It's a jungle out there

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Rurrenabaque and the pampas - 22nd to 27th March, 2007.

The 19 hour bus to Rurrenabaque wasn't exactly the most pleasant experience for our lives. I had bad travel sickness due to the bumpy road and my attempts at reading in a moving vehicle (which always gives me a bad stomach), while Fiona's fear of heights wasn't helped by the steep drops down into valleys 100s of metres below. We kept switching seats because I needed the fresh air and she needed to not see the bus having to drive off the cliff at times to get around corners! As usually there were more seats than people so we had the pleasant experience of some guy's bum in our faces as well. And the seats were pretty cramped!

By nightfall, we took some valium to help us sleep. The valium worked really well and we actually slept for a while but it also knocked us out for the next day. We arrived safely in Rurre around 7am and were so groggy that we declined offers of tours and instead opted for a few hours in bed. The place we stayed was a bargain - 15 bolivianas each for a room of the two of us. That's 1.50pound or $2 dollars. After a nap, we went for food in a place that targets Israelis and then went in search of a tour operator who could provide the perfect pampas tour. We were still pretty groggy and although we spoke to several tour operators and booked a flight back to La Paz, time also passed us by and very soon it was 7pm and we still didn't have a tour for the next day! Panic set in and we ended up booking a tour with Indigenia, who were more expensive than most other tour operators. This left us strapped for cash in a town with no atm. Bad times. It didn't help that Richard had my credit card and he was somewhere in Peru! With our cash situation in mind, we had some avocado sandwiches, had a fight with some internet people and retired to bed.

The next day, we arrived at our tour operators bright and early. A sign said they took maestro cards so I asked a English guy if I could pay for his tour with my card (and he could give me the cash) but the woman in the office wouldn't let me use the card. In fact, the staff in the office weren't the nicest.

Anyway, we were put into our group which was two sisters and their friend Anthony for Liverpool, a girl from Wales, two guys from Isreal and Fiona and I. After a three hour jeep journey over very bad road, we had some lunch and paid our entrance fee into the park. Then we had a quick 10 minutes more in the jeep where we nearly knocked down a horse and nearly killed a child, eventually arriving at the river.

The pampas are a swamp like region and is full of animals which is why Fiona and I choose the pampas, rather than the jungle with all its trees. The pampas are also explored by boat on the Rio Yacuma, which suited our lazy mood. We settled into our boat, which looked like a long rowing boat but was motorised, and Tony our guide brought us through the pampas to our accommodation. On the way, we saw pink dolphins, the largest rodent alive - the capybara, some baby alligators, lots of birds and a trees full of cappuccino monkeys. Tony stopped the boat for us to get a closer look at the monkeys and gave us bananas to feed them with. They climbed all over the boat and us. It was so much fun! I really like monkeys so this is one my South American highlights. I still smile when I think about it.

We arrived at our accommodation, a large lodge on stilts, which also came with two resident alligators. Frederico, the quieter of the two, was chilling out in the mud so some people went down to see him but he moved into the water before I could have a closer look. We chilled out in the hammock room, with the people from our group and three Irish people from another group, including a girl from Clara, Offaly. After a dinner that really wasn't sufficient, we played cards and had hot chocolate before climbing into our mosquito nets for a night's sleep, which was frequently interrupted by the sounds of bats flying over our heads!

The next day, we were up early to go hunting for anacondas and other snakes in the swamplands. The wellies they made us wear were pointless - the water came half way up my thighs at times - but it was fun wadding through the water and reeds with our sticks. The mosquitoes weren't fun though. Even with 100 per cent of pure cancer causing deet, the mosquitoes bit us through our clothes!

Tony found a sleeping anaconda in a tree and actually woke it up. This made me so mad - I couldn't believe he had such woken up a wild animal and when he passed it around the group, placing it on people's necks, I was in even more disbelief. Maybe it's from growing up in the countryside but a wild animal is a wild animal and shouldn't be disturbed in my eyes, especially when sleeping. He also found a tiny snake that was really poisonous and some other bugs and birds eggs, which some Israeli guy went to touch before I shouted at him! Some people have no respect for the wild!

After our anaconda hunting, we went back to the lodge for lunch and a siesta (I never had siestas so I just read). Once again, I was still hungry after lunch so I begged an apple from the chef. Then back to the river for us, where we spotted a giant caiman and five minutes up the river, Tony stopped the boat and told us to get in and swim with the pink dolphins if we liked. Some of the group were nervous about the caimen up the river but I was more nervous about swimming in seven metre deep water. I wish I was a better swimmer. I did get in for a bit but sadly didn't get to touch a dolphin. It was fun though.

Next on our pampas adventure was a visit to the sunset bar. Yes seriously, in the pampas, only accessible by boat and in the middle of nowhere, is a bar on stilts. It was too cloudy to see the sunset and Fiona and I were too poor to buy a drink or even a bar of chocolate, but we had fun chatting people.

Our our way back to the lodge, we went alligator and caimen spotting. The red eyes were so strange in the dark of night. And at one stage, Tony plucked a baby alligator from the water and passed it around the group. I felt really sorry for it but I still had a picture taken with it. Hypocritical, I know!

The last day of the tour began with piranha fishing. With a pile of raw meat and some makeshift wood and hook rods, we tried our luck at catching some fish. We could see them nibbling at the bait but they were small and quite hard to hook. Nobody in our group managed to catch one but good old Tony did and showed it round so we could get a good look at it. Even though the fish was small, it's teeth were impressive.

After fishing, we headed back to the lodge, packed our stuff, had lunch and set off down the river for two hours to where the jeep would collect us again. We saw more howler and cappuccino monkeys and some toucans and more alligators and pink dolphins. The pampas really were great, I'm so glad we went!

The journey back to Rurre was long and very bumpy. At one point we picked up a man and his bag and he sat on the roof for two hours. When we got nearl Rurre, the driver asked him to get inside the jeep. He sat beside me and I couldn't believe the dust that came off the poor man!

We spent the evening hanging out, eating avocado sandwiches and praying that it wouldn't rain the next day so we could get a flight back to La Paz. I woke up in the middle of the night to torrential rain and knew we wouldn't be able to fly back. The runway in Rurrenbarque isn't tarmacked, it's such a dirt track, so when it rains the planes can't land or fly.

The next morning, Fiona was luckily able to get a cash advance on her Dad's card. I had tried to convince the bank lady to give me cash on my credit card which Richard had but she wasn't having any of it. We then went and purchased some bus tickets for the dreaded bus. Fiona sorted us out for lunch while I did some internet work and then we got a motorbike taxi to the bus station.

And what a bus journey it turned out to be!

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