First attempt to reach Rurrenabaque … We almost made it, but unfortunately, due to heavy rain, the plane could not land on the grassy runway and had to go back to La Paz.
Today, October 17th, we happily boarded a tiny plane that would take us into the warmth of Bolivia’s Amazon Basin. Taking off from La Paz El Alto International Airport at 4.050 meters added to our excitement, but soon turned into a nerve racking journey. Due to bad weather the 40 minute trip to Rurrenabaque was more like a roller coaster ride. Heidi felt as if she had stopped breathing and stared at her watch counting the minutes to finally touch down.
As soon as we approached the tiny airport, the captain announced that we could not land due to heavy rain and had to go back to La Paz. The runway at Rurrenabaque is only a stretch of grass and landing under this condition would wreck the very runway. So we had to rock back to La Paz in this kind of weather, where we were told to wait a couple of hours.
First attempt to reach Rurrenabaque … We almost made it, but unfortunately, due to heavy rain, the plane could not land on the grassy runway and had to go back to La Paz.
There was a tiny chance that we could go to Reyes, an airport an hour away from Rurrenabaque, but at three o’clock this hope was shattered and we shared a taxi back to La Paz with a couple from Belgium. They had just arrived from Sucre by bus, a 15 hour trip, because their flight to La Paz was cancelled and now they were faced with another cancelled flight! Tomorrow early morning we will call and find out if we will be able to give it another try …
View of the Amazonas on a plane from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
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