Diary -English
10.05.to 13.05.2023 - 8. to 11. day
Jaguarland
4 days in search of the jaguar, the big cat of Latin America.
We drove to the north of Santa Cruz past the airport through Montero, where we still mainly bought fresh food for the next 4 days. Behind Montero the dirt road began and the fields became larger, the size of the ranches reminded us of the dimensions of the farms in Australia. Fields and green strips along rivers and canals dominated the landscape. Hardly any hills or mountains to stop the view, mostly a green strip of trees that defined the end of the view. The landscape was somewhat comparable to the Münsterland. Fields bordered by avenues (here by strips of vegetation where the animals had a retreat), canals for drainage (also like in Münsterland - for example near Dülmen all the way to Reken), only everything a bit larger. Jaguarland, the farm where we tried our luck to find a jaguar, has an extension like the former West Berlin. It belongs to a Brazilian landowner, who looks from time to time with his Chesna after the right. In the jaguar country, many strips of green were left between the individual fields. Here in this impenetrable thicket the jaguar hid, but not only he. There were also anteaters, ocelots, agoutis and many more. The fields, canals and waterways were teeming with caimans, birds, snakes, ..... A paradise for the bird lover, exciting for anyone who wanted to experience nature up close.
In the fields, the seeds were being sown. So there was a lot going on, and wherever man intervened in the landscape, plowing it up and washing food to the surface, there they were already waiting, the storks, the nandus, the birds of prey, ready to feast on the meal that the farmers had prepared for them.
And there was enough to eat for the jaguar, for example Capivaras lay around everywhere at the river courses. And although a jaguar claims quite a large area for itself, here the jaguar density was particularly high. Maybe 7 jaguars plus offspring, our guide estimated, were currently in jaguar country. So it was a matter of finding one of these 7 jaguars in an area as large as West Berlin and then taking a photo.
Nick, the boss our tour operator - Nick's Adventure, our guide, a very nice Australian, promised us that we will see him. But he also insisted that we focus on the jaguar and put aside observing other animals (for example, birdwatching for hours) until we were successful. Perhaps this was not our style, but we hoped to see a jaguar quickly so that the pressure to succeed was off everyone.
On the day of arrival, the hunt for the big cat already began on the drive to the accommodation. In the accommodation, a somewhat remote (very simple) farm building, where our tents were set up protected from wind and rain under a roof on a concreted area, we were greeted by a young couple (Italian and English), who had already been lucky enough to see a jaguar several times today. This made us hopeful.
The accommodation, which belonged to a caretaker, consisted of two rooms and a kitchen, which we were allowed to share. The food was delicious, always fresh, local and there were national dishes, for Toma all vegetarian.
Nick, always full of energy, urged us to leave shortly after we had arrived and put our things in the tent. He wanted to present us with a Jaguar today.
But we had our first encounters with Bolivian wildlife even before we drove through the gate into jaguar country. Nick suddenly had Jose, our driver, stop and point to a tree on the side of the road a little ways away. A sloth was looking down at us from above. Very beautiful. A few miles down the road we saw something running across the fields. No, it wasn't nandus, the ostriches of South America, it was a smaller animal and when we looked through the binoculars (I through the camera) we recognized what Nick had already spotted without any aids, an amarillo. We stopped, got out and ran across the field toward it. The Amarillo didn't run away, so we had all the time in the world to take a nice photo.
So, full of hope, we got into Jose's car and drove through jaguar country. First to the places where the jaguar had been seen before today. Although there were great distances to cover, the surroundings hardly changed. Fields, green forest strip and again fields, now and then we had to cross a canal or drove along a forest (which bordered the fields to the river.) On the fields we saw Nandus, birds of prey (Kara-Karas, Hooks, Snail Kits...), storks... but also game (about like the red deer in German forests), but no jaguar.
Often it was only Nick and Jose who recognized the animals from a distance. Their eyes knew the patterns to look for. For us, a mound was often a promising animal. In time, I relied entirely on the eyes of the two.
The first day ended unsuccessfully after 2-2.5 hours of game drive, after the sun went down and we could see nothing more. (at least as far as the jaguar was concerned) But there was still the possibility to see him today on the night drive. The trip into the night was interesting. Both (Toma and I) armed with strong spotlights (flashlights with bright focused beam), and so did Nick, we looked for game. It is almost easier to spot game at night than during the day, because as soon as the beam of light hits the eyes, they reflect the beam and the animal is unmasked. We saw many foxes, caimans in the canals whose eyes shone particularly brightly; nightjars, bats, and an owl that looked quite perplexed into the bright beam of the flashlight.
