fluvial tours

This is one of the best companies to do the tour of the Amazon in Bolivia. The price is fair, the guides are good, available and polite, and the camp site decent (although you are in the jungle, so expect insects, mosquitoes and the occasional mouse!) – nice common areas, good hammocks to relax. Food is abundant, to say the least, and very good quality too (so much vegetables!). The scenery is spectacular, and the wildlife incredible. The only downside is the jeep that drove my group to the harbour – it was so so so old and rotten, and the day we travelled was raining so much, that we got soaked despite sitting in the car, as there were many leakages. The company should consider getting a new, better car!

We had a 3d/2n Tour to the Pampas. Best thing: Our Guide Juan Carlos was great! He explained everything, showed us lots of animals and was just super nice. Also Food was great on the tour.Just, if you book the "low budget" option, be aware that accommodation really IS basic! And bring toilet paper! :) And maybe some extra money, because if you like to enjoy maybe a beer at those beautiful sunsets, it´s 25 Bolivianos each!

When you arrive in Rurrenabaque airport, the chances are you will be met by a middle-aged man holding brochures, hostel discounts and offering taxi runs to town for the same price as the bus. This is Luis. He is charming, friendly and speaks outstandingly good English. Indeed, he will do all he says, talk you through the different tour options, drive you to town and bring you to hostels where his name gets a preferential rate.How funny it is to see somebody transform once your money has crossed his palm.Luis is the owner of Fluvial Tours. He will pretend he is only a worker there and makes pretend calls to the owner trying to get a Special Discount just for you. Weirdly, the owner never gives much of a discount, but hey, Luis really tried for you, so you book with him. Right? You will be fed whatever lie is required to sell you his tour (english speaking guide, all the equipment you need included, a more remote lodge location than competitors, other people in the group your age/nationality/language).My advice is to walk from agency to agency with brochures in your hand and simply grind out the cheapest rate you can and book with that agency. Once you are out in the jungle, the only difference between you and the other agency is the colour of the boat you are sitting in.Don't be fooled by salesmen tricks, just mind your money and go have a great time

We were promised by the tour operators that the tour would be run in both English and Spanish however the guide spoke exclusively Spanish. When we complained about this to the agency later, we were then accused of being liars by our guide. Half of our group also got food poisoning when we returned to Rurrenabaque from food on the tour. They also failed to provide gum boots for the men in our group as they did not have sizes greater than 9 U.S. As a result we could not do the anaconda hunt. Guide was also often late (due to being on the phone or sleeping in) and brought only enough bait for 10 minutes of piranha fishing.

Went with them because is the number one agency recommended in Lonely Planet books. They provide same service as any other agency in Rurrenabaque so why the others are not recommended?Everything was ok and nothing especial among the others. They aswell spoil monkeys feeding them with bananas for instance. Same spot for anaconda walk and so on.... So better give a chance other agencies just to see if they are different.

3 of u did our tour with Fluvial. When we booked we were told they are the deepest into the river - not true as there are many many further in.The tour was good. The food was DELICIOUS! Saw lots of animals - caiman, birds, dolphins, turtles.Only downer was our guide wouldn't tell us info on the animals/area unless prompted. We'd have enjoyed more free flowing info. Plus perhaps a night walk near the lodge? To hear about local plants/frogs/bugs etc.We paid Bs600 for 2 nights/3days each. Overall was a good experience.

For a budget backpacker option this is ok. I had a good guide but friends on another boat had a very poor guide. The food was good but they were not forthcoming with water or drinks. In fact there were no cold drinks provided or even drinks you could purchase. In over 35 degrees this was unbearable.

It was a horrible trip!! If you really care for the wildlife and that other people will be able to see the animals and the landscape still in 10 years you should defintively NOT go with Fluvial Tours. The guides were dragging out wild snakes instead of leaving them lying in the mud. The guides are so stupid because by doing that this species of snakes will probably die out even quicker. They couldn't explain a lot as they don't have knowledge about the animals you see. They were feeding a crocodil next to the tourists and decorating it with glasses. Even tourists were touching the crocodil. If you think this is great, I want to do it as well. Then I just can say, you are so stupid and should go to jail. This Tour operator is not at all environmental responsable. Better to say it's destroying the whole ecosystem. All the shower water with NON biological degradable soap everybody used was going directly in the ground and the riversystem. By doing that they risk the whole ecosystem and all the animals living there. The food was more or less ok, but not comparable with the other Lodge we visited in the Madidi Nationalpark (Madidi Jungle Ecolodge). The accomodation was in a 10 bed dorm, with 8 of them next to each other, like beeing all together in one room. In total the lodge was full of israelis. Not to judge them but they were behaving rude, noisy and the most brutal person who is cruel to animals. It's better to spend a little bit more money but travel responsable and enjoy your stay a lot more.

The guide we had was good, with strong English and he was helpful in explaining if we had any questions. The camp and food were average .

We booked the Pampas tour with Luis at Fluvial after arriving in Rurre and even though we thought this guy was abit of a chancer at first, he was definitely the best we came across having made enquiries with several other agencies in Rurre. Luis was super helpful and had perfect English. When we returned to Rurre after the trip, all flights had been cancelled so he really helped us find alternative transportation. Our Pampas trip was great and well organised. The accommodation was very basic but that was to be expected. Our tour guide (also named Luis) was fantastic. We had a lot of fun with him and his English was perfect. We heard some negative stories about the other guides so we felt lucky to have Luis.All in all a very enjoyable trip and I would definitely recommend fluvial.

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.