Victoria and Justin: Welcome to the Jungle

Our journey to the 'jungle' started after 2 rescheduled flights (only one we were told about), two trips to the airport and one hell of a hangover. Flights often get rescheduled because the landing strip in Rurrenbaque (the entrance to the Bolivian jungle) is only grass, so when it rains the runway is too slippery for planes to land. We flew on a 19 seater plane, you could see straight into the cockpit. The flight to Rurrenbaque was uneventful, the flight back to La Paz a different story, lots of wind and the plane was doing crab moves in the sky. The pilots looked very relaxed whilst the passengers were holding on for dear life.

One thing that needs clarifying is, we didn't really go to the jungle (that is what people generally call it), we went to the Pampas (wetlands) along the Yucuma River that feeds the Amazon River.

We arrived in Rurrenbaque on Friday morning at 7am. We had 2 hours to find a tour, which we managed to do after visiting about 10 tour agencies, all with varying prices. It was very frustrating as it is hard to tell the difference between them all. Our tour group consisted of 4 other Aussies, a South Africian and a guy from Japan. We were in our jeep at 9.30am and on the road (a dirt road for 3 hours) to where our boats would take us up the river.

The boat ride to our accomodation was amazing, so much bird life but way too many alligators for my liking. We meet a troop of squirrel monkeys along the river, they jumped on our boat (no doubt looking for food) and put on a good show for us, there was about 20 of them in total, cute little creatures. As mentioned the bird life was sensational, to list a few, we saw: tiger herons, amazon kingfishers, flycatchers, great kiskadees, southern screamers, cardinals and a toucan. The boat ride took us about 3 hours and we arrived just in time for afternoon tea. The accomodation was pretty average, 8 of us in one room, but the food was pretty good considering we were in the middle of no where.

Morning of day 2 it was time to search for Anaconda's. We headed to the savanna and walked about 3 hours in search of what I thought would be a huge Anaconda (like the one you see in the movies). I was slightly disappointed when I only saw a 2 metres long anaconda which was very skinny. As it is the dry season, there is not a lot of food so they don't eat much and therefore get very skinny. The older they get, the longer and thicker they get. We headed back to camp and had a pretty lazy afternoon snoozing in hammocks, it is very hot, mid 30's.

At 3pm it was time to go swimming with the 'pink dolphins. Apparently the alligators don't like the dolphins, so it is safe to swim. Should we really believe the locals? Half of our group swam, I didn't, the thought of jumping into brown murky water and not knowing what was underneath was way too scary for me. Thankfully everyone survived! We then headed to a local football pitch, where the boys played football with the locals as we watched the the sunset. On our way back to camp, it was pitch black on the river, so it was time for some alligator spotting. With a spot light, the eyes of the alligator's light up, I lost count after the first 20. Another successful day.

Day 3 and our pampas trip was coming to an end, but one last activity, Piranha fishing, we baited up some fishing wire with meat and threw our lines in, incredibly the piranha's started biting immediately. Slippery little suckers, most of our bait was taken without catching one of them. In the end 3 people in our group caught 4 -10cm's long piranha's, so very small and they were all thrown back in to the river (no doubt for the next tour group to torment).

We then headed back down the river to be met by our jeeps back to Rurrenbaque. There was a Bolivia/Brazil football match on at 4pm so we made it back in record time, not necessarily a good thing. We headed to the 'Mosquito Bar', very suitable considering there were way too many mosquitos lurking around, and met up with some mates, got quite drunk (suprise suprise) and passed out in bed at 1am. Our flight out of Rurrenbaque was at 1pm the next day. An amazing 3 days and would recommend it to anyone coming to Bolivia!