But on the whole I was satisfied with the photo yield. The sky over Jaguar Land was covered with clouds and only a few stars were visible. The night in the tent was warm, full of noise and windy.
The next day started early. We tried our luck at dusk. That meant getting up shortly after 5 a.m. and setting off while it was still dark. We had no luck at the "hotspots" and so we tried the road that led along the river. This was teeming with caimans and waterfowl, but they mostly flew away when our car approached. The variety of bird life was impressive, however. At the end of the road (it was a dirt road on top of a fill dam that separated the wetland on the right from the farm and the bounding canal on the left. At the end of the causeway, and thus the road, was a larger body of water where the endemic Bolivian pink dolphins could be seen from time to time. However, in the morning hours the water was still too cold and the encounter with the dolphins had to wait. In the wetlands on both sides of the dam there were many capivaras, in small and large families, waiting to be eaten by the jaguar, just as we were waiting for our first encounter with him.
Nick was a little impatient that we had not yet seen a Jaguar. We drove back for breakfast. Suddenly - as so many times suddenly - Nick looked tense through his binoculars, let Jose stop and we jumped out of the car, so first Nick, then we and Nick already ran off. It's a good thing we had hiking boots on, because it was cross-country across the field, which made us sink deep, to the opposite side of the field, which was about 200 yards or more away. Nick saw him and kept him in sight. He was moving cross-country from one wooded patch to the other. I ran, Toma ran, but we saw no jaguar (or tigre, as the Bolivians called him). When we had covered half the distance, we stopped briefly and I looked through the camera, I saw the outline of the jaguar. Toma had also spotted him through the binoculars (after urgently asking Nick to be allowed back to the car).
Click, click, click, continuous fire, with the hope that there will be something to see on the picture. Then the outlines already disappeared in the high grass. Okay, we would still have many opportunities to photograph the Tigre.
Pleased we greeted the Italian and her Englishman at breakfast. Before we left, I developed THE picture, because scrolling through the shots on the way home, it was clear that only two pictures were halfway usable. Well, 100 meters away, high grass, a miracle that you could recognize him as a tigre at all. I was satisfied with the result, but still hoped to take a few shots from a shorter distance.
Nick was a little more relaxed and now we could also stop for a tractor to take a picture (well at least for a Jabarus). There really was a variety of different birds of prey, probably all specializing in their own niche of small animals. The herons hunted along the canal or river's edge or on the wetlands, as much of the area was flooded just two weeks ago. The very clever ones followed the tractors to pick up the small animals the machines had picked up. Large seeders tilled the field, followed by machines with even larger booms for the fertilizer and pesticides. Actually, it was surprising that jaguars were in this environment. Surprising also because jaguars, when they tore cows, which happened from time to time, or the farmers were afraid of them, were simply shot. There were usually no consequences, because the shooters always credibly claimed that they had acted in self-defense. That a jaguar attacks people happens as often as a wolf injures people in Germany.
Toma was not feeling well on the drive back to the farm after we saw the jaguar. We blamed it on the bumpy roads. (Some to the mental strain of the encounter in the field). She didn't get better on the drive after breakfast, despite pills and acupressure. She went to sleep, hoping to be fit again afterwards.
The rest of the day, the afternoon and the evening (two more trips in search of the perfect picture of a jaguar) went pretty much the same way, with a yield of many pictures of birds, capivaras, foxes, which there was especially much to see at night, nandus that took the legs under the arm as soon as we approached them, March deer, but no more jaguar. Since Toma was not with us, we drove another way through the marsh, a birding area filled with many species in impressive numbers. Although many of the birds, sometimes whole flocks, would bolt when we fell below the critical escape distance, I managed to get a nice photo of a heron catching a frog, holding it by one leg, tossing it into the air and devouring it.
The night ride, Toma had lain down and relieved, became more exciting today. The wind had died down, it was warmer than the day before. It was suicide weather. We had the windows open to scan the surroundings with the flashlights and through the windows with monkey-like speed big black beetles rushed. First it hit Nick, then Jose, but eventually I was not spared either. The bugs landed two direct hits. And that hurt. Behind me in the car it hummed and buzzed. After the impact, the bugs were buzzing around the SUV in a daze (and there were many of them, since only a few landed a hit), probably hoping to get to the source of the light beam and live on as a transformed prince. Foxes were again plentiful, also an owl, but the highlight was an anteater. Nick, in his usual manner, sprinted out of the car, me following behind, hoping to take a photo. Nick reached the anteater, put himself in its path so that it wiped back, whereupon Nick put himself in front of it again when it changed direction and wanted to move away. A maneuver not without risk, as the bear had sharp claws that would mean significant injury if the bear attacked Nick. In the light of the flashlight I then took some pictures and we left the poor bear in peace to continue looking for ants.
