The pampas tour is the best chance for seeing animals, travelling by motorised canoe along the Rio Beni into the Yacuma grasslands. We´re told we´ll see caiman, turtles and snakes, capybara (the world´s largest rodent), as well as pink river dolphins, monkeys and birds. Now maybe I´m a little naive, but I just didn´t realise how teeming with life it would be. I was expecting to maybe see a couple of each animal at best, having experienced the patient and sometimes fruitless waits of Kenyan safari, but as soon as our boat sets off, it´s like we´ve wandered into the best zoo in the world, ever! Caiman crocodilus, hundreds of them, stand like sentries all along the river bank: literally more of them than you can count. Some, looking like plastic models from Disney´s jungle river
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