fluvial tours

We did the las pampas tour and la selva tour with fluvial and both experiences were awesome!! It's the jungle so what you see is up to the wildlife of course but fluvial guides are definitely on to it!! Mario was the BEST guide, we only had him for la selva but he does pampas as well. Their accommodation is sweet, the food was awesome-espesh in la selva for us vegetarians!! We had no problems at all with them and rated both experiences really high!!!

We are travelling for 15 months now, did a lot of tours by travel agency as well, but had such a terrible experience with this Fluvial tour we´ve ever had before! I regretted a lot after I saw the reviews on TA. What happened is, we were supposed to take a Pampas tour (550 Bol each person) and payed money at one of travel agency in La Paz. The day we arrived in Rurrenabaque airport, one guy was holding our name in big paper, after arriving to the Fluvial, this guy was asking for money 10 Bol each. We were three, so 30 Bol. I thought all the transportation fee is all included and what the travel agency in La Paz said was also same. But that guy insisted us to pay and we needed any kind of explanation from Fluvial, because they were the people who talked to the other agency. However they didn´t say anything, just saying to us, "It´s not a big money for us, just give it to him", I said, "If that is not big money for you, why don´t you pay?" So I asked them to write me any kind of receipt that I pay to the guy, because I needed some evidence that I payed and can ask for reimburse when we get back to La Paz. After that two guy working there, seemed to be owner (Tino and Javier), were yelling at us and shouting to us, "If you don´t pay, we don´t take you to tour, who lose more are you" Is that something who run travel agency has to say? They threw a paper to me and almost try to hit me very aggressively. I just payed money and went to Pampas tour, because I didn´t want to spoil my travelling and all of our schedule, but they were really the worst we´ve met. They don´t know basic thing, never go with them!!!

We went with Fluvial for the pampas tour based on recommendation from lonely planet and for the cost. It was the cheapest option around Rurre. However we ended up being out on a tour with Fletcha tours instead. I guess during low season, the tour companies consolidate the groups. We found out about this with a knock on our hostel door the night before and then were told by the manager Luis that we needed to pay extra money in order to get on the tour bc the dorms were full. Either that or we couldn't go! That was a little dirty since it was the night before and we didn't have any other options at that time of night. So we paid a bit extra to get on the tour. When we got to the pampas, we found out there were three extra beds in the dorm! So Luis pretty much lied to us. Great. Other than that, fletcha tours was good. The camp was basic but we were in the jungle so we didn't expect much. I wouldn't recommend Fluvial. Not sure why lonely planet does. I would recommend fletcha and I believe they are the same price.

Booked the pampas tour with deep rainforest tours in la paz and ended up with fluvial tours. On the whole the experience was okay. We saw the pampas, there were lots of aligators and we spent lots of time on the river seeing different birds and reptiles. The guide spoke a little english and was enthusiastic, although he was more interested in aligators than anything else and so getting information about the other life in the pampas wasnt great. The accomodation was basic but expected and the food was okay. In addition to the trips on the boat there was fishing for piranha for a few hours, find the anaconda while wading through the pampas and swim in the same river as the dolphins (they keep their distance!). The trip was pretty much what I paid for but in retrospect Id rather have done something more active.

We probably should have looked on here before booking with this company. They were very disorganised on the first day- we began about an hour later than we were told to meet at the agency in Rurrenabaque, the driver disappeared at lunch in Santa Rosa and then we were waiting and watching every other group take off on their boats while our guide was no where to be seen.When he did eventually arrive, he refused to speak English. I wouldn't normally be annoyed about this except that we had been promised an English speaking guide and I am quite interested in the ecology of the Pampas so I wanted to know as much as I could and my limited Spanish would not suffice. Also, the 6 people on our tour could all speak English, whilst my boyfriend and I were the only ones who could not speak Spanish so it made us feel quite left out at times. Also, I say refuse because the guide could actually speak very good English- he just refused to do so. We asked him later if he was able to speak English and he said that English gringos do not bother to learn Spanish... (I guess implying that he shouldn't bother to learn English??)The lodge is very VERY basic and only dorms, which we were not made aware of.Oh yeh, and we figured out when we returned to Rurrenabaque that we were missing half of our American dollars- $240. The whole amount wasn't stolen- just the clean notes. It was left in a bag as we were going swimming with the dolphins. Our first ever time we have left it unattended and thinking that the three or four staff members would not be rifling through our stuff (it was left in a secret compartment) in the short time we were out as we were in the middle of the Pampas and it would be very obvious who had taken it. However, we were stupid enough to not check and we were stupid enough to leave it there so yes, part of the blame is ours.That said- we were robbed and it could only have been staff so it is up to you whether you want to trust them! When we complained, the manager was nice, but ultimately ineffective, clearly playing the role of damage control and trying to blow it all over. It was not obvious at any stage that you could leave valuables in their safe as we would have obviously taken them up on this offer. No one was available to ask about this prior to boarding the jeep.It's a shame as the Pampas itself is great.