According to Nick, morning has gold in it and we tried again on the third day, very early in the morning. We drove again to the edge of the ranch where the wetland began. There were many palm trees on which the blue and yellow macaws spent the night in large flocks and then left to forage during the day. The very curious macaws saw us and made a round trip over us and flew back to their palm tree. With a big scream they all left and we stayed behind, hoping to see a jaguar in the swamp. Hope dies last. At the end of the trail, where the river widened into a lake, we were lucky today and were able to see dolphins, pink dolphins hunting for fish. To take a photo of them is probably almost impossible, because it is always only fractions of seconds in which they appear and immediately plop back into the river and no one knows where they will appear the next time. Back to breakfast with no results.
Today Nick wanted to know it again and we drove into corners we had not yet visited. We saw very, very fresh tracks of jaguars in the wet dirt and drove through a new path at the edge of the ranch, left and right below us the swamp with countless birds. A little bit like in the Okavango. A ranch hand told us that 10 minutes ago he had seen a jaguar crossing the field into the wooded riparian strip. We drove a little disappointed to lunch.
The food was really great. Since Nick himself had something left over for vegetarians, Toma also got her money's worth. Today it was again, warm, around noon even hot. The parched landscape was dusty when the car drove over it. Whenever we stopped, the dust cloud caught up with us and filled the car with dust. My new shirt - impregnated and made of dense material against mosquito bites - was completely dusted (filthy). I cleaned the camera every day. I also did not dare to change the lens, so that the sensor did not get dust. In the tent it was still reasonably clean. The afternoon brought nothing new and so only the night drive and tomorrow morning remained.
Tonight Toma was again on board and we first scared her properly that she must beware of the kamikaze - beetles. But today the bugs were gone again. We also took a different route, saw an owl right at the beginning and then two eyes flashed on the right side pretty close to the path in the light of the flashlight. Nick, who was sitting next to me (in the back) and had left Toma his place in front, pointed his flashlight at the animal, I the camera behind, click, click, click and the ocelot was in the box and that in complete darkness with an aperture of 6.3. After a few seconds of mutual observation the cat disappeared in the thicket. Another encounter with a tapir followed, which was more of a spiritual nature. I said there was something in the field, it was so vague, there in total darkness and tenths of a second in time with a beam of the flashlight gliding across the field. Jose and Nick cut in and saw a tapir, jumped out of the car to, yeah to what? We trailed behind, camera ready to shoot, and we saw nothing. On the way back, plenty more foxes and an owl. But the day was not over for me yet. Today was a starry night and unlike yesterday, where I had already taken a few night shots, today there were no clouds in the sky.
Here, far away from any light sources, there were ideal conditions for taking a picture of the Milky Way, which presented itself uniquely beautiful. The Southern Cross was in the middle of the night sky (directly to the south). In Namibia, which is at about the same latitude, we never saw it so beautifully and clearly. With the clock I checked the cardinal direction and it was exactly in the south. So just to take a picture and then go to sleep.
Last drive on the day of departure. We set off at dusk and as usual we drive to the places where the probability of seeing a jaguar is highest. But also today we have no luck. We spent a lot of time with Nick in the car on our safari tours and learned a lot about Bolivia. So it will be easier and more transparent to understand the problems, why the jaguars are endangered, how the battle between conservation and the mining industry is fought, which conflicting interests have to be taken into account when finding concepts to preserve the habitat for jaguars. It will not be easy to meet a tiger in the future, to observe and enjoy the beautiful big cat. On our last trip, on the border path to the swamp, we met many farmers from Montero who had pitched their tents here and a car with people from the district who had come to count them. Will the swamps last? I guess we won't know. The return trip went smoothly. At the hotel, our suitcase left behind was already waiting for us, but most importantly, the bathroom to wash us clean from the dirt of the past 4 days. I was shocked when I saw myself in the mirror, so dirty I was. The bathroom was followed by a thorough cleaning of all the things that were not stowed in the dirty laundry and technology, camera, laptop, basically everything we had with us. Dinner at a fancy vegan / vegetarian restaurant not far from our hotel. Very tasty and then still inexpensive.
