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Published: July 14th 2016
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I took a tiny flight from (19 passenger plane) La Paz to Rurrenabaque, which landed right in the warm tropical jungle. The smell reminded me of Fiji and the hot warm air was a nice welcome to cold high altitude La Paz. The town itself is a nice small town that really has been expanded due to the tourists visiting Bolivias jungle or pampas- open area like a delta, but where all the animals are. The hotel was nice and simple but welcome and warm. I went out for some food that evening after finding out more information about my tour. Whilst sitting outside eating a pizza, two small kids decided they wanted some of my pizza. I didn’t mind, but then they decided to come back again for more, which was a little annoying. After having most of a sort of tea I headed back to the hotel to get ready for the early start. The first day of the pampas tour I met the rest of our small group, two elderly Bolivians and two Aussies- around my age, which was good. We had actually briefly met them in the hot springs on the
salt flats tour, travelling can be a small world. Most of the tour companies offer the same tour, so often you meet up with the different tours at different stages, albeit activities, the boat and accommodation is all separated. We took a 3hr landcruiser ride on dusty unmade roads into the start of the pampas. On the dusty road we saw a sloth which was amazing and handy that they move so slow as it took us ages to see him. Then there was another 3hrs by canoe/ boat. We saw so many animals, from spider and howler monkey to stalks, herons, kingfishers, cormorants, snake birds- birds that look like snakes when they are in the water, lots of local Amazonian birds as well as crocodiles as far as they eye could see. Crocodiles here are like pigeons in UK cities, there are literally 100’s of them along the river bank. We finally arrived at our accommodation, built on stilts, at first you’d think it would be to stop flood waters but it’s also useful protection against crocodiles, possibly. We headed to the sunset bar, where all tour groups meet and then we took a night boat to see crocodiles
at night, as well as chill out and watch the stars, whilst floating back down the river. Our next day started with a crazy trudge through the pampas in search of anacondas. Fortunately we didn’t see any, but we did see baby crocs, to which our guide said that the mothers may be around here and this would be when they are at their most aggressive!! The pampas at this time of year are full of water and you are trudging through very thick mud and pond like waters that are often knee deep, you get extremely wet here, but it means you have no way of running if you meet a crocodile! Luckily we were fine and there were no mother crocs. We then needed a chill and a change after that before heading out to go piranha fishing. Me, being veggie didn’t do this but it was interesting to see piranhas up close even though I don’t support the fishing of them. Amazingly before this however we were lucky enough to see the pink river dolphins. Totally unique are the dolphins to the Amazon. The day
before set us up nicely to see more dolphins. We were able to go swimming with them too, at first it is extremely nerve wracking as you see crocodiles surrounding you, but our guide was very relaxed and said, don’t worry they are mostly only active at night. Crazily enough I got in! Shortly after getting in the brown Amazon water, I felt a nudge on the back of my leg and panicked thinking it was a crocodile. It was in fact the nose of a pink river dolphin. Eventually someone else in our group came in and we swam with them for a bit, one slid right next to me and I felt it on my leg and side, again worried it may be a croc! We then swam for a bit with the boat next to us and saw another group- all of them in the water but very close to the bank where a massive black cayman crocodile was watching them. At that point we thought, yep we’ve done well and got out. Crazily though one of the girls in the other group decided to swim towards it- the croc didn’t do anything but it was a
very risky move. Crocodiles are extremely fast in the water so if you annoy it, you have no chance.We then headed back out of the pampas, the water level had already dropped by 0.5m in the 3 days we had been there. It was then my last night in Rurrenabaque before getting a flight the next day. The flight was delayed by a few hours, so I didn’t manage to get back until later, just in time for a meal and catch up with Sarah in a Swiss restaurant, complete with fondue. We headed up to El Alto on the cable car to get an awesome view of the city before getting a bus to Copacabana, on Lake Titicaca, close to the Peru border.
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