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Published: July 20th 2008
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Day 285 - Friday 11 July
We'd been given the back seats of the bus and it was so bumpy that I'd hardly got any sleep last night. The bus driver had also been tearing along which didn't exactly make the ride any smoother and we got into town about 5 to 6 in the morning. It was still dark and with the town still shut up we followed a guy we met at the bus station who reckoned he had a room. He did but it was a bit of a hell hole and there was no locks on the doors. The last straw came when he tried putting someone else in our room. We told him no and he gave in but i'm tired, want some sleep and I don't trust him. We left and went to the hostel I'd stayed in last time which is better and the same price. It was all shut up but we banged on the door until somebody let us in.
It was mid afternoon before I was up, and after getting a shower and lunch we tried to book ourselves on a jungle trip into the amazon rainforest. Unfortunately it
proved difficult as you need 4 people minimum and theres only 2 of us. There doesn't seem to be anybody else wanting to do it. Eventually we found somewhere that would take us.
Its Friday night and after my near death experience I'm determined to go out. Its also the last weekend I have in Bolivia. Russ reckons hes ill so has bailed out on me, but not to worry I'll go out on my own, i've usually done ok. As i'm on my own and I don't have any money (theres no ATM's in town so i cant get any more), I decided to go straight to the local bars about half eleven when they get busy. Or so I thought, I went to leave my hotel and it was all locked up. I couldn't get out and couldn't find anybody to let me out. Its a good job theres not a fire. I tried to find another way out but couldn't. I can't believe it, I really want to go out too as I hadn't got up until 3 pm and theres no way I'll sleep for hours. To make matters worse the balcony looks onto the
street and it looks busy outside. I decided that along with the fact I've no money, its a sign that its not meant to be, so spent the night playing football manager on the psp. I think it turned out to be the right decision as half an hour later the nightclub across the road where I'd planned on going stopped playing music and did Karaoke. The locals are terrible singers.
Day 286 - Saturday 12 July
With my sleep pattern all over the place, I'd only managed to get a few hours sleep. As they always tell you to be there about half an hour earlier than you really need to be I had a bit of a lie in before going down to the tour company. As you can imagine this tour was actually leaving on time for once and they were waiting for us . Oh well!
A 3 hr boat ride down the Beni river and we arrived at our camp in the Madidi national park part of the amazon rainforest. Over lunch we got to meet the rest of the party. Theres a nice chilean girl but theres also a really annoying
canadian girl. Shes doing my head in already.
With lunch over we did our first hike through the amazon. The last jungle hike I'd done was way back in Thailand during my second week out. I was a lot fitter then and that had been murderous. Luckily this ones on flat land and is relatively easy even if it is very humid. Although we saw an eagle and some wild boar which are apparently usually hard to spot we didn't see any other animals. But given the noise were making I expect they've run a mile away. Not to mind I didn't expect to see any, I'm happy just to walk about in the jungle but it would have been nice to see some of those colourful frogs. However there was one comedy moment. The guide hacking through the foliage acidentally chopped a wasps nest in half. They all flew out and started attacking Russ. He got stung three or four times and once in the eye. You shouldn't laugh but it was funny.
A few hours later we were back at camp and once dinner was over we set off on a night hike. Again didn't see
any animals and given that we were tarantula hunting I'm quite glad. I hope there all a hundred miles away from where I'm sleeping tonight. I suppose the fact that neither me or Russell had a torch so spent the whole hike watching our footing made it a bit more difficult to see anything as well.
Day 287 - Sunday 13 July
After getting up and having breakfast we set off on our third and final hike. It was a bit similar to yesterday and I'm starting to get bored of just walking in a jungle so I was glad to head back to Rurrenabaque this afternoon.
After getting our bus tickets back to La Paz and spending ages getting myself clean again we flicked through the tv channels in the room. Miss Universe 2008 (similar to miss world) is on and being hosted in Na Trang, Vietnam. It brought back fond memories. Even though it had rained none stop when we were there I'd had a really good night out in Na Trang. Miss Venezuela won and Miss Colombia was runner up. I can't believe only last week we decided to skip those countries out.
Day 288 - Monday 14 July
Were heading back down the worlds most dangerous road one last time and back to La Paz. I can't believe how hot it was when we left, the sweat was literally pouring off us yet in about 12 hours time we will all be wearing our hats and scarves. Such a difference in such a short space of time.
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