Jaguarland
4 days in search of the jaguar, the big cat of Latin America.
We drove to the north of Santa Cruz past the airport through Montero, where we still mainly bought fresh food for the next 4 days. Behind Montero the dirt road began and the fields became larger, the size of the ranches reminded us of the dimensions of the farms in Australia. Fields and green strips along rivers and canals dominated the landscape. Hardly any hills or mountains to stop the view, mostly a green strip of trees that defined the end of the view. The landscape was somewhat comparable to the Münsterland. Fields bordered by avenues (here by strips of vegetation where the animals had a retreat), canals for drainage (also like in Münsterland - for example near Dülmen all the way to Reken), only everything a bit larger. Jaguarland, the farm where we tried our luck to find a jaguar, has an extension like the former West Berlin. It belongs to a Brazilian landowner, who looks from time to time with his Chesna after the right. In the jaguar country, many strips of green were left between the individual fields. Here in this impenetrable thicket the jaguar hid, but not only he. There were also anteaters, ocelots, agoutis and many more. The fields, canals and waterways were teeming with caimans, birds, snakes, ..... A paradise for the bird lover, exciting for anyone who wanted to experience nature up close.
In the fields, the seeds were being sown. So there was a lot going on, and wherever man intervened in the landscape, plowing it up and washing food to the surface, there they were already waiting, the storks, the nandus, the birds of prey, ready to feast on the meal that the farmers had prepared for them.
And there was enough to eat for the jaguar, for example Capivaras lay around everywhere at the river courses. And although a jaguar claims quite a large area for itself, here the jaguar density was particularly high. Maybe 7 jaguars plus offspring, our guide estimated, were currently in jaguar country. So it was a matter of finding one of these 7 jaguars in an area as large as West Berlin and then taking a photo.
Nick, the boss our tour operator - Nick's Adventure, our guide, a very nice Australian, promised us that we will see him. But he also insisted that we focus on the jaguar and put aside observing other animals (for example, birdwatching for hours) until we were successful. Perhaps this was not our style, but we hoped to see a jaguar quickly so that the pressure to succeed was off everyone.
On the day of arrival, the hunt for the big cat already began on the drive to the accommodation. In the accommodation, a somewhat remote (very simple) farm building, where our tents were set up protected from wind and rain under a roof on a concreted area, we were greeted by a young couple (Italian and English), who had already been lucky enough to see a jaguar several times today. This made us hopeful.
The accommodation, which belonged to a caretaker, consisted of two rooms and a kitchen, which we were allowed to share. The food was delicious, always fresh, local and there were national dishes, for Toma all vegetarian.
Nick, always full of energy, urged us to leave shortly after we had arrived and put our things in the tent. He wanted to present us with a Jaguar today.
But we had our first encounters with Bolivian wildlife even before we drove through the gate into jaguar country. Nick suddenly had Jose, our driver, stop and point to a tree on the side of the road a little ways away. A sloth was looking down at us from above. Very beautiful. A few miles down the road we saw something running across the fields. No, it wasn't nandus, the ostriches of South America, it was a smaller animal and when we looked through the binoculars (I through the camera) we recognized what Nick had already spotted without any aids, an amarillo. We stopped, got out and ran across the field toward it. The Amarillo didn't run away, so we had all the time in the world to take a nice photo.
So, full of hope, we got into Jose's car and drove through jaguar country. First to the places where the jaguar had been seen before today. Although there were great distances to cover, the surroundings hardly changed. Fields, green forest strip and again fields, now and then we had to cross a canal or drove along a forest (which bordered the fields to the river.) On the fields we saw Nandus, birds of prey (Kara-Karas, Hooks, Snail Kits...), storks... but also game (about like the red deer in German forests), but no jaguar.
Often it was only Nick and Jose who recognized the animals from a distance. Their eyes knew the patterns to look for. For us, a mound was often a promising animal. In time, I relied entirely on the eyes of the two.
The first day ended unsuccessfully after 2-2.5 hours of game drive, after the sun went down and we could see nothing more. (at least as far as the jaguar was concerned) But there was still the possibility to see him today on the night drive. The trip into the night was interesting. Both (Toma and I) armed with strong spotlights (flashlights with bright focused beam), and so did Nick, we looked for game. It is almost easier to spot game at night than during the day, because as soon as the beam of light hits the eyes, they reflect the beam and the animal is unmasked. We saw many foxes, caimans in the canals whose eyes shone particularly brightly; nightjars, bats, and an owl that looked quite perplexed into the bright beam of the flashlight.
