A day of disasters

With our amazing river tour complete, there was still no time to waste. Back at the laguna spot for the night, Lee set about cleaning out the overdue compost toilet, an event that turned out to be important later. I meanwhile repaired the mosquito for the sliding door. Now back in warmer climbs it was necessary again but it had been somewhat destroyed by an enthusiastic kitten who loved nothing better than to climb it. While I pieced together bits of netting and magnets, Lee emptied copious amounts of poo into a hole somewhere with the remains of the evening light. 

Despite the fact that there were signs telling us not too, we had a quick wash off in the slightly muddy water. After days of dirt roads my hair was stiff with dust and combined with Lee’s toilet emptying fun we were pretty sure that slightly dirty lake water would still make us cleaner. We had also discovered that the abandoned building here still had the power turned on and made use of it to charge up our batteries after a hot day where we had been in the shade. This at least meant we had ample electricity to cook that way if we wished. In the end, Lee whipped up some quick burgers and we hoped that tonight wouldn’t be a party night as it often turns out to be on weekends at the local lake.

We slept well in fact, to my surprise no one woke us up with thumpy bass at 3am. Our nice relaxed morning would be short lived however, on two accounts. We had heard that one of the biggest festivals in Bolivia would take place at the end of the month in the small town of San Ignacio de Mompox, a few hours from here. In order to make it here on time, we had to be on our way today. 

There were two possible routes available. The first would be to retrace our steps back to Rurrenabaque before heading south again. Completing effectively three sides of a square and therefore over double the distance. This would take around 6 hours. The other option was to take a smaller and possible less maintained road that cut directly across, nearly a quarter of the distance. We heard that in dry season this road was easily passible with two wheel drive and also was home to some more great opportunities for wildlife spotting. It seemed like a no-brainer. 

We set off for the shortcut, leaving the town in the direction of the port and continuing on to a river crossing. Lee was driving as I had woken up that morning feeling a bit ill. We paid a rather expensive 30bob to get on the ferry. It was a heap of wooden boards roughly nailed together that sat in the muddy waters of the river. Spanning the crossing was a big rope and on board the ferry, an old man. We drove on and sat in the car while the guy stood next to us and dragged us across the river by pulling himself along the rope. It all seemed like rather a lot of effort considering that the ferry itself was only around 5 metres shorter than the river and with a few more boards could have quite easily become a bridge. Then I guess the man wouldn’t have a job and by Bolivian standards making £3 for the same amount of minutes worked is pretty good. 

Now on the other side, we drove on. There were many other smaller crossings dotted along this road, all made passable by rickety boards. Below them, caiman infested waters were interspersed with flowering water plants and the odd capybara. It was indeed a pretty drive and we even saw some rhea as well as more jabiru. The road itself was hard pack mud and although a little lumpy, it was an easy enough drive. We continued on slowly, now both feeling a bit on the queasy side. Around an hour in the pretty marshlands were gone and we drove through dusty cattle ranches.

Instead of feeling a bit sick I now felt very unwell but it turns out that even then I was doing better than Lee. In a moment I shan’t forget, he stopped Ruby abruptly in the middle of the road, leaned out of his window and threw up down the side of the door. Then, as he got out to direct the next pile of sick into the road, it appeared that this problem was not isolated to one end. So I sat in the passengers seat trying not to look, while Lee squatted in the road with it all coming out both ends.

I can’t say I felt much better, but I was at least managing to keep it all inside, probably due to the fact I hadn’t eaten anything that day. Lee had made himself a nice burger breakfast and as that seemed to be the only thing that could be responsible for this, it hadn’t done him any favours. At this point we decided that either we shouldn’t wash in muddy lakes or that the person who emptied the toilet shouldn’t also cook. To be safe, maybe both things in the future.

As I was the less ill person, we swapped drivers before continuing on slowly down the road. It was hot and dusty and bumpy. We both didn’t want to be driving but out here there was no shade and no where to stop. So I kept driving. Lee slowly worked his way through a huge bottle of Fanta while I focused on not throwing up. Hours passed and we went through ranch after ranch. The hard packed road became dustier and at time we drove through fine powder that was so thick our tyres slipped and the van filled with dust again. From time to time we pulled over for emergency toilet breaks that we both needed. After 4 hours, we were nearly at the town. It seemed that after all this, the shortcut wasn’t so short. At least it was nearly over. I slammed on the brakes once again as he announced another toilet break. There wasn't time to find a spot, we just ran into the nearby bushes and hoped we made it in time.

The town was nearly in sight, when I pulled over again for a particularly green looking Lee to promptly threw up again, this time all down the passenger door. I had mentioned that I didn’t think drinking an entire 2 litre bottle of Fanta was a good idea and now it made a fun new addition to our paintwork while Lee lay groaning on the verge. As I went out to check on him, I found the source of that clunking noise I thought I’d been hearing. The bike rack had completely snapped and so all now hung off one side with the bikes at a 45 degree angle bashing into the van. It was quite impressive it was still attached at all with all the weight levering on one point as we drove the last, very rutted, dirt road section. While Lee composed himself for the final half an hour, I ratcheted strapped the bike back together so that we could drive on. 

We soon arrived in the town of San Borja. Normally we would have camped in the square or some other free equivalent but not tonight. Lee was looking like he might die and then van interior was coated in a solid layer of dust that was so thick we couldn’t distinguish the cushions from the work surface. It needed some serious cleaning before we could stay in it. Without any access to water, this would be hard. We decided therefore to pay for a hotel. This is a very rare occurrence and we opted for the cheapest one, Hotel Avenida.

Pulling up outside, I was in charge of dealing with the owner while Lee sat gently rocking on a nearby wall. The owner said we could stay, and wanted £10 a night. We could park the van inside and the cats could come into the room with us. There was a shower too. Now that might sound cheap but there was a reason for that. Not having planned for a stop in this town, we didn’t have enough cash to pay for the room. I drove off to find a cash point and left Lee lying on the bed in the foetal position, gently groaning.

I found cash, got us some water for the night and then rounded it off nicely by standing on a huge nail that went right through my flip flop. I hobbled back to the van, drove around the town's one way system completely backwards to the tune of many blaring horns and arrived back at the hotel. I negotiated moving our cats in the room while avoiding the hundreds of other cats milling around the hotel. I pulled a few key bits out of the van for the night; toothbrushes and shampoo before going into our room. Lee rolled over, moaned, and announced that one of the beds had a cat poo on it and that he’d sat in it. Needless to say, this was not the doing of one of our cats.  

With this delightful information as well as the smell, I took in the full glory of our room. It was a sparse affair and at one time it probably would have been described as bright and full of character. Now the fact that they didn’t bother to clean or prepare it in any way for us was an indication of its state. It was filthy. I was almost glad that the light in the bathroom didn’t work because I didn’t want to see. The sink was black, but not by design. The amount of mould growing up the walls meant that I showered in my flip flops being very careful not to touch the walls. Despite this, I was having a shower. It did have a fan, but if you wanted it to work you had to poke the two exposed wires on the end of the cable, into a bare socket hanging midway down the bathroom wall. To top it all off, it was pretty loud too. We moved to the cat shit free bed and lay there clutching a bottle of water. Finally I was done for the day. Neither of us would be needing dinner tonight, that’s for sure.