Catching piranhas is a standard thing included in almost every Pampas boat tour, usually with a plain handline rigged up with a hook and raw beef for bait. The guides pull the canoes right up to those marshy riverbanks where the carnivorous piranhas with the red bellies naturally gather. What you manage to reel in…
Spotting wild jaguars in Madidi National Park is extremely rare and depends on quiet, multi-day trekking way deep into the primary forest, usually when the dry season is on. Since jaguars are solitary, highly elusive apex predators, you should not count on sightings while on standard tours. Your best chance shows up when you travel…
Swimming with pink dolphins has become one of the most requested activities on many Pampas tours. Usually, guides anchor the boats in safe pockets on the Yacuma River, then tourists step in and jump right in. These dolphins are wild, but also naturally curious, so they often glide pretty close to people. Still, visitors should…
You can spot the endemic Bolivian pink river dolphin mostly in the calm, muddy waters of the Yacuma River while on a Pampas tour leaving from Rurrenabaque. This particular subspecies (Inia geoffrensis boliviensis) prefers the slow-moving side channels in the upper Amazon basin. Skilled local guides can track them easily by that distinctive breathing sound…
Going on an Amazon tour in Bolivia is usually pretty safe as long as you pick a certified eco-agency, keep to your guide’s directions, and take the usual tropical health precautions, you know. Most of the trouble comes from mosquitoes and related illnesses, strong heat exhaustion, and small boat mishaps, more than anything involving dangerous…
Madidi National Park gives you this really dense, traditional Amazon rainforest feel, with a focus on flora and hiking, even if it can be a bit slower and more grounded. A Pampas tour, meanwhile, leans into open wetland savannahs, and you’ll usually move by boat so you can spot wildlife without the whole tree cover…
You can go from La Paz to Rurrenabaque either with a quick 45-minute commercial flight or by risking a demanding 12- to 18-hour overnight bus trip. The bus route is famously bouncy; it snakes down steep, rough mountain roads through the Yungas area, and during the rainy season, it is really vulnerable to landslides. For…
Going to Lake Titicaca means you really need a strict layering thing. It starts with a lightweight base layer for the intense sun during the day and then ends with a heavy fleece plus a windbreaker for those frigid evenings. Since the extreme altitude boosts UV radiation so much, you should bring polarised sunglasses, a…
At Lake Titicaca, the weather is basically intense daytime sunshine, and then there is crisp, cool air, after which it turns freezing almost right after the sun goes down. Because it sits at 3,812 metres (12,507 feet) above sea level, the area has a tough alpine climate. In the dry winter season from May to…
Yes, the trout you get around Lake Titicaca is really fresh, because it is commercially farmed and then taken daily right from those frigid waters up high, where the altitude makes everything feel sharp. Brought in from North America around the middle of the 20th century, the rainbow trout (trucha) managed to take hold in…