But on the whole I was satisfied with the photo yield. The sky over Jaguar Land was covered with clouds and only a few stars were visible. The night in the tent was warm, full of noise and windy.
The next day started early. We tried our luck at dusk. That meant getting up shortly after 5 a.m. and setting off while it was still dark. We had no luck at the "hotspots" and so we tried the road that led along the river. This was teeming with caimans and waterfowl, but they mostly flew away when our car approached. The variety of bird life was impressive, however. At the end of the road (it was a dirt road on top of a fill dam that separated the wetland on the right from the farm and the bounding canal on the left. At the end of the causeway, and thus the road, was a larger body of water where the endemic Bolivian pink dolphins could be seen from time to time. However, in the morning hours the water was still too cold and the encounter with the dolphins had to wait. In the wetlands on both sides of the dam there were many capivaras, in small and large families, waiting to be eaten by the jaguar, just as we were waiting for our first encounter with him.
Nick was a little impatient that we had not yet seen a Jaguar. We drove back for breakfast. Suddenly - as so many times suddenly - Nick looked tense through his binoculars, let Jose stop and we jumped out of the car, so first Nick, then we and Nick already ran off. It's a good thing we had hiking boots on, because it was cross-country across the field, which made us sink deep, to the opposite side of the field, which was about 200 yards or more away. Nick saw him and kept him in sight. He was moving cross-country from one wooded patch to the other. I ran, Toma ran, but we saw no jaguar (or tigre, as the Bolivians called him). When we had covered half the distance, we stopped briefly and I looked through the camera, I saw the outline of the jaguar. Toma had also spotted him through the binoculars (after urgently asking Nick to be allowed back to the car).
Click, click, click, continuous fire, with the hope that there will be something to see on the picture. Then the outlines already disappeared in the high grass. Okay, we would still have many opportunities to photograph the Tigre.
Pleased we greeted the Italian and her Englishman at breakfast. Before we left, I developed THE picture, because scrolling through the shots on the way home, it was clear that only two pictures were halfway usable. Well, 100 meters away, high grass, a miracle that you could recognize him as a tigre at all. I was satisfied with the result, but still hoped to take a few shots from a shorter distance.
Nick was a little more relaxed and now we could also stop for a tractor to take a picture (well at least for a Jabarus). There really was a variety of different birds of prey, probably all specializing in their own niche of small animals. The herons hunted along the canal or river's edge or on the wetlands, as much of the area was flooded just two weeks ago. The very clever ones followed the tractors to pick up the small animals the machines had picked up. Large seeders tilled the field, followed by machines with even larger booms for the fertilizer and pesticides. Actually, it was surprising that jaguars were in this environment. Surprising also because jaguars, when they tore cows, which happened from time to time, or the farmers were afraid of them, were simply shot. There were usually no consequences, because the shooters always credibly claimed that they had acted in self-defense. That a jaguar attacks people happens as often as a wolf injures people in Germany.
Toma was not feeling well on the drive back to the farm after we saw the jaguar. We blamed it on the bumpy roads. (Some to the mental strain of the encounter in the field). She didn't get better on the drive after breakfast, despite pills and acupressure. She went to sleep, hoping to be fit again afterwards.
The rest of the day, the afternoon and the evening (two more trips in search of the perfect picture of a jaguar) went pretty much the same way, with a yield of many pictures of birds, capivaras, foxes, which there was especially much to see at night, nandus that took the legs under the arm as soon as we approached them, March deer, but no more jaguar. Since Toma was not with us, we drove another way through the marsh, a birding area filled with many species in impressive numbers. Although many of the birds, sometimes whole flocks, would bolt when we fell below the critical escape distance, I managed to get a nice photo of a heron catching a frog, holding it by one leg, tossing it into the air and devouring it.
The night ride, Toma had lain down and relieved, became more exciting today. The wind had died down, it was warmer than the day before. It was suicide weather. We had the windows open to scan the surroundings with the flashlights and through the windows with monkey-like speed big black beetles rushed. First it hit Nick, then Jose, but eventually I was not spared either. The bugs landed two direct hits. And that hurt. Behind me in the car it hummed and buzzed. After the impact, the bugs were buzzing around the SUV in a daze (and there were many of them, since only a few landed a hit), probably hoping to get to the source of the light beam and live on as a transformed prince. Foxes were again plentiful, also an owl, but the highlight was an anteater. Nick, in his usual manner, sprinted out of the car, me following behind, hoping to take a photo. Nick reached the anteater, put himself in its path so that it wiped back, whereupon Nick put himself in front of it again when it changed direction and wanted to move away. A maneuver not without risk, as the bear had sharp claws that would mean significant injury if the bear attacked Nick. In the light of the flashlight I then took some pictures and we left the poor bear in peace to continue looking for ants.
