A Whole New World: Santa Cruz: Adventures in the Amazon

Unfortunately, because it rained so much the two days before, we weren't able to enter the National Park... which was disappointing, but we still had our own adventure! Andres took us to a cacao farm and on the way he stopped and pointed out all the different plants, trees, bugs and animals that live in the rain forest! We weren't in the forest, rather on a dirt road, but we did see a lot, so I'm not going to complain!

First stop: Rubber Trees (Caucho)
We saw trees in all stages of life, from newly planted, to ancient trees that had hundreds of marks on them. Rubber tapping doesn't actually hurt the trees which I found very interesting! And we got to 'tap' one of the trees and feel the rubber. It comes out white and looks and feels kind of like glue. But when you rub it between your fingers it feels rubbery!

Fresh Rubber!

Second Stop: The long and winding road... to the cacao farm!
As usual, we weren't really sure what we were in for. We were just told that we were going on a walk and to bring our cameras. It ended up being a pretty long walk, with Andres anyway! We arrived a solid 45 minutes after the other group arrived at the cacao farm! But because Andres is an ecologist/botanist/jungle enthusiast we stopped every few feet to see a different animal or plant! He also told us a lot of interesting things like which ants live in which trees and have a symbiotic relationship, the names of EVERYTHING and of course things I don't really need to know, like the fact that the largest spider in the world lives in the Amazon rainforests of Bolivia as well as the majority of the most poisonous snakes... I can handle bugs, beetles and ants, but anything that is going to bite me that has too many legs or none at all, no thank you, I do not want to know about it! Luckily we didn't see any of those, but here are some of the things we did see!! (This definitely isn't everything, but these were some of my favorites and things that I found the most interesting!)

The long (and not so windy) road we traveled!

So many trees had these giant terminte nests...
I was very glad that I wasn't walking under them!

Andres showing us the best leaves to use as toilet paper..
They were actually quite soft, but I still wouldn't
want to use them!

These are swallow tailed kites! They followed
us all the way to the Cacao farm!

A (thankfully) empty Cicada shell...
but I could still definitely still hear them!

No, that's not my camera that tree is actually yellow!!
There is an indigenous group that lives by a large group of
those yellow trees so the people are called
"Los Amarillos" aka yellow people!

This bicho (beetle) doesn't look that big.. but he was huge!
Andres's favorite thing to do is roll over logs to see who (or
maybe more accurately what) lives underneath them!

Many jungle trees grow like they do in the swamplands!
And if you look really close.. they have spines like the one below!

These spines are poisonous! So don't touch them!
The poison is a paralytic, but ants live in the tree and are able
to not be paralyzed. Nature is crazy!

Final Destination: Cacao farm
Unfortunately, cacao isn't in season quite yet... so most of the trees had the shells of the cacao fruit, but nothing inside them. But we saw cacao trees and I learned so many things about the Amazon I'm not complaining!! And we found tons of 'luck!' I'm not sure which tree they come from, but they are pretty much like four leaf clovers anywhere else, except way easier to find! We were presented with two when we first got here for luck during our time in Bolivia (which I still have!) and I think they've served their purpose! But just in case, I stuck a few more in my pockets!

Ginger!

I can't remember the name of this plant, but the little beads are used
to dye fabric red! You can crush them between your fingers and
it turns your fingers an orange-red!

Trying to knock down the cacao pods...

Cacao pod

LUCK!

Our final stop of the day was the Rio to go swimming! And after the pretty much nonstop travel and constant charlas with different groups and organizations just sitting in the water and doing nothing was very exciting! Some people crossed the river and went into the rainforest (that was actually part of the Reserve) but I had learned so much following Andres that morning that I was okay just relaxing in the river! Before we got in we had lunch on the beach which was quite a feat with the wind, the sand and lack of plates and utensils. We had tuna fish sandwiches with cheese, tomatoes and mayonnaise and juice boxes! It wasn't a bad lunch, but I know that I ate a lot of sand! Right after lunch most people ran into the river, but being the pale red head I am, I loaded up on the sunblock before heading in! The river was pretty shallow, but had quite a current so we spent a lot of time sort of body surfing with the current and digging our hands into the soft sand! And no one found any crazy bugs or was bitten by piranhas! (And actually, most piranhas are vegetarians... who knew!) To illustrate how shallow the river was, we were all swimming, enjoying the water and a family came up to the edge of the river with their motorcycle to cross to the other side.. the husband rode his motorcycle through the water and when it got to the 'deep' part (~2.5 feet) he just got off and wheeled it through the water like it was nothing! We ended up staying in the river for more than five hours and missed our last two activities, but we all agreed it was worth it and necessary for everyone's sanity! After our swim, we boarded the bus for the three hour drive back to Santa Cruz the city for our last day before heading back home to Cochabamba!