How to put a crocodile to sleep

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We learnt that if you want to put a crocodile to sleep you lay it on its back and stroke its tummy and very quickly it will be fast asleep! We saw it for ourselves. Our little croc, named Rambo 2 (since our guide was Rambo 1) was fast asleep within seconds, dead still with its legs sprawled out. I wondered if we had killed it, but then our guide called out to little Rambo 2 and woke him from his slumber and he was all wriggly. So there you go!... when you are chased by a crocodile a great defense tactic is to put it to sleep. Though it would probably be a good idea to take into account the size of the croc when you undertake this manoeuvre.

We spent three days in the wetlands (pampas) in the Amazon Basin with 3 Hungarians and our tour guide (who promised us 100% adventure). We cruised down a river spotting many crocs, alligators and caymans on the river banks as well as many amazing birds, turtles, monkeys, pink dolphins and these giant-guinea-pig-type animals. We spent a morning trying to find ourselves an anaconda but to no avail. The guide got us to split up and scout the ground but I was not quite sure whether I wanted to startle an unsuspecting anaconda - being not quite sure what the results might be - the alternative of warning any snakes with noise/vibrations seemed a lot less risky!

Instead I managed to walk into a branch and then a few seconds later heard some yelping from behind me. I turned around to find James being attacked by some infuriated bees and then the unsuspecting Hungarian also walked into the action. We all ran like crazy but all managed to get stung. Both James and the Hungarian got stung under the eye which caused some nice swelling. So we managed to get our quota of 100% adventure even without finding an anaconda.

One of the activities during the tour was to swim with the pink dolphins. Our guide took us to a spot where we saw a big croc slide down the bank and into the river. Then our guide happily declared 'it's swimming time'. I was thinking... hmmm, yeah right, there's a croc somewhere down there and there's no way I'm swimming! There was an all round lack of enthusiasm so our guide went a little upriver to another pink dolphin hang out spot where there were no crocs sunbathing on the river banks. We went swimming (or more accurately described as a quick dip) with the pink dolphins, crocs and piranhas (there are many, many piranhas in that river)... James perservered and waited for the pink dolphins to come swim with him. Within 5 mins there was a rush of movement beside him and a pink dolphin swam past... at the time he wasn't quite sure whether it was a croc or pink dolphin so there was some quite colourful language spoken!

The adventure didn't finish when the tour came to an end. Our flight back to La Paz was cancelled because it was raining and the grass runway in Rurrenabaque quickly becomes unsafe. So we had to take the 18 hour bus ride back which turned into 21 hours. At one point we were going around a corner and the bus slid on the muddy dirt road and came to a halt precariously close to the edge... i.e. we were centimetres from having a 200% adventure of a lifetime! The lean of the bus caused a wave of panic through the bus... although James and I were surprisingly calm (attributed to consuming sleeping pills 30 mins prior to the incident) and meanwhile Lois was weighing up jumping out the bus window. We all managed to get off the bus safely via the door and the bus driver and his team got to work get the bus out of the fix. About this time the sleeping pills kicked in and I was seriously considering sleeping on the side of the road. After about an hour we were back on the road, praying that the rest of the drive would be 0% adventure!

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Photos

Cruising down river
From front: James, the 3 Hungarians, Rob & Lois and Rambo (the guide)

The anaconda hunters
Shirts courtesy of the tour company