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Published: August 18th 2007
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We caught an overnight bus to Rurrenabaque, from La Paz - 18 hours. It was a near thing that we got on it. When we booked the bus we were told to catch a taxi half and hour before take off, we caught the taxi over an hour before it was due to leave and 5 minutes before it was due to leave the taxi driver was asking people directions. Quite hair raising being caught in walking pace traffic jams. Anyhow we caught the bus and on board or on the roof go containers of baby chickens, beds, sacks of goods, boxes of stuff, everything you can think of. The bus left about 11 am and we had three toilet stops on the trip. The road was good to start with and then it deteriorated to pink talcom powder, ranging from 2 -6 inches deep. There was dust everywhere and when another vehicle came we had to sometimes back up to make way and up hill traffic usually had right of way and could use whatever side of the road they wanted. At one toilet stop we were told 10 minutes only and a couple of tourists were late getting on
the bus and it left without them. Other passengers got mad with the driver and he had to stop, a man ran back to get the girls and they caught up with the bus in a taxi. We had meal stops at restaurants that are really well organised and have food ready for the buses. The food is cheap too and includes a soup and a main meal, usually rice and some other sort of meat.
It was a very slow ride, doing about 40 km/hr at the most. Very bumpy, dusty and hot. We arrived at Rurrenabaque at 730 am and then walked up town to the tour agent we were going to the La Pampa with. This tour left at 0900.
Our tour started with a three hour ride in an old van over more dusty, potholes, the worst road you could ever imagine, just a bulldozer track, with huge trucks cutting it up all the time. You could hardly breath in the van due to the dust. Anyway we finally made it to a place where we caught a long boat with an outboard on the back. This trip was 3 hours and we saw
so much wildlife. Crocodiles, birds of all sorts, large rodent things, monkeys, turtles. The wildlife was so abundant because we were in a national park. Bolivia looks after its wildlife better than any other country we have visited. We arrived at our camp to have a rest. We were taken to a lodge to watch the sunset and then go crocodile finding by torchlight. We don't know why we did this, because we saw hundreds of big fat ones during the daytime.
Our group of eight went on an Annaconda hunting trip the next day. (Monday 6th Aug). This involved getting dressed in gumboots (Paul couldn't get big enough ones) and going for a walk through very long grass and then through very long grass covering water. We tramped for hours and we were all supposed to be looking for Annaconder but we never found any until the guide found one towards the end of the tramp. It was no wonder I never found one because I was looking for a huge 12 foot, 8 inch diameter snake curled in the sun, the one we found was about 4 inches diameter and 7 feet long and was brown. It
took some getting out of the long grass and we all had a photo taken while holding it. It was really hard work, walking through the long grass and water, it quite did me in. Back to camp for a rest.
In the afternoon we went pink dolphin spotting and Paul and a couple of the girls went swimming with them. They swam less than a meter away from the swimmers. They really teased the Paul and the girls being so close, sometimes they swam in only a meter of water. Paul said lots of little fish were nibbling their feet.
Tuesday 7th - We went pirhana fishing. We all caught fish, but all mine went back in being too small. Those who had not eaten pirahana before had it for lunch. We saw a sloth in a tree and more monkeys. We saw monkeys everyday along with all types of animals and birds. Bolivia has the best wildlife we have seen. We returned to town via the dusty road and stayed at the Santa Anna Hostel for the night.
Up early the next morning to catch a bus back on that dusty, long, bumpy road to
La Paz. We arrived in La Paz at 6.15 the next day and went along to the main bus terminal to meet Manfred a friend from the La Pampa. We caught a bus that morning to to Oruru only 3 hours away.
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