Rurrenabaque - Jungle Adventures

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So having skipped the jungle in Ecuador and Peru I finally made it there in Bolivia. The intention was to avoid the 18h bus journey and fly there but due to the rain and the fact that the landing strip in Rurrenabaque is just a field, therefore rendered useless in the rain, I was forced to take the bus. The road was reminiscent of the "Death Road" I'd just cycled and it was quite scary when the bus had to reverse along the side of a huge drop inorder to let other vehicles past (which was fairly often), nevertheless we safely arrived in Rurrenbaque in the pouring rain. We decided to take a day to look round the town and recover from the bus journey before we ventured into the Pampas and the Jungle.
After an evening sampling the local cocktails in the Monkey bar we got up early ready to go to the Pampas.

After a 3h journey in a landrover we arrived at the river and carried on our journey by boat. Almost straight away we started to see the wildlife including starting with caimen and alligators, turtles and capybaras (huge rodents) plus various birds. We arrived at our camp which was right by the river and fairly basic - wooden huts with basic beds - although there were hammocks hanging with a nice view of the river. The next day we went looking for anacondas and after a few hours of walking through woods and marshland our guide found a young one. We were very hot and sticky by this point so went for a swim in the river close to some pink dolphins and also a couple of alligators! That it evening we went fishing for piranhas - this proved tricky as the fish seemed skillful at eating the bait (chunks of steak) without getting caught also the mosquitos were out in force aghh. I only managed to catch a couple of small sardines but others in the group were more successful. After the fishing we went to the Sunset bar to have a beer whilst watching the sunset and then we went back to the camp to sample the Piranhas that had been caught - tasty but not much flesh. The final day I woke to find out the mosquitos had ravished me the day before even with the insect spray and through my long t-shirt - vicious things! We went for another boatride and this time we saw some monkeys and more dolphins and then it time for the trip back to Rurrenbaque.

After a quiet evening in town we were ready to head out to the jungle. This involved another boat trip along a different river and this time we saw some parrots along the way. The jungle camp was similar to the pampas one though not so close to the river and with far fewer mosquitos - hurrah! Our guide , Jose, was great taking us on lots of walks through the jungle and showing us different fruit which we sampled, leaves which could be used to make a red dye ( which we used to transform ourselves into Jungle women), tarantulas and various other spiders, monkeys (Howler, Capuchin and Squirrel monkeys), termites which we ate (taste a bit minty!) and we also went on a couple of night walks where we didn't see much nightlife but heard alot more. We made rings out of the stones of one of the fruit we ate and Jose made us all a necklace from various seeds and fruit stones.
After the boat trip back to Rurrenbaque we had one more evening there and then, due to the lack of rain whilst we'd been there, we were able to fly back to La Paz (1h instead of 18h on the bus!).

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