End of the Rurrenabaque jungle

Today was the last day of our trip to the Madidi jungle, as well as our last day here in Rurrenabaque. After our final jungle romp this morning, and a big hearty lunch, we packed up our stuff and left our jungle campsite. We had to walk back from the campsite to the big river (another stream wade involved), and then it was another three-hour boat ride, back down the river to Rurrenabaque. When we got back, we cleaned ourselves up, relaxed in some hammocks, and then celebrated in the evening, with pizza and cocktails!

The three-day jungle trip was good, but definitely not quite up there with the three days in the pampas that preceded it. After now having done both trips, I can certainly see why the pampas is more popular: much less work (no hiking, just sitting in the boat); much less dead time (no need for emergency card-making, for example); and much more wildlife. I don't regret going on the jungle trip. But three days was certainly enough.

So far, each night that we've been in Rurrenabaque, we've ended up going to the Butterfly Bar, which does good food and drinks, and for which we had quite a large number of free Capirinia cocktail vouchers (given to us by Amaszonas for flying with them, and by our tour companies for touring with them). But tonight, we finally found the much-famed Mosquito Bar of Rurrenabaque, which has even better food (great pizza), and even better cocktails. Also has a pool table, which — as is customary in South America — is resting on such an uneven floor, that actually playing pool on it is near impossible. We originally thought that the Butterfly Bar was the Mosquito Bar, just with a different name (that's what they told us at the Butterfly Bar, of course). But in fact, the Mosquito Bar has moved, and the Butterfly bar is just another second-rate bar, that's exploiting the old location of its superior competition.