According to Nick, morning has gold in it and we tried again on the third day, very early in the morning. We drove again to the edge of the ranch where the wetland began. There were many palm trees on which the blue and yellow macaws spent the night in large flocks and then left to forage during the day. The very curious macaws saw us and made a round trip over us and flew back to their palm tree. With a big scream they all left and we stayed behind, hoping to see a jaguar in the swamp. Hope dies last. At the end of the trail, where the river widened into a lake, we were lucky today and were able to see dolphins, pink dolphins hunting for fish. To take a photo of them is probably almost impossible, because it is always only fractions of seconds in which they appear and immediately plop back into the river and no one knows where they will appear the next time. Back to breakfast with no results.
Today Nick wanted to know it again and we drove into corners we had not yet visited. We saw very, very fresh tracks of jaguars in the wet dirt and drove through a new path at the edge of the ranch, left and right below us the swamp with countless birds. A little bit like in the Okavango. A ranch hand told us that 10 minutes ago he had seen a jaguar crossing the field into the wooded riparian strip. We drove a little disappointed to lunch.
The food was really great. Since Nick himself had something left over for vegetarians, Toma also got her money's worth. Today it was again, warm, around noon even hot. The parched landscape was dusty when the car drove over it. Whenever we stopped, the dust cloud caught up with us and filled the car with dust. My new shirt - impregnated and made of dense material against mosquito bites - was completely dusted (filthy). I cleaned the camera every day. I also did not dare to change the lens, so that the sensor did not get dust. In the tent it was still reasonably clean. The afternoon brought nothing new and so only the night drive and tomorrow morning remained.
Tonight Toma was again on board and we first scared her properly that she must beware of the kamikaze - beetles. But today the bugs were gone again. We also took a different route, saw an owl right at the beginning and then two eyes flashed on the right side pretty close to the path in the light of the flashlight. Nick, who was sitting next to me (in the back) and had left Toma his place in front, pointed his flashlight at the animal, I the camera behind, click, click, click and the ocelot was in the box and that in complete darkness with an aperture of 6.3. After a few seconds of mutual observation the cat disappeared in the thicket. Another encounter with a tapir followed, which was more of a spiritual nature. I said there was something in the field, it was so vague, there in total darkness and tenths of a second in time with a beam of the flashlight gliding across the field. Jose and Nick cut in and saw a tapir, jumped out of the car to, yeah to what? We trailed behind, camera ready to shoot, and we saw nothing. On the way back, plenty more foxes and an owl. But the day was not over for me yet. Today was a starry night and unlike yesterday, where I had already taken a few night shots, today there were no clouds in the sky.
Here, far away from any light sources, there were ideal conditions for taking a picture of the Milky Way, which presented itself uniquely beautiful. The Southern Cross was in the middle of the night sky (directly to the south). In Namibia, which is at about the same latitude, we never saw it so beautifully and clearly. With the clock I checked the cardinal direction and it was exactly in the south. So just to take a picture and then go to sleep.
Last drive on the day of departure. We set off at dusk and as usual we drive to the places where the probability of seeing a jaguar is highest. But also today we have no luck. We spent a lot of time with Nick in the car on our safari tours and learned a lot about Bolivia. So it will be easier and more transparent to understand the problems, why the jaguars are endangered, how the battle between conservation and the mining industry is fought, which conflicting interests have to be taken into account when finding concepts to preserve the habitat for jaguars. It will not be easy to meet a tiger in the future, to observe and enjoy the beautiful big cat. On our last trip, on the border path to the swamp, we met many farmers from Montero who had pitched their tents here and a car with people from the district who had come to count them. Will the swamps last? I guess we won't know. The return trip went smoothly. At the hotel, our suitcase left behind was already waiting for us, but most importantly, the bathroom to wash us clean from the dirt of the past 4 days. I was shocked when I saw myself in the mirror, so dirty I was. The bathroom was followed by a thorough cleaning of all the things that were not stowed in the dirty laundry and technology, camera, laptop, basically everything we had with us. Dinner at a fancy vegan / vegetarian restaurant not far from our hotel. Very tasty and then still inexpensive.
Diary -English