Coroico - Rurrenabaque

Hi,
Can you book a trip to Rurrenabaque on a boat from Coroica. Can you book it in Coroica or should we book it here in La Paz?
Who has done the jungle trip`and pampas trip in Rurrenabaque? Any suggestions for tour operators?

Thx guys!
Kat

The Rurrenanaque tour of the Pampas was one of the biggest let downs of the whole trip in my opinion (and my gf´s). It is cheap however, 450 for the tour for three days plus an extra 150 entrance fee (which the tour operators don´t always tell you about) and the tour company doesn´t matter as you will be doing everything except eating with all the other tour groups and the itinerary is exactly the same for all the tour companies. Essentially the tour involves: sitting in your boat on the way to your river side hut and then you go and look for monkeys, caiman and dolphins. You go out at night and look for the different caiman that come out at night. Pirana fishing. Anaconda hunting. Pink dolphin swimming (you wont see much if anything). Watching the sunset. Watching the sun rise. Small walk in the woods. Literally every tour company does the same thing.

The reason we didn´t like it is that the ecological side of the tour was horrible. There was about 25 of us walking through a swamp (good fun falling over etc.) looking for an anaconda and then when they found it they called everybody over and then grabbed it by it´s tail as it tried to escape and then passed it around to everybody so they could hold it and take pictures. They feed the monekys to keep them tame so people can get photos etc. They took baby caiman out of the water and passed them around to people on the boat. Fishing for pirana, which usually wouldn´t be a problem except that it was in a conservation area. The guides knew they had done the wrong thing because when i kicked off after they took the baby caiman they took me to one side to apologise and to say this is just a one off and they don´t usually do it (rubbish, every guide was doing it and they would have to compete with that and so do it themselves, plus they were so relaxed and jokey about it all that it was obvious what they were doing was wrong) and i had thought about making an official complaint and writing a bad review on here but didn´t bother. This may be what you´re after but for me, i would rather pay more and not do a tour like this again in the future.

Thx for the info!
I was just wondering about the 3 day trip to Rurrenbaque from Coroico by boat (involves walks and explanations about the jungle and the plants but no animal searching), but your info is usefull. I am looking forward to doing the Pampas, but I hate it when people think that they need to disturb the animals so we tourist can have a better look.

I've just read about a 3 day river trip from Coroico to Rurre. I found it on www.kanootours.com, its usd 180 pP including meals and camping and they do hikes and stuff as well.

Has anyone done this trip before? It sounds like a nicer way to get to R instead of taking the bus :)

Hi everyone,

The company to go with is Deep Rainforest www.deep-rainforest.com, we did with them tubing-rafting covering the same route as the boat trip this year and it was simply fantastic, starts in Coroico and ends in Rurrenabaque. By the time we arrive in Rurrenabaque we met people who did the boat trip and all of them where frenetically happy like us. Highly rec.

Yes, Deep Rainforest have tours from Coroico (with preceding pick up in La Paz) by road via Caranavi to a so-called "Boat Starting Point" - for instance Guanay - and from there by boat on the Beni River to Rurrenabaque.
Note the differences between the programmes in the wet season, Dec-April, and in the dry season. According to the website of the operator there apparently is a difference in the luggage allowance, and this condition should be checked in advance.

About #1, Pampas tours from Rurrenabaque (Rurre):

Mistreatment of animals and other disrespect for the nature is unfortunately a serious and common (widespread) problem.
A recent thread about the issue, with links to other threads: pampas tours in Rurrenabaque, 09-Sep-2009.

Apparently the only pampas tour operator with a responsible attitude and practice is Bala Tours.

A full list of tour operators (both pampas and jungle/rainforest) in the Rurre area can be seen at Operadores de Turismo, which is a page at the official tourist website of "Gobierno Municipal de Rurrenabaque": rurrenabaque.com.bo.
Of in all 30 operators only four have the "Certificación de Turismo Sostenible" (Sustainable Tourism Certification), and of this four only Bala Tours operates in the pampas.

But for a pampas tour Bala Tours is much more expensive than other operators.

Yeah it does seem to be a common problem because when i was in Leticia and Iquitos, the selling points of the tours were that they would catch animals for you to pass round and take photos of. I didn´t take the tour. I think i will come back to SA when i am older i´ll come back and drop a few grand to do a longer, ecological sound tour.