We finally get to Puerto Suarez, I have to say that we had some problems on the trip again. It took us 23h insted of 18h for a mix of reason, a strike from 2am to 4am with campesinos blocking the railway, a baby cow that unfortunatly got stuck under the first wagon of the train, various stops for all passengers to have brekfast and lunch at various train stations.
Porto Suarez is a small village on Laguna Careces, part of the Bolivian Pantanal (wetland) were WWF Bolivia has an office. We get to know the local WWF officer and we spend some time together for dinner and business. The next day we contact Mr. Oscar Quiroga a spanish biologist who organizes excurtions on the pantanal of Bolivia and Brasil (next door). We soon realized we are the only tourists around and Quiroga is the only tourist travel agency, the price for the excursion is as result astronomical. We start by boat at about 8.00 and we travel for the whole day, we managed to see alligators, kaimans, giant river otters, caipibaras, many birds and big fish. We also have a good lunch in brasil with fried fish and tipical fagiolada. No Caipirinha at luch time unfortunatly.
Back at the hotel we also get a new good surprise, 100 bolivianos that were in Olivia's purse in the hotel room are gone, the hotel owner looks like he doesn't believe that someone of his staff has done it , a big plot I rekon, we drop it because is a matter of 16 chf only.
From Porto Suarez we will travelling back to Santa Cruz by train, this time pretty fast and efficient for the same price ticket (God knows why). From Santa Cruz night bus to Trinidad still in the lowlands.
This time Olivia went nuts because at about 7 pm few, some, many, tons of cucaracias came down form the bus ceiling into to the seat, bundgy jumping from the ceiling. I am too tired to care and sleep all the way trough, Olivia on the other hand continues her crusade into the early hours trying desperately to massacre the whole contingent. a happy night.
Fishermans on Rio Paraguay, Brasil/Bolivia.
Pantanal Boliviano.
Caimanes on the shore.