2nd - 4th August 2007

We took a tour out of La Paz to the Pampas near Rurrenbaque with Inca Land Tours. Rurrenbaque is a 16 hour bus journey from La Paz, which includes travelling on the "Worlds Most Dangerous Road" at night. We decided it would be a better idea to get a flight, they were pretty cheap anyway. So we got the agency to jack up a flight for us, and we were due to leave from out hotel at 5:30am on the Thursday. However this is Bolivia and as we were beginning to understand travelling never quite goes to plan. On the wednesday night the phone rang in our hotel room at about 11:00 pm, scaring the shit out of both of us. It was the agency, the flight had been canceled but it was all ok they had arranged a private flight with a smaller plane, now leaving from our hotel at 8:00am. Great! We got picked up and driven to the airforce base, where we soon learnt that the agency owner was good friends with the general and could therefore get us a nice little 5 seater plane to get us to Rurrenbaque. This didn´t install us with confidence, we hung out in the nice little lounge area with a English/Irish couple fretting while we watched a police hostage/rescue simulation on TV to the theme tune of Titanic, which was actually happening down the road from us, hence why the main road was closed and it was a nightmare getting to the airport. Before we took off one of the pilots turned around and gave us the thumbs up sign, this seemed to be the pre-flight safety check, our confidence took another nose dive. The scenary on the flight was fantastic. Within an hour we flew over 6000m mountains and down in to the lowland jungles that sat in the valley below La Paz. We landed safely and were all relieved to be on firm ground again. As soon as we got of the plane we were greeted by a humid hotness that we hadnt felt since Asia, but boy did it feel good to be in the heat again. Our arrival coincided with yet more Bolivian disorganisation as the vehicle they had laid on for us was not big enough, so we had to wait for a wreck of a van to turn up and take the 9 of us on the tour on the 3 hour rough ride to the start of the river journey. The road was Cambodian standard bad, just a dust track with pot holes and cattle wondering on to the track. The dust made it unbearable and we all finished the journey looking like Casper the Ghost. After 3 hours and a nice little lunch stop we reached the river for the start of our 3 hour boat trip. This was amazing, cruising down the Benni River on a longtail boat piloted by our guide, Carlos. There was so much wildlife here, Caimans on every corner of the river bank and Carlos would take us so close to them, you could touch their heads, if you were stupid enough. A few jumped in to the water as we got closer, and Glen felt that he had not brought along enough underpants for this. There loads of Tortoises, hudled together on branches, lots of huge birds in their even bigger nests, and cheeky little monkeys that came aboard our boat as Carlos fed them a bananna. After seeing sunset whilst driving along in the boat we arrived at our camp for the night ´Mosquito Camp 3´, aptly named as we all got bitten to buggery within hours off getting of the boat. This was a pretty cool place, all the buildings were on stilts connected by wooden walkways. There was a dining room, showers, and a big dorm room that the 9 of us shared for the 2 nights, along with hammocks hanging outside. We settled down for dinner after a shower and got to know the group. There were 2 German girls on school holidays, a Hungarian couple called, a French couple and a crazy mexican. We instantly warmed to the Hungarian couple who were excellent at English and Glen took to the crazy Mexican. The French couple seem to have the typical "hate the English" stance and weren´t very impressed with us as we couldnt speak much Spanish or French. They were at times frosty. That night after dinner with went out on the boat looking for Caimans. It was about 9:00pm and bloody pitch black, the sky was amazing and lit up with stars, we´ve never seen anything like it before. This was an amazing experience and really good fun. We all sat in the boat whilst Carlos transported us down the river and then cut out the engine, we had to row with our paddles from now on, which made it even more spooky. We spotted quite a few Caimans on the shores of the river, their eyes lit up with the torch light. After being spooked by Carlos who kept on throwing sticks in the water to surprise us, we went back to the dorm and got some sleep all pretty knackered. The next day we were up for breakfast at 7:30am for another massive spread of food, yum yum. We then got back into the boat and travelled down river in the wellies we had been given for the trip, and disembarked into the pampas for our stroll to find Anacondas. This was a bit freaky and at times a bit tedious. Basically we spent about 3 hours in the heat walking through long grass up to our waist and around mud pools looking for bloody snakes. Which to be honest none of us probably wanted to see anyway in the circumstances. We had had a 5 minute safety breifing from Carlos before we got into the long grass (which was in Spanish anyway so we couldn´t understand) which consisted of Carlos drawing the heads of snakes in the dirt with a stick and shouting "toxic" a lot. Glen tried to ask him where the nearest anti venom was, Carlos just laughed. Marvellous! We did eventually spot an Anaconda, Glen actually found it. Being so petrified of snakes he had taken a keen interest in looking very carefully for them in the grass and managed to spot one about 3 feet infront of him. After a quick shout Carlos was over with the rest of the group and we all stood around looking at it as it swam off in the waterhole. Carlos seemed relieved we had found one and patted Glen on the back calling him Amigo, and we headed off back to the boat to get back to the camp for lunch. After lunch we went Dolphin spotting, there are hundreds of pink dolphins that hang around in the rivers in the Amazon. They spotted us and would come out of the water about 100m ahead, just teasing us. Carlos was getting really frustrated as he wanted us to swim with them, but they were not playing. After half an hour Carlos stopped the boat, tied it to a tree and shouted, "ok, swimming". The thought of swimming in this muddy brown river full of Caimans, Piranhas and bird pooh, didn´t appeal at first, but after Agosh, the Hungarian chap jumped in, Glen gritted his teeth and thought of England, there he was in his trolleys swimming in the Amazon Basin. It was pretty unscary once in there and quite refreshing after being sat on the boat all day. The current was so strong, swimming against it was almost impossible. Sal understandably declined to swim, to scared she may be mistaken for a small cow by a Caiman and have her ass chewed. The day was rounded off excellently with a visit to "Sunset Bar", yes you´ve guessed it for sunset. This was a 3 storey bamboo shack which had a top floor viewing platform facing west out over the Pampas. We sat there with a bottle of beer each watching the sunset over the Pampas, really amazing. The English/Irish couple Gary and Kelly who we had met on the plane turned up too (they were on the same tour as us but started it a day later) and we had a great time chatting as the sun went down. We stocked up on beer and headed back to the camp on the boat for tea quite tipsy. After dinner we had a bonfire, Carlos handed out some cheap horrible Bolivian wine and we sat getting our arses bitten by mosys. The next morning we went back to the Pampas to watch the sunrise at about 6am. We stood in a line facing east for half an hour looking like we were waiting for the firing squad. After the sun had decided to make an appearance, we headed back for some breaky, which consisted of lots of sweet, fried batter bits and pieces accompanied by a glass of hot cinnamon rice pudding. Very bizzare. We then headed back out on the boat, and did a spot of Piranha fishing, where we both caught the square root of F all. The Hungarians did very well, but unfortunately so did the French. After all of this excitement we ended up eating them for lunch and couldn´t resist playing with the carcasses once we finished chewing on them, pulling their jaws open, making funny voices and other such childish antics. This rounded off a fantastic tour, before heading back on the river and dusty road (which this time came complete with flat tyre) to Rurrenbaque. Our flight was the next morning, so that night we met up with Manuel the Mad Mexican (this guy likes his beer!) and Monica and Agosh the Hungarian couple. We all had some food and beer and swapped stories about home for the rest of the evening. Rurrenbaque was a lovely troipical town and so different to everywhere else we have been so far in S.America. It is like Asia but with butcher women.