So, my last week in Bolivia and it was time to continue on from Coroico deeper into the Amazon region. 'Rurre' as it's known is a sleepy town situated on one of the Amazons tributaries at the entrance to Madidi National Park, one of the country's most important. Why? Statistics time - it's got over 10% of all known bird species on the planet (that's over 1000 different species) & over 45% of all mammal species in tropical America and quite frighteningly, over 200 species of reptiles! This was the setting for 3 wonderful days of travelling along the river by boat, watching alligator & caiman lying perfectly still waiting for a bite, seeing tortoises taking the sun, hunting for anacondas in the swampy pampas, bird spotting (the feathered type, lest I get any comments), fishing for (and avoiding being bitten by) piranha, avoiding being hit by one of the many stupid fish that jumped into our boat as we boated at night, and one of the best experiences of my trip so far, swimming with pink river dolphins. The dolphins are beautiful and intelligent creatures, they outsmart and outmanouvre the alligators and caiman and have a healthy diet of piranha and other fish. They commonly hunt and play in family groups of up to 20 or so. Our guide Domingo, assured us that wherever the dolphins swim yuo don't find gators or piranha and that it was perfectly safe to swim with them and not fear being dragged under by a reptile or having chunks bitten out of us by piranhas. Who was I not to believe him, so in I hopped. After about 2 seconds in the water I was bitten by something and I resorted to a newly learned Spanish swear-word before awaiting my fate. Luckily it was just a curious sardine having a nibble of Grade A gringo skin. After a while the dolphins started to lose their fear and approach us, diving and swimming around and underneath us. Estupendo. Having endured an evil 15 hour bus journey from hell along unpaved and dangerous roads to get to Rurre, I decided to skip the 18 hour return journey and fly back to La Paz, in a 40 minute flight over the jungle, rivers and mountains, at one stage flying past and lower than the 6200m peak of Huyana Potosi just before landing in La Paz. A couple of more days to say ciao to the craziest city I'd ever spent time in and off I flew to Santiago de Chile.