We spent a night in Copacabana, on the Bolivian side of Lake Titicaca. This may be the world´s highest navigable lake but this seems to be inconsistently quoted! As such, it was freezing despite looking nice and sunny. We took a boat trip in the afternoon to Isla del Sol which turned out to be rather depressing! It took about 2 hours to get there - because the boats were slow, not because it was far - and when we got there we realised that we had to leave rather shortly after in order to get back in time. This resulted in us having a grand total of 25 minutes on the island. We had to pay to get on the island, we sat and ate our packed lunch which we had picked up, and then we got on a different boat to go back. This is the worst day trip we´ve taken so far (possibly EVER!).

We left the next day heading for the Bolivian capital, La Paz. Neither of us felt particularly well but decided to travel anyway. We tried to sleep the whole way but this was not made very easy thanks to the ferry crossing and windy, bumpy roads for the entire 5 hours.

La Paz was a busy, noisy city and we only had a day there before hopping on another bus for Santa Cruz (The hostel we stayed in here had 2 pet toucans!). We did, however, fit in a pie dinner in an English bar to make up for feeling poorly! After a few more long bus journeys, we ended up in the Pantanal. This is a region in Western Brazil which is claimed to be the most biodiverse region in South America, if not the world. We were staying at a lodge with organised activities over 4 days.

The first day just consisted of getting across the border into Brazil and travelling to the lodge. The company had arranged for someone to come and help us get there okay (he told us his name was Ronnie Anaconda!!). Once there, we had an afternoon to relax before the activities started the next day. There was a pool, loads of hammocks and a well stocked bar so we had plenty to entertain us.

On the first morning, we went on a boat trip up a nearby river. It was awesome! Within a few minutes we saw groups and groups of caimans (like a croc/alligator) on the riverbank and swimming along beside us. There were also capybaras (world´s largest rodent), herons (one kind of which is the biggest bird in South America), kingfishers, iguanas, jungle raccoons, toucans, parrots and we also saw a tapir, which apparently is a really rare sight. Hopefully the photo´s will show all of this!

We also did a jeep safari, which entailed being thrown around in the back of an old, large, rusty, dusty truck. We saw more of the same and hawks and macaws.

The following day we went horseriding. This was quite an entertaining morning as some of the horses were quite determined in what they wanted to do. Phil had never ridden before and was slightly apprehensive about it. This was not helped when he was told that his horse was ´to stay at the back as it liked to attack other horses and was bossy´. I don´t think this calmed him. Justin, a guy we had met on the trip, was on the smallest horse and it was completely in charge of him. It looked ridiculous as his feet were barely off the floor and yet he was being dragged around at the horse´s whim!

We just did a 2 hour trek on the surrounding farmland, but did not see much wildlife as the animals can hear/smell the horses coming a mile off. However, we did see an armadillo. Everyone returned safe (but with sore backsides) and I´m not convinced that Phil wants to do it ever again.

We did a trek through the jungle, and saw an armadillo, the raccoon creatures, monkeys and deer. We also saw a snake but we were assured it was not dangerous (which was good to know seeing as we were all in flip flops and shorts!).

We went piranha fishing during one afternoon. We were dropped on the narrow river bank by the boats and given a simple rod (bamboo, wire, hook) and some bait (a big lump of beef parts). It did not take long to feel them biting at the bait but most of the time they would have eaten it before we´d realised they were anywhere near the hook! Phil caught 4 fish (3 piranhas and the smallest fish in the world) and I caught 3 (2 piranhas and the second smallest fish in the world). We then used the little fish as bait to fish with. Whilst fishing, several caimans were in the water near us and one actually came on the riverbank with us at one point (it was taking a fancy to a large bird), which was rather surreal. They are (thankfully) quite wary of people so we were able to scare them back in to the water. They were simply waiting for our leftovers, a bit like dogs waiting for scraps! We saw them eat a few piranhas which were given to them though and you can hear their teeth crush the piranhas without any trouble. It was amazing how close we were to them and how relaxed the locals were. We have some photo´s which we took literally a foot from a caimans head!

That evening, our fish catch was prepared for dinner and we all ate the piranhas we had caught with lime and a large caipirinha (Brazilian cocktail).

Needless to say the whole Pantanal trip was amazing. We were gutted we didn´t see a jaguar and Phil (alone) was gutted he didn´t see a huge spider or a huge snake. They get them quite commonly there so I personally was rather grateful for this!

We are now in Campo Grande, a small place which serves as a gateway to the Pantanal. We are about to get on another overnight bus (our 5th or 6th so far!!) to Sao Paulo for a night. We~ve heard it´s rather built up so we are planning on having a few days on the beaches of Paraty before we make it to Rio on the 23rd.

We´re both really looking forward to some time relaxing on a beach as we have had a lot of late nights, long bus rides and early mornings. We´ve only just realised how close Christmas is now. It is not such a big deal out here so we´d forgotten about it. We imagine it´s rather hectic at home right now and it´s quite nice to be out of the hype for once!

Will write again soon.

Lots of love

Ali and Phil xxx