We had breakfast and were then taken out on the boat to "swim with dolphins" in what seemed to be a swampy river. Thankfully the weather was really great and the boat ride in itself was an opportunity to bask in the sun and tan a little. We actually ended up seeing a lot more wildlife this morning than we had the entire day before, with lots of exotic birds, monkeys and turtles and then loads of dolphins splashing in and out of the water.
We arrived at the location where we were told many dolphins were often spotted, and although we did see loads there were also a bunch of other tourist boats making a lot of noise, so we moved to another spot and it was great - quiet and peaceful and only us and loads of pink finned dolphins! We all got into the water - an extremely bizarre experience that I wouldn't call swimming "with" dolphins but more treading water "near" dolphins in a swampy fishy river. It was experience never the less and I had a lot of fun doing it; Liv and I had a lot of laughs about the whole situation. Back in the boat it was another pleasant boat ride around be Amazon waters before arriving back at the lodge.
Liv and I were ushered into another boat - just the two of us - all very frantically and handed a plate of food each by the guide who simply said "adios" and off we sailed at speed utterly perplexed at what was going on! We didn't even get to say goodbye to the others in our group. It was so strange and hilarious at the same time. We whizzed past other boats who looked at us confused as to why we were speeding through the river with what seemed to be lunch in our laps. It seemed they had decided our Amazon experience was over and they wanted us out of there as fast as possible; the speedy boat ride in the sun with Bolivian food however was actually pretty nice!
Once back at the bank we hopped into a car and endured another extraordinarily bumpy ride. The windscreen of the car was cracked in maybe three of four places, and every time we drove past a large vehicle the driver put his hand on the windscreen to hold it in place and shut all the windows to protect us from the hugggge dust cloud that followed. At one point we could hear a strange clanging sound as we drove - so the driver pulled over, yanked a very large piece of car off the car with the help of a hitchhiker we had picked up a few hours beforehand, tied it to the roof and continued! Oh Bolivia.
Relatively relieved to be back in Rurrenabaque we checked in at a hostel and went out for a well deserved meal, a giant pizza and bottle of wine between the two of us - perfect. Rurrenabaque is actually a really nice little town and I'm glad I got the opportunity to chunder all over it.