Sun, Sea, and Sand-wiches: In the jungle and pampas

Ever trying to save a bit of cash we thought we´d take the 18 hour coach ride to Rurrenabaque rather than the 1 hour flight, a choice we regretted! The journey was the hottest and bumpiest ever, it was like sitting on a washing machine for hours, plus we had a screaming baby next to us!

Rurrenabaque is where you leave for the jungle and pampas tours. It´s a very laidback place cause it´s too hot to exert yourself in any way, we spent our time in the town searching for breeze and ice lollies! The muggy heat was a real contrast to the climates we had been experiencing for the past two months and took a bit of getting used to.

We booked a three day pampas tour with Fluvia, which is the longest running tour company, so we thought they would know what they were doing. 7 of us got into a Jeep for a three hour dusty, bumpy ride to the rio yacuma river where a basic wooden canoe met us to take us on a three hour boat ride. (I could hardly feel my arse aferwards!) to our camp.

As soon as we were in the water we saw crocodiles and aligators lurking everywhere, plus cabybarra and loads of different birds. It was amazing to be so close to the wildlife in their natural habitats and they seemed totally uninterested in us chugging along the river. The monkeys were a different story, attracted by the bananas the guides got out, a load of yellow monkeys jumped on board the boat and ran over everyone.

We got to our wooden camp and had tea and biscuits! Then it was back on the boat for a trip to the Sunset Bar for a beer. All very civilized. On the way back we all had our flash lights out searching out the red eyes of the alligators.

It was so hot at night under the mossie night as there was literally no air but there was no way i was going to sleep anywhere else and risk being biten loads. The sounds from all the animals kept me awake for a while and at one point i was convinced i was hearing an alligator in camp but my imagination was definitely working overtime!

We were woken up just before 6am so we could walk to a spot to see the sun rise. I´ve never seen such a pink sun. Back to camp for outdoor showers which were wonderfully cold and a buffet breakfast, I could get used to jungle life! After food we all got into the boat, we were off to search for snakes in the savana wetland areas (which weren´t wet due to it being the dry season). After walking through woods and dried out rivers we found quite a few anacondors and cobras hiding in trees. I spotted a bright green thing which looked like a snake curled in the bottom of the tree, on second glance i thought it might be a plastic rope so i was just about to poke it with a stick when we were all called over to look at something. Good job I didnt as our guide Fernando told us it was a very poisonous snake!

After lunch and some dozing in the hammocks it was back on the boat, this time we were going fishing for pirranhas! Having never fished before i was looking forward to the experience...and beginners luck caught me my first, and probably last, pirranha which was served up for dinner later.

Day 2 and we got up early again to go ´swimming with pink dolphins´. You actually just swim in the vacinity of dolphins but it´s still pretty cool when they are jumping all around you. After an early lunch it was back in the boat for the three hour trip back to the jeep to take us to Rurre. It was amazinly peaceful floating down the river watching all the animals about their business, i never would have thought that we would have been so pampered in the pampas!