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Published: September 4th 2008
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Our plane to rurrenbaque
Seamus was in his element! After a frustrating start we finally made it to the Amazon basin. Our flight booked for 6.15am on Friday was finally cancelled after a long wait at La Paz airport. We were gutted so ended up having a burger king to make ourselves feel better! Sadly however it didnt and we suffered afterwards! Met a sound Irish guy though who was also on our flight and so we managed to kill the 5 hour wait by playing cards.
When we were told we definately wouldnt fly we headed back to La Paz and were even more gutted to find our hostel that has been home for the past 5 days was fully booked, as were many other hostels in the area. We ended up staying a hotel that was grim del a grim! The bed clothes looked as though they had never been washed, it appeared it was also home to the Bolivian mafia and to top it all off when I went to have a shower (it advertised hot water 24hours a day!) water came rout the wall on the other side of the wall! In addition the windows didnt fit the frames so we may have well have
The Cock Pit!
This plane was really tiny! bee sleeping on the street!
The next morning it was another 4am start and back to the airport! Met Darren again and waited for our flights. Felt very surreal sitting in exactly the same seats, in the same waiting room at the same time! Very groundhog day! Finally though after only a hours delay we were off on a tiny 18 seater twin propeller plane! Flight was amazing as we literally flew through the moutains! Seamus was in his element givingh me a blow by blow acount of what was going on in the cock pit.....sometimes you´d just rather not know! The plane was enough to make the most hardened flier nervous!
Landing was good and we walked of the plane into a warm climate and back at sea level! It was so nice to be able to breathe again! We were then loaded onto a mini bus to take the ´7min´journey into the town Rurrenabaque. Howewver after 45mins of sitting on the mini bus with no suspension, spines being crushed at every pot hole we did start to wander where we were going. All of Seamus fears of being boiled in a pot by unknown amazonian tribes
people for being the red head devil were starting to surface and he (as was I) very much relieved whe we finally got to the town. Turns out because the weather had been so bad the day before we had landed at an alternative airport an hour away....its always nice to be told these things ;o)
Rurrenbaque was a really lovely little town, right at the foothills of the jungle and on the river. Our hostel which was booked by the tour company was really lovely with a really nice courtyards and plenty of hammocks to relax in (much needed after our trip...its a hard life!). We spent the day wandering around and then delighted to find out two couples (Gav and Claire from Bristol no less!) we had met in our hostel in La Paz were on the same tour as us, so all was good. There is always a danger on the tours you could end up with some absolute freaks (and lets face it with my track record it is perfectly possible!) so always nice to know who you are going with!
The next day we set off o the tour in a 4 x
4 down th same gravel track we drove in on, but this time for 3 hours....welll worth it though because the lodge we were staying at was amazing! We spent the first day on a boat ride dow the river...we didnt actually expect to see many animalks so when we had caimen about a meter away from us we were pretty pleased!
I wont waffle on )if you are reading this you are probably asleep by now!)so I will let the photos speak for themselves, but seeing pink dolphins and fishing for piranahs was definately the highlight! It all felt like a proper holiday!
We headed back to La Paz on Wedneday and then got our first overnight bus to Potosi last night. Now staying in cosy hostel and delighted to find they actually do have hot water as advertised! We feel like we are properly clean for the first time since leaving home and going out for dinner tonight with a girl we met on the dangerous road! Life is good!
Hope all is well with you all back home, stay in touch,
loads of love,
Tash and Seamus x x x
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