is unique I said, but worth it I'm not sure. Then we hit the jackpot. Mile after mile of water holes. Tom's pictures will tell the tale far better than my words, but suffice to say we say hundreds of caiman and capybara, and thousands of birds, scarlet macaws, toucans, birds of prey, wading birds, more more more!
