Rurrenbaque

Alligator,
originally uploaded by Hol Riz.

We flew out to the Bolivian Amazon Pampas on a small plane which had repaired part of its wing using sellotape and even landed on a grass runway! However this dodgy start was by no means indicitive of the whole 3 day tour. Spending one night in the jungle town of Rurrenbaque we started the tour early setting off in a jeep with a Dutch and an Isralie couple. We took a four hour ride then a boarded a wooden canoe for another four hours up the river to arrive at our ´rustic huts´ where we were to stay the night. The heat was a welcome change from the high altitude cold of La Paz but the mosquitos were not!!

We can honestly say we have never seen such an abundance of wildlife so close as we saw on that river trip, it was amazing. We saw caymens, alligators, monkeys, cappybarras, pink river dolphins, numerous birds and river turtles. The small yellow faced monkeys actually clamoured on to the boat looking for attention as we drifted past some bushes. On our first night we went alligator spotting in the canoe. As they hunt at night nobody wanted to fall in, seeing their red eyes shining back at us under torch light was enough. After seeing more red eyes than we probably wanted to, we floated back down to the camp in the full moon feeling slightly less secure than we had on the way up.

The next day the whole group went anacondor hunting in the long grass. We spread out, hunting individually to cover a wider area, our guide causally told us to grab any snake we see by the tail and we should be fine. Before long we heard a high pitch scream and realised the dutchman had found one. Our guide quickly ran over and held the 3 meter long snake by the tail for us all to see. Then in the evening we went in search of more deadly animals on our trusty canoe, this time pirahna fishing, with chunks of cow meat as bait. The technique involves lobbing the meat into the water on a line and hook, then during the ensuing frenzy of biting bubbles beneath the surface, you wait until you feel a strong tug and quickly pull the fanged fish, still wrigling onto the floor of the canoe (the dutch girl regreted wearing flipflops). Holland caught loads of Pirahnas (one hitting him in the face on its flight from the water) and some huge cat fish to boot, Becky caught a sardine.

On the last day we got up early and swam with pink river dolphins who playfully splashed us and apparantly kept the section of river we swam in free from biting nasties (the alligators stayed on the bank). Then regretfully we took the same incredible river journey back to Rurrenbaque with a few cold beers to ease the pain of leaving. A truly amazing tour.

Love Holland and Becky xx