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Published: August 31st 2008
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Hello Mr Caiman
I'm watching you La Pampas is part of the wetlands of the Amazon. After a high quality flight from La Paz to the very chilled out town of Rurrenabaque (where I couldn't have put my seat up even if I'd wanted to, and there was no safety announcement to sleep through - still - better than a 20 hour bus journey) there was a four hour 4WD trip to the Rio Yacuma where we boarded our little river boat. 'Twas a beautiful sunny afternoon and we managed to procure some cold beers which made for a most enjoyable afternoon on the boat admiring all the wildlife.
The beauty of La Pampas is that there's just so much wildlife; five minutes into the boat trip and we saw our first caiman. Click click click went the camera not realising we'd see 30 or 40 over the next few hours. They seemed quite placid - our guide got out and patted one on the nose to prove the point - but occasionally they snap (causing Russell to attempt to dive out the other side of the boat - most amusing he he he).
We saw capybaras (giant rodents, cute in a stupid-looking sort of
Turtles sitting on a log,
ready for a quick getaway into the water in the blink of an eye (or the click of a camera!) way), turtles (who like to hang out on large twigs protruding from the water which makes for a quick getaway into the water in case of emergency), capuchin monkeys, red howler monkeys and squirrel monkeys, about 20 of which came leaping through the tree towards the boat. "Wow, that's incredible!" I thought, until I realised the guide was holding out a banana. Big fat cheat. (Though can't complain from a photo-taking point of view). Saw loads of different birds, perched high up in the trees or wading by the river banks. One had just caught itself a tasty fish and was having some difficulty swallowing as it wriggled around. Another looked a bit like a turkey, called a Southern Screamer. I likened this to a cocktail; Russ likened it to a porn star name. Hmmm.
The accomodation was quite basic - mini 4-poster beds (aka mosquito nets), cold showers and not the best plumbing in the world. Our first evening's activity was caiman spotting in the dark - not as scary as it sounds - their eyes reflect the light and look like little pairs of stars, dotted along the riverbank (but you always know there's a big scary
Squirrel monkey
not as cute as Warra though mouth full of teeth lurking behind the pretty stars). The following morning was anaconda hunting. I guess it depends on your idea of fun really - wading up to knee deep in mud and water, trying not to lose your wellies in the mud, looking for snakes - not the sort of activity that immediately comes to mind. There must have been about 30 or 40 people from various tour groups stomping around looking for anaconda - if I was an anaconda, I'd have long scarpered. At one point walking through grass taller than me, no sight of my group and not a hope in hell of seeing through the jumbled undergrowth as to what I was stepping I couldn't help but question whether I actually wanted to find one. Would you? After two or three hours marching around the swamps, we did find a small-ish one, and noone was attacked, phew. Russell was brave enough to hold it but I satisfied myself with a quick touch.
That afternoon was piranha fishing. The concept is quite simple. They eat meat. Dangle some meat in the water - they bite - you catch. Easy. Or so you would think. Couldn't
catch one of the little buggers to save my life. I came to the conclusion that if I am ever stranded in the Amazon, short of food, but happen to have a bit of steak lying around, I would probably do better just to eat the steak rather than try and catch some piranhas. Lunchtime beer-drinking took its toll which meant hopping ashore and braving the caiman to use nature's facilities. A couple of piranha were caught (by fisher people far more skilled than me) which we sampled at dinner time (worry not - our evening's nourishment was not dependent on the day's catch) and I can hereby report that they just tasted like regular fish. All washed down with a bottle of Bolivia's finest wine......not as bad as you might imagine! A Romanian girl in the group then made a desert for us all which her mum used to make for her during the communist years - powdered chocolate, powdered milk mixed with a spot of water!
The final activity was swimming with the pink dolphins which inhabit part of the river. Sounds delightful does it not? Apart from the large number of very excitable piranha jumping into
Capybara
Far cuter than a regular rat the boat (clearly a far better piranha-fishing spot) and the several caiman dotted along the banks. We made an executive decision not to swim with the dolphins (although two brave people did, and got nibbled by the piranha - not quite the James Bond-style attack we expected).
Spent one night in Rurrenabaque where we made the mistake of ordering 'riverfish' for dinner. A bit vague really in hindsight. The next day, two very sick people had to catch a flight, spent three hours in La Paz bus station then catch a six-hour bus to Copacabana. (Had to dig deep into the pharmaceuticals that day!)
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