Pampas: wildlife extravaganza

We´re back from our 3 day trip to the Pampas (amazon lowlands)! The trip was great (the weather could´ve been better, but oh well) because we were able to see a lot of wildlife. We were skeptical that we´d be able to see all the wildlife they advertised, but we weren´t disappointed at all. I´ll get to that in a little bit.

The first day was quite tiring because Myra and I had to wake up at 4:00 to catch a 6:15 flight from La Paz to Rurrenabaque. It sounds like an unimaginable hour to wake up at, but we´ve had to wake up really early for all our tours so far so we weren´t too put off. What did put us off was our 3 hour car ride from Rurrenabaque to Santa Rosa (to get onto the river). I won´t list everything that was wrong with the vehicle we were traveling in (because my parents read this), but I will name the two most important things that were missing: shocks and cushioned seats. The road we travelled on was unpaved and rocky so there was lots of dirt flying into the car and all over us. There were occasional ´DING´ sounds as rocks flew up and hit the side and bottom of the van. And I could actually taste dirt in my lungs. It was disgusting. The ´van´we were traveling in had all the back seats removed, and was replaced with two bench type seats along the sides of the van. So 8 of us were squished in there for 3 hours hating life.

The ride down the river was much better even though it was HOT. This was were we saw most of the wildlife ... alligators (lots of them!), cappucino monkeys, crocodiles, dolphins. The alligators were everywhere and looked so fake - they barely moved and had their mouthes open (to let the heat out?) so we could see their enourmous razor sharp teeth.
We also heard and saw howler monkeys. Their ´howl´ sounds were a mix between the noise my stomach makes when I´m hungry and belches (belches in general, not mine specifically). During the ride, we came across two other groups whose boats had stopped by the shore so our guide stopped to see what was going on. What was going on was that the other guide had spotted an anaconda and gotten out of the boat to catch it. He had it by the tail and was bringing it onto his boat so his passengers could get a good look at it. Then he brought it over to our boat (skinny motorized canoe) so we could get a closer look. I thought ... how nice, he´s sharing. But when he came closer and closer to me, I thought ... okay easy cowboy. I´ve seen enough. Please take a few steps back. But I guess he liked seeing me so uncomfortable because he put the head of the snake on my lap! I´m not going to lie - I screamed like a little girl. I may have even whimpered a little bit. If I could´ve, I would´ve jumped off the boat. After what seemed like an eternity, he raised his arm so that the snake head was no longer on my lap. But now it was level with my head. And the snake was coiled such that he looked like he was going to attack his prey. I kept leaning back further and further, trying to calculate how far I needed to be away from the head so that it couldn´t reach me. The guide finally moved away from me. Phew.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful - it started raining just as we got to our (basic) lodge so our group just ate, chatted for a bit and then turned in for the night.

Our second day started off with a search for more anacondas. We walked quite a ways to this swamp where our guide (Tony) said anacondas hung out. Unfortunately for us, there were no anacondas in sight - Tony explained that since there was no sun out, the snakes were all underground. He spent quite a long time searching for them though (while we waited by the side of the swamp). He was determined that we see an anaconda. When it was clear that it was not to be, he led us in a search for cobras. Mission accomplished! First he found a baby cobra sleeping (we didn´t disturb him), and then he found one that was fully awake. He caught it by the tail (no idea how he did it ... it happened so fast) and then caught hold of his head so that he could bring it closer to us without it biting us. The 8 of us went into photo frenzy mode. We took turns putting the snake around our necks and taking pictures. It was not as disgusting as I thought it would be. And I felt much better knowing that our trusty guide had a hold of the snake´s head.

That afternoon, we went fishing for pirhanas. It was pretty fun even though Myra and I didn´t catch any worth keeping. We did however become so desperate to catch a good one that we used the tiny ones we caught as bait. To show us how dangerous they are, Tony held a bigger pirhana next to a smaller one and the bigger one went chomp chomp chomp in seconds and chewed a big hole in the smaller one. He said ... imagine what it could do to your finger! I was able to catch a catfish and two small salmon though (I suspect it was the same hungry salmon coming back for seconds).

On our last day, we went swimming with the dolphins. We were hesitant to get in the water (since the alligators swim in the same waters), but we did eventually when we the dolphins showed up. We didn´t get to play with them, but we were about 3 meters away from them. They were swimming close to our group for quite some time. Our guide had brought raw meat to feed the alligator before we got in the water. I guess it was our payment to the alligator for swimming in his territory.

I guess that wraps up the highlights of our trip to the Pampas! The 3 hour ride back to Rurrenabaque was just as bad as our ride there, but we survived. Now I know what it would be like to be a bobble head toy.

Oh - for those of you who know how slow I eat, I think I finished my meals in record time! We were all so hungry when it came to meal times that everyone was eating like we hadn´t been fed for days. I had to keep up to make sure I had food to eat. It was tough.

Next stop: Potosi to see the silver mines! Another overnight bus tonight. Crossing my fingers for paved roads.

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Part of trip: Adventures of Lydia + Myra

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