welcome to the jungle

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I'm sitting here watching re reuns of Dawson's Creek, cringing at Dawson's well cringe worthy lines and laughing at how awkward Joey is. I'm supposed to be sitting here writing about my awesome three day trip into the Pampas just outside of Rurrenabaque so i'll try my best, but I cannot assure you that I won't be distracted by the uber cool Pacey, ohhhh or the chaos going on outside the window of my boxy little room in Sucre.

Welcome to the Jungle.

What an awesome three days spent in the jungle; well officially three days spent in the Pampas; a beautiful part of the Amazon; wet lands as pretty as a picture, as many species of birds as one could ever wish for, giant guinea pig looking things called insert name here, crocs, piranhas, mosquitos, baby anaconda's, coca chewing jackie chan look alike, numchucking lodge owners, millions of stars, a wolf pack, two dutchies, beers on a sunset bar, glorious sunrise´s, magical weather and wild dolphins. Like I said, an awesome three days.
I started off my journey extremely happy, I mean a chocolate croisannt for breakfast would make most girls I know pretty happy, the perfect start to any day. I met up with Conor and Joris, my two travelling friends from the 28hour bus journey along one of the most hectic roads I've travelled on thus far and got ready to start my journey (with Fluvial tours, for those who were wondering) Although five minutes later I was being ushered into a beige Land Cruiser without my two travelling buddies and with complete strangers haha nothing new for me really at all...and they turned out to be awesome which is always a bonus!
So after sqeezing myself into the front seat next to Chris who had his legs up somewehere around his neck and Emilio our rather burley, rather smelly driver we were on our way. 3 hours some of us would have rathered didn't happen, travelling on an extremely bumpy, terribly dusty road and we found ourselves pilng out moaning and groaning, preparing for lunch. Fast forward and we were piling into our motor powered canoe and making our way along the picturesque water ways to our lodge; this is where we met the coca chewing, Jackie Chan look alike, num chucking, sun screen stealing lodge owner, or who I presume was the lodge owner and settled into our cute little dorm style room, where I flopped onto my not as hard as expected bed complete with mosquito net. Dinner was served and followed by a very cool, somewhat spooky trip down the river in the starlight looking for the red eyes of crocs! ooooh! We saw a few but nothing all that impressive....Bisma must have sensed that we were growing tired so took us down croc alley; we were then lucky enough to see about 30 crocs and not just their eyes; with the wolf pack and their head lamps we were able to see bodies and all, some of impressive size. A minutes silence followed where thankfully we were able to enjoy the glorious night we were in company of; the stars were absolutely incredible and the milky way has never looked more impressive....ohhh's and ahhh's later we all retired to bed like a group of kids on school camp, giggles and farts included.
The sounds of bats woke me this morning so I was awake rather early, keen as for breakfast and even more keen to have a better day stomach wise today...damn my weak stomach!
We were off to hunt anaconda's today, much to my dismay but it did make for the perfect toilet, so discrete...mmm too much information?!
Wading through knee high mud, through reeds and trees in search of anacondas I wasn't all that impressed with the hot sun beating down upon my already clamy face. The lack of anaconda's, the continual walking, the impending doom that was mosquitos and the water that decided to frustratingly enough enter my boots did not impress me any more... as you can tell I was having a grumpy Hannah day! But things all looked up after about an hour of standing around complaining about the mozzies, the heat and the lack of anaconda's when we saw a cute little owl! Our first piece of fauna, thats if you don't count the ten or twenty cows that were awaiting us when we arrived on the island. After that it seemed like we were on a roll for in quick succession we saw another larger more regal Harry Potter looking owl and shortly after (luckily enough for us) we saw an anaconda. It may have been only a baby but it was an anaconda indeed an anaconda! Never mind the fact that it was no more than a meter long and was half buried under a log, the coolest part about it was the fact it was in a log ready to eat a mouse, which we later found....coool huh?!
Homeward bound for a mid day siesta which we all definitely scoffed over needing and within minutes we were sound asleep like my kids after two hours of talking on school camp.
I was just about to talk about lunch and then my head ached, I think I've eaten too much chocolate today, if that is at all possible and then I was thinking that this jungle trip wasn't all that jungley, in fact it was extremely cruisy; we ate good food, had comfortable non mosquito penatrable beds, more good food, cruisy trips along the very scenic water ways and a vast amount of wildlife to look at and ponder over; how many chickens get killed every day lenny...I mean there has to be some sort of regulation?!
I'm going to fast forward the next bit so I can get to my favourite part....we went fishing for piranha's in the afternoon. I didn't catch any. I almost caught two, but that just doesn't cut it. I blame my very make-shift fishing line (a wooden plank with some fishing line, a blunt hook and a piece of steak that the fish so happily nibbled at until it was all gone....but I guess I can't blame that either because Bisma caught about ten and i think everyone else in the boat caught something at least even if it was a reed. Let's just put it down to lack of skill shall we.
So to the good part....the Dolphins! Oh bless the dolphins. After all becoming frustrated with our lack of ability in catching piranha's that for your information didn't even look like they had big teeth we asked Bisma to take us back to the lodge, albeit slowly. Lucky us, he took us to the place where the dolphins like to hangout, a kind of dolphin playground I guess you could say. Bisma said the dolphins took a liking to him so I guess thats why they took such a liking to us, that or Mossy was right in saying they were attracted to him....what was that people were saying about how dolphins were attracted to those people with disabilities?!
