Perspectives on Piraña fishing

Most of Bolivia´s terrain that I saw before this weekend had the same kind of beauty Alberta has. It is  dominated by wide dramatic landscapes where you can see for miles, with steep snowcapped mountains in the backdrop and the high arid climate keeps the sky blue and clear almost all of the time. But Bolivia, like a true beauty, has many faces, and this weekend we saw her mysterious side. By air, by car and by boat we journeyed deep into the wetlands of the Pampas, part of Bolivia's portion of the amazon rainforest.

As the small plane left La Paz and skirted over the moutains, only one song came to mind. The Adventure had officially begun.

   We decended from the clouds into a different world. A humid, cloudy, very green world. After fishtailing the landing, we disembarked onto the lawn adjacent to a farm that served as the terminal and a school bus that served as our shuttle into town. The 'NO ATM' disclaimer from our tour group was starting to sound symbolic.

With only a few minor delays we were soon headed out in our 4x4 to the Pampas. A long, muddy and bumpy car ride followed by a wet boat ride later, we reached our campsite on the Rio late on Sunday night. While the accomodations were spartan, the food would prove to be some of the best we've had in Bolivia, due to the unusually high proportion of vegetables and salads, which are pretty hard to find in La Paz.

But what seemed so different about this trip was setting of the jungle. With its lush greenery that extends into high canopy, it is hard to see much past a few boat lengths up the river, or past the nearest trees and reeds on our mud walk. While the wetlands are much more open than the Amazon itself (and this allows for some great animal sightings) the difference in terrain from the wide open desert of Uyuni last weekend could not have been more marked.

We saw an exciting laundry list of exotic animals and birds, such as a tarantula, an anaconda, capabera, many many turtles, pink dolphins, some south american eagles and many types of herins and pelicans (i think). We went swimming only a short ways from where we fished for piraña the night befor (delicious by the way). We had a aligator hanging out just outside our room for the day, whose cool stillness was rather unnerving. But my favorite by far were the monkeys! We saw three different kinds over our weekend, Capuchins, howlers and Amarillo (Chinchilla in the local spanish) and they were all adorable.

After a few weeks of being able to see everything on the horizon, it was remarkably refreshing to get a change of perspective for a few days. Sometimes a wide view can help you see the furthest into your future but you can also be crippled by the need to know exactly where you're headed. But the closed silence of the jungle helped remind me that it can be just as important to take steps forward, keep moving and experience whats around you, and let the big picture take shape with motion. Cliche as it is, it can be easy to forget. Maybe, Hamlet just needed to spend a little less time in flat barren Denmark and a little more time hunting crocs or fishing for piranhas in the Pampas.