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Written by Gali:
After hearing amazing recounts from fellow travelers we were all super excited for the Bolivian portion of the Amazon. As the first part of our excursion from Rurrenabaque we headed to Las pampas for 3 days & 2 nights. The word literally translates to swamps or a more appropriate term would be wetlands.
Our tour guide, Ronny, was great, he was able to spot the wildlife from miles away, for this reason we nicknamed him Eagle-Eye-Ronny. Our accommodation was laid out in a serene setting...little wooden huts in the middle of nowhere accompanied with the bare minimums...a toilet, cold shower (which was welcomed after the heat of the Amazon), the showers also included HUUUUGE beetles (this all added to the experience), mosquito net covered beds and hammocks to chill out on.
We spent a lot of time on the boat scoping out our beautiful surroundings-plants, and loads of animals (birdies, all sorts of monkeys, dolphins, turtles, sloths, crocodiles, caymans and this huge beaver like thing that’s solely found in South America and much more...).
We woke up at the crack of dawn the second day to go on the hunt for anacondas, yes anacondas!!
We trudged through the densest marshes for 3 hours in rain boots with water and muck up to our mid calves and reeds two times our height...It was pretty intense not to mention the fact that we were searching for snakes! We were successful and found an anaconda (Ronny deserves the credit for the finding) which was massive, about 3 meters in length. Our guide also spotted a couple of cobras but they slithered away before he could grab hold of them.
We witnessed two beautiful sunsets (see pictures), attempted to fish for piranhas, Seth was determined but was unsuccessful, however to his credit he did catch a sardine, yay! Dani managed to catch a toothy piranha with the help of eagle eye Ronny. I was unsuccessful, don’t care too much for live fish and not too keen on the idea of baiting with raw meat...
One of the nights we took the boat out and went searching for crocodiles, boating in the pitch dark using only our flashlights as a source of light to identify the sharp toothed reptile by their glowing red eyes, we spotted many!!!!
All in all this was an awesome excursion and
Anaconda!
Gali, Sethdefinitely a big step for Dani and I in terms of being in the wild with all these creepy crawly things… a small price to pay for such beautiful surroundings and great adventures.
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Mommy Nora
non-member comment
You all certainly look very comfortable with that snake. I can't believe how much you are going out of your comfort zones in taking on all these adventures. Dani, Dad will be so happy to have you home so you can look after all those spiders in the basement. Be safe, and do it all!!! xoxox