The Huanchaca Plateau, rising 500 meters from the floor of the surrounding rainforest was the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World. 

Those were my inspirations for wanting to visit Noel Kempff National Park. "Rustic accommodations and basic meals." That's what the park brochure promised. The perfect little eco-lodge from which to emerge each day to snap a few award-winning wildlife photos... so I thought.

The expedition party (although 'party' is certainly a misnomer) consisted of me, my sister Patty and Pancho, my Bolivian pal. Once inside the park, we were joined by our mandatory park guide, Juan. He was a friendly fellow and an excellent guide but he did not have the latest data on situations in the park. He was not really to blame for the fact that the compound for lodging visitors was locked up and deserted.

This meant that we would have to survive on a bag of rice, some beef jerky and a hunk of salty cheese that smelled like a dirty sock. 

It was indeed a disheartening realization after all we had gone through to get there.

The jungle has an amazing life force. In a matter of months it can practically reclaim a road. The space gets strangled from all directions.

There were sprouts coming up from the ground, branches growing in from both sides and shoots descending down, seemingly from the sky. 

In Mexico, atop the pyramids at Chitzen Itza, you can see other pyramids and what was once an entire city, completely over-taken by the creeping green.

Stuck in the mud for three hours we became aware of another life force: Insects!

Picture if you will, the sun beating down on a hot and muggy day. Struggling to raise Blanco Billy (my Landcruiser) out of the mud enough to create a path of logs under the tires. The more you sweat, the more insects you attract. Bees are crawling under your clothes and in your ears! Getting stung seven or eight times. Emergency road service is nothing short of fantasy, given our location and lack of means of communication. 

The kicker is seeing the path AROUND the mudhole big enough for a semi! Pancho was driving and had failed to notice the blatantly obvious detour. This was probably the reason he was working so silently and diligently in spite of the heat and the bugs. I, on the other hand, had to take a break every two or three minutes, to run away and escape my own personal swarm.

At the abandoned compound we resorted to breaking and entering to get bedding materials and drinking water out of a storage room. We got into the kitchen to encounter a thriving ecosystem. It included ants, roaches, moths and couple of very large frogs. The jungle again, asserting it's territorial rights.

Given our food supply and preparation facilities, it was unanimous that our scheduled five-day stay would be shortened to two. At least this would allow us to experience two highlights of the park, La Meseta and El Encanto.