The day I almost saw the president (again)

22th of August 2009, somewhere close to Villa Tunari: Our bus stops and says he can’t go on. What the f..ck? Why? Because the streets are closed until 5 PM. What? Yep, it’s because of the president? Wait a second? Evo is here? What in bloody hell is Evo doing in Villa Tunari? Meeting the Brasilian president? Lula? Yep, Lula! Okay, let’s get out of the bus then and see what Evo and Lula are up to.

Unfortunately we had to walk about half an hour until reaching Villa Tunari and on our way we saw two helicopters leaving. DAMN IT! Again! Two times in three days I got really close to Evo…but not close enough

WELCOME TO CHAPARE!

Villa Tunari on Saturday was one huge chaos! 200.000 (!!) people trying to get out of the village after the show was done. It took almost 5 hours until the traffic was half normal again and you could walk through the main street without too many people. Since we got there around fourish and there was not enough time to go to one of the parks anymore, we decided to have some fish (Villa Tunari is famous for that) and walk to the river closeby.

Sunday we took a taxi to a national park of which you could visit a tiny little part with a guide, see bats, birds and every kind of tropical plants. In the afternoon we went to a “monkey park” where they have different tipes of animals which have been treated really badly by their owners and need time under observations before they can be released to the forest again. it was not spectacular, but a nice way to spend the (hot and humid, it’s tropical climate there) afternoon. Unfortunately after returning from the walk I bought a small coke bottle and some monkey stole it! one park ranger was not so happy, he thought I gave the bottle away on purpose and told me that I would be baaad baaad baaad for the monkey (god damn, I know that, and I wanted to drink that bottle myself)

All in all a nice weekend-trip and really cool to be in such a different environment after just travelling 4 hours! On the other hand I am happy to live here in Cocha with a much easier climate and without nasty mosquitos!

Hope, it is still summer time in Germany or whereever you all are

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