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jess and jule left early the next morning cos they had a boat tour booked up to rurre in the north, but i had decided to back myself and take the bus of death (the australian guy told me a truck had fallen off it down a cliff two weeks earlier), mainly because im cheap and probably a bit silly. it didnt start particularly well - i had just settled into my seat when some bint came and ranted at me that i was in her seat. i ranted back for a bit and showed her that i clearly had the right ticket for the seat, but then it turned out that someone had cleverly sold us both tickets for the same seat. so she went at ranted at someone else for a bit, then came back claiming that my ticket was for another bus. i knew she was wrong and told her i was staying put, but then the fat woman next to me started agreeing with her and ranted at me as well. farce. eventually i got up and went to rant at some employees (accidently throwing cookies everywhere in the process), and eventually found one who cared enough to go and do something about it. luckily he came back having decided that i was in the right seat after all, and sent the woman somewhere else. this turned out to be a short lived victory however, as i then realised that the fat woman next to me was fatter than i had thought, and probably didnt like me very much as i had been ranting and throwing cookies around. she took this out on me by falling asleep and snoring pretty much constantly for the 20 hour journey, whilst rubbing her sweaty self all over me the whole whole way. seriously, people who take up two seats on a bus should be made to pay for two seats, so antisocial.

anyway, the scenery for the first part of the journey made up for any discomfort, absolutely amazing, similar to that along the death road but it was good to be able to look at it without having to concentrate on avoiding big rocks and trying to stay on a bike. unfortunately the road was also similar to the death road, although this one still had two way traffic on it. which meant every now and then we would come tearing round a hairpin bend and come face to face with another vehicle, slam on the brakes, then one of us (usually my bus) would have to reverse back around a blind corner on the edge of a mountain, on a very narrow and crumbly road with a 900m drop on one side. terrifying, quite frankly. there was definately some teetering on more than one occasion. also had to wait for about 20 mins at one point because a jcb was busy clearing a big landslide up ahead. reassuring. luckily we somehow made it down to the valley floor in one piece, then had about 12 more hours driving through the jungle, which luckily was mostly flat as it was pitch black by this time. soooo boring. obviously the reading lights didnt work, there was no toilet and the fat woman had cranked up her snoring a notch, so probably got about half an hour sleep. also the same driver drove the whole 20 hours with about 3 breaks, didnt really want to think about what drugs he was on.

anyway somehow made it to rurrenabaque alive, rather cranky to say the least, although in hindsight it was definately worth the experience just for the first 6 hours which were pretty incredible, decided i was definately taking the plane back though! also i cheered up pretty quickly when i turned up at the hostel, which gave me breakfast, shower, hammocks and pink floyd on the stereo. awesome. also rurrenabaque is a really cool town, its on a river in the middle of the jungle with loads of motorbikes and chickens whizzing around. the main reason i had decided to put myself through the journey here was to visit the nearby madidi national park, which allegedly is the most biodiverse region on earth, so i set about looking round for a tour. i had briefly chatted to an israeli guy in the bus who recommended a tour company, and after looking at a few companys they seemed like a good choice so i signed up. mistaaaake. foolishly, i had forgotten that isaelis only travel in groups of about 30, so if one recommends something then it means its going to be swarming with israelis. hence it turned out the next day that i was stuck with 7 israelis on my tour for 3 days, all round farce. not that i have anything in particular against israelis, but once they get together in groups (ie always) they spend the whole time shouting and singing loudly, only talk to other israelis, and generally dont make the best travelling companions if you dont speak hebrew. also every other tour group i saw on the river (except one) was also israeli, so i basically had no mates for the whole tour...

fortunately though, the trip was still awesome. the area i went to is basically tropical swamp, so spent the whole time speeding up and down the river on long wooden motorboats and stayed in a lodge in the jungle. saw loads of animals, including caimans (babys and one big daddy), monkeys, various birds, river dolphins (got to swim with them, and they come and nibble your feet if you dangle them out of the boat), snakes, capybaras and probably some others that ive forgotten. spent one morning wading through waist high water searching for anacondas, but (un)fortunately didnt bump into anything except a rather disgruntled cobra. also went fishing for piranhas, only caught a couple though (also probably quite lucky, as we had been swimming in the river the day before!). also the food was awesome and the guides were cool, spent more time talking to them in spanish than i did with the other people on the tour. also on the second day we went to lodge that doubled as a bar and bumped into jess, jule and the english boys from the death road, who were all a day behind me, so had a beer and watched the sunset with them which was awesome. so all in all had a great time, it was just a bit of a shame i couldnt just sit on the boat and enjoy the scenery and wildlife without a couple of idiots running up and down shouting the whole time. on the first day one of them started pulling on my clothes while wrestling his mate, so i gave him rather a hefty shove and sternly told him to be VERY CAREFUL, after which they all treated me with a little bit more respect! on the last day it absolutely poured down with rain, so when we got the jeep back into town the roads were a complete state. HUGE ruts in the mud, and we saw at least a couple of buses literally half buried. quite a few times everyone had to dive to one side of the jeep because we were sliding along at such a steep angle that it could quite easily have rolled over!

so was quite glad to eventually get back to rurre, where i met a lovely australian couple at the hostel and went out for dinner and drinks with them and their mates, much better. also chatted to a crazy old italian man with a gammy eye for ages, who was telling me about how he saw pink floyd in a garage in 1971 and had fried all his neurones on acid. i definately believed the last part. as i mentioned before i had decided to fly back to la paz rather than take the death bus again, and had booked a flight before i left on the tour. however due to the rain all flights had been cancelled (mainly because the runway is a field with a line on it, so if it gets waterlogged the planes cant take off!), so i got stranded in rurre an extra day. this meant i had to sit around in a hammock and drink beer all day, which unsurprisingly i didnt mind too much. also i found a new german friend, and jess and jule got bck from their tour that day and had some new mates as well, so we all went out to a cool jungle bar and played pool all night, really good. i had been giving the airline employees some chat and had managed to get myself moved up to the first flight leaving, so when flights were back on the following day i managed to get away first thing in the morning. my german mate was quite disgruntled about this as he had been stranded for 2 days and had to wait for the flight after me, ha. really glad i had prebooked, some people were getting back from tours expecting to get flights then finding out there was a 3 day backlog and that they had to take the death bus, nightmare. quite a funny plane back to la paz, only about 20 seats so more than a little bumpy (especially along the runway/field), took half an hour rather than 20 as well so definately worth the money! so all in all quite a good little adventure, was quite glad to be back in civilisation though (if you can call la paz civilization). bit of a long entry there, hope you havent fallen asleep. lots more photos up now, yaaaaay.

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