Piranhas and Birthdays

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I have successfully survived the pantanal...which was really good...it was yet another mini bus to get us there....followed by a truck to take us further in to where we were staying...

we stayed in one massive barn ' everyone in hammocks...which was fun, altho def. brought out the schoolkid mentality in everybody as the first night was spent listening to fart and snoring jokes, giggling and finished off by someone vomiting onto the concrete floor...which was particularly pleasant...

it was quite an active few days...started off by doing a 2 hour horse trek thru the wetlands...which was all fine apart from the time when i allowed my horse to bite one of my new found friends...

then came the piranha fishing - which involved standing up to one´s waist in a piranha infested swamp...apparently hollywood has been lying to me all these years and piranha infested water is perfectly safe...well reasonably...i´m not sure what was most disturbing - feeling piranha brush past my legs or the cayman alligators which were about a metre away just staring at me...

despite these dangers i managed to catch myself some birthday dinner...of piranha soup - which was very nice..

the rest of the group had also organised balloons,a card, some barbie party hats and the biggest cake in the world...which was lovely of them...and several cocktails were drunk by the bonfire whilst some locals sang a version of barbie girl...all in all a great birthday...

after the pantanal there was some minor confusion...as due to political stuff in bolivia it was unclear as to whether we could cross the border, or go to where we had planned or take a particular train etc....after a particularly rushed border crossing we were hurried onto a plane and flew to santa cruz...

santa cruz is pretty unremarkable...but we had a good time ata waterpark and go-carting...

another flight this morning brought me to sucre - the capital of bolivia...which i am so far very impressed with...and hopefully will be able to do a fair few activities over the next few days..

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