The heat of Rurrenabaque

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Day 608 (26.11.08)

Feeling pretty shattered after our long bus trip we wanted to spend the day relaxing and so found oursleves a hostel that came complete with a leafy garden and hammocks to swing in. Having spent so long in the mountains we're not accustomed to the hot and humid weather that greeted us on our arrvial in the lowlands so not doing much suited us perfectly!

Before chilling out we wanted to book up a tour to Las Pampas the grassland savannah of Bolivia's slice of the Amazon Basin. The two main tours that you can do from Rurrenabaque are to the pampas or to the jungle (or both if you wish!) but we'd heard there was far more wildlife to be seen on the pampas tour so that's what we chose.

Within an hour we'd booked a tour and our return bus to La Paz (gluttons for bus punishment!) and were heading back for some quality time in a hammock. The rest of the day was spent in much the same way as we read our books and snoozed.

Food can be gotten cheaply in Bolivia and it's normally cheaper to eat out than to try and make something yourself. However, the cheap menus here come with much the same dishes everywhere you go and sometimes you can get a little bored of vegetable soup followed by chicken with potatoes and rice. We were feeling that boredom today but found that any other eating out options were pretty expensive. Since, with Isabel, there were three of us we figured that we'd be able to buy some produce from the local market and prepare a feast for less than we could all eat out.

We ended up with a massive and delicious salad that also fed us for dinner but as we had no plates we improvised and ate from plastic bags and our frisbee which made an excellent plate!

After dinner we hit the town and visited the two main bars, Monkey Bar and Mosquito Bar where we happened upon cocktail happy hour - what a lucky coincidence!

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