Anyhow to put things very simply, I swam with dolphins! Wild dolphins, not that its anything to brag about but I didn't just swim with them, I was able to touch them, like really reach out and touch them, oh and no biggie but one liked me so much it bit my foot! Yep just like a puppy only it was a rather large wild pink dolphin and yes i had the teeth marks to prove it; not every day you can say that! I guess I should add that after about 30secs of it having a good firm hold on my foot I started to freak a little bit and may have had to bend down and pull it off me and I´m not saying that it did, but after that happened I may just have swam back to the boat absolutely shitting myself and afterwards thought of all sorts of things, like maybe it bit me simply to warn me the big black caymen was coming over, all silly things like that. But the point is, I was playing with a dolphin, whether or not I realised at the time or not and that is pretty cool!
We returned to the lodge absolutely high on life, I mean we had after all just swam with wild dolphins, and you couldn't wipe the smile off my face, so excited!!
Dinner again, obviously and this time a little bit of a later bed time, a few more beers, some tunes courtesy of Dan and Mossy, some card games and of course to top it all off bed time stories about rape whistles and like objects!
A very early morning wake up call from Bisma and I rolled out of bed, we were off to see the sun rise and I couldn't wait. I love that time of morning, it reminds me of the times back at Shadow, waking up in what seemed like the middle of the night to get ready for breakfast. The time of day when nature is at its best, the birds and their songs and the sky at it most beautiful. Those few minutes just before the sun rears its head, you just can't beat it. Admitingly you could have beat this particular morning however only for the thousands of blood sucking mosquitos that were trying to nibble their way through the bottom half of my trousers, and by that I mean my arse. Swatting away like mad men we kind of missed the tanquility of it all, that and the fact that Bisma parked us in about three different places, one behind a bush. However between the mozzies and the stop and start of the motors I did actually see a pretty impressive sunrise between the trees.
Again I was about to mention the last breakfast at the lodge but I couldn't help but be distracted by the the guy Jack is trying to hook up with on Dawson's, not too bad on the eye! so we'll skip that part and move on to the second best part of the trip, the chance to swim with dolphins AGAIN!
After a mid morning siesta in which we all fell asleep; all this sleep seemed to be making us more tired, we got ready to go and swim with our new friends. UNfortunately we were joined by about 5 other boats which I guess was a little overwhelming for the dolphins and so after a couple of touches (I guess i can't complain!) they disappeared to some quieter waters. For those of you who know me I'm not one to give up, and I love swimming, so these two things together I decided to stay in the water, albeit mostly with my toes up somewhere around my neck! Perseverence paid off and after the other boats and their passengers gave up and went back to the lodges the dolphins returned!! I was able to touch them half a dozen more times, pry them away from my feet and chase them around the waters and the boys were lucky enough to actually play with them, like something out of water world. After bringing an empty water bottle into play within seconds of holding onto it the dolphin came up and took it straight out of Sams hands....and a couple of minutes later re surfaced right near Dan, who got the opportunity to play with it also, lucky thing!! All in all, words cannot describe the way it felt to be swimming with wild creatures and there is no way i will ever forget this expereince. It is definitely up there with one of the coolest things I've ever done, actually it is the coolest thing I've ever done. Not many people can say they've had the opportunity let along swam with wild dolphins and I've done it now, twice! This trip into the Pampas is worth it simply for the chance to swim with these incredible animals!
An hour long boat ride back to our awaiting chariot and driver Emilio, almost put me to sleep. The tranquility of this place is unbelievable and the nature; hundreds of species of birds in every direction you look, an abundance of flora, cute as turtles in every direction, you might even be lucky enough to spot the odd set of crocs eyes. If you want to relax this is the place to come, as I said, it truly is a place of tranquility and beauty ahhhhh the wolf pack plus two at one with nature!
Upon return to Rurrenabaque after a very frustrating, hot, dusty trip home on the 3 hour long road we cleaned ourselves off and found a spot at the very appropriately named Mozzie Bar! Oh a hot tip for somewhere to stay, the Santa Ana; very nice, simple accomodation with hot showers and comfy enough beds for only 35 B's.
Between a game of uno, numerous pisco sours, beers and food, good music, many awkward turtles and a very awesome rendition of hey jude at the local karaoke bar where we hung out with the locals speaking spanish (i'll just let you know my ability to speak spanish whilst intoxicated is very good, or so i thought) and a final day chilling out in the pretty cool town that is Rurrenbaque awaiting my flight and you have yourself a 5 day trip to 'the jungle' complete with Welcome to the Jungle playing in almost every bar and a paper plane flight complete with both pilots reading the newspaper, back to Lapaz for an epic only lapaz style party or two.
If you get the chance to go to the jungle, do it! I wish I could have stayed longer and experienced 'la selva' but unfortunately time or money didn't allow (oh the woes of a shoestring traveller)

wolf pack: mossy, dan, tyne, sam, chris, lenny and aaron! thanks guys for letting another lone wolf into the pack even if it was only for a week!

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Photos

the wolf pack
looking good in our hunting anaconda gear!

the gang
high on life after swimming with our dolphin friends

paper plane
the pilots just catching up on the daily news