Amazon Jungle
Trip Start
Apr 02, 2006
1
15
24
Trip End
Sep 18, 2006
Rurrenabaque, Bolivia
Thursday, May 4, 2006
A guy we met said he´d tried toget that bus yesterday but it got 2km doewn the road (this is after being ´fixed´) and had broken down. But our journey was fine, peppered with a couple of coca checkpoints. Even though the guy next to me had a massive bag of coca with him which was stinking, the military didnt seem to mind that. not too sure what they were doing really.
Arrived in the morning, first time in 3 weeks i´d been below 3000m and it felt great. Got staright on a tour to the Pampas (a flooded wetalnd area) where we saw Alligators, toucans, the worlds biggest rodent, monkeys, vultures etc etc etc. Oh and piranha (quite tasty too). When the guides left Id bee´n watching how they baited the alligators so, bread roll in hand, i decided to call one over. Got some great video footage of it and a monkey coming for the bread (and surviving). It was between 5 and 6ft long and a pretty impressive creature. The mosquitos at night swarmed everywhere. Not nice and the insect repellant I brought was no match. Need to find some DEET. After a couple of days of boating around looking for stuff and lying in hammocks, we headed back to town and then the rainforest, which was a bit disappointing as there wasnt much to see there other than some massive spider webs, warthogs, which our guide insisted on bounding through the forest after even though they let of the most awful stench to dissuade predators. Also made a ring out of something resembling a walnet. Quite pleased with it even though its not 100% finished.
Headed back to town, a really cool place, my favourite so far, with great bars and you seem to know ewveryone even after a couple of days. Great fish as well. Al headed back on the bus (20hrs again) whilst i stayed an extra night and took the 45min flight home the next day, even though they´re often cancelled, and more worryingly, i found out after booking that the reason they had been grounded whilst we went to Rurre was that twice the week before the plane had to make an emergency landing somewhere on the way. I´m still in one piece though.
