Part of the risk that we took, having gone for cheaper flights to Rurenabaque, was that our flight only arrived just after 9 o'clock and our Pampas tour left town at 9.30! This left us a very small gap to try get from the airport to the tour office. We touched down at 9 on the button and lept straight off to wait for our baggage from the plane. We took a 10min shuttle into town and arrived at the offices at 9.28am (Cutting it fine by anyone's standards). We met our group which was another 2 couples and left within in 10 min of us getting there. There was an Australian couple Sophie and Kurt and a Swedish couple which was a guy our age with a sugar mommy (Matt and Sylvia). There is a long drive to the starting point of the Pampas tour and our jeep driver was a freeekin maniac on the road. We left after most of the other groups and were among the first to arrive at the starting point. The "pampas" are the natural clearings in the jungle that are pretty much swamps just off the river bank. There are scatterd camps along the river banks (each one run by a different company) and this is where everyone sleeps at night.

We were welcomed by our guide Tony (short for Antonio) who would be with us for the next 3 days and started off on our boat trip around half an hour after arriving. We were immediately overwheled with wildlife along the river banks and saw hundreds of aligators (which are generally not much longer than 3m and not dangerous to humans), Capibaras ( the worlds largest rodents which feed on grass at the river banks), birdlife (ancient species calles Owatsins, Storks, and many different eagles) and turtles who in their tens would balance on the fallen tree trunks in the river. The above animals were seen all the time as one would see impala, zebra and wildebees in the Kruger park, but there are of course the more scarce and exciting species that one can get a chance to see. In particular, anacondas and black caymen. Black caymon are at least twice as large as their alogator cousins and are far more aggressive and dangerous to humans. We got to see one lying under a tree on the way to our camp which was very exciting and eventually got to our site at close to 16.30. The site is built close to 10m above the river level and is completely built on stilts. During the rainy season, the river rises all the way to the top and flows underneath the building. We dumped our bags in the room and headed backwards, via boat to another camp where we got ice cold beers and drinks. We met other groups and spoke to another English couple who I had met on death road (who we would at a later stage be travelling with again). There was a big soccer field and volleyball court and we watched the sun set over the pampas and jungle in the background. Beautiful.

We headed back to the camp for a quick dinner and then jumped on the boat again for a night trip. We saw pretty much the same as we did earlier that day except for hundreds of thousands of fireflys that were flying in the trees next to the bank. An awesome sight. We were visited by 2 river sardines that jumped straight onto the boat during the last bit of the trip. We got back and headed straight for bed. Our room was home to a baby bat that was noisy during the night but we still managed to get a bit of sleep.

The next morning we were woken-up by howler monkeys that are ear-piercingly loud that choose to start shouting at around 5 in the morning.

We had breakfast and then headed off for "Anaconda hunting". The anacondas like the pampas area because of the large space and the wet sorroundings. This was definitely one of the most physically exhausting parts of our trip because of the extreem heat. Matt carried a thermometer with him and said at one point that it was 38 degrees celcius! One thing that I left to only explain now, is how badly the jungle is infested with mosquitos. There are hudreds flying over one's body at any given time and insect repellant and long trousers is just something that one needs to have on them at all times. During the day, the mosquitos stick to the shade mostly. There are only a couple areas that we could sit to rest in the shade during our walk, but everyone chose to stay sweating in the blistering sun instead of going under a tree with millions of mosies flying over our bodies!

We found two 2.5m anacondas during our walk (one which was shedding its skin which was pretty cool) and also came across an extremely aggressive black caymon that was trying to protect it's nest close to where we were standing. Tony reassured us that they are ony very quick in water but slow on land and that there was nothing to worry about. Great opportuinity for pictures though. After 3 hours of walking, we headed back to the camp for lunch. That afternoon was piranha fishing which was crazy! We used shredded meat on the end of hooks and the fish would start biting after split seconds! Catching them was difficult as they don't put their whole mouths over the hooks, but rather bite small pieces off very quickly. Everyone in the group managed to catch at least one and Rome caught 2 pealers! After that, we went back to the camp and chilled in the communal hammocks for the rest of the afternoon and went back to the same camp for drinks before dinner. We had an early night again! :-)

The next morning we woke up at 5.15 to catch sunrise which was cool and then headed after breakfast for a swim upsrtream. There are fresh water dolphins that swim in the river and it happened very close to the same spot where we did our piranha fishing the previous afternoon. The fish don't attack humans though, but we were swimming very close to the black caymons we saw earlier! After the refreshing swim, we rushed back to the camp to pack-up and leave back home to "Rure". The jeep back on the road had a puncture which wasn't all that pleasant, but we eventually made it back to town to book a nights accomodation.

Rurenabaque itself is a very small village, pretty much catering for the tourist market heading into the amazon and is full of restaurants and hostels. We checked in together with the Australian couple Sophie and Kurt and then headed for some tacos at a mexican place close-by. We went for drinks and met up with a new zealand couple at a place appropriately named the "Mosquito bar" that had some great cocktails for half price till the happy-hour ended. We walked back to our hostel a little inebriated and slept till an early alarm the next morning. The other tour we booked onto was the "Jungle" tour which is a 2 day/1 night trip.

We left the next morning with the same 6 of us as the "Pampas" trip with an additional 2 girls Kate and Sarah from the UK. Our guide Adalid spoke far less English than Tony from the Pampas, but was incredible when it came to knowledge of the plants and animals of the amazon. We took a very long (but beautiful) 4 hour boat ride to the camp site which was relatively close to the river bank. We had lunch and headed straight off into the jungle to go exploring.

[From having spoken to people who had been on the jungle tour before us, many of them said that it was far less exciting than the pampas was so we went in with a very low expectation. The jungle is a very difficult environment to spot animals because of 1) how dense the plantlife is and 2) the fact that the animals are very timid. We spoke to travellers about spotting pumas or jaguars and they mentioned that their guide who takes people almost every day had only seen a jaguar once in 4 years]

Within 20 minutes if us walking, Adalid almost jumped out of his pants and started whispering "Jaguar"!!!. We all came rushing to the front and saw an adolescent jaguar walking away from us. It only lasted a couple seconds so it was not enough time to pull out the camera but we caught a glimpse of one of the most rarely seen animals one can spot. Awesome luck!

We saw hundreds of spiders ranging from the size of a fingernail to a fist and some very colourful frogs. We were told to watch out for small, red fire ants which are known to really hurt when they bite. Adalid taught us about the different plants, some where sap is used to wash clothes, some to dissinfect wounds, some to take to prevent mosquito bites. The jungle itself is beautiful with huge trees making up the canopy and smaller vines and bushes down below housing millions of snakes and insects. We saw wild pigs that were hunted-down by Adalid who had a knack for knowing exactly when and where they the would be in a specific spot. We walked for a total of 2.5 hours and headed back to the camp for dinner.

After dinner, we headed out for our night walk which in both Rome and my opinion was a lot more freaky than it was beautiful. Upon leaving the campsite, Rome noticed a snake slithering across her path that we later found out was poisonous! She soldiered on though with little more than a flinch which was pretty good going! The horrible part of the walk was the thousands of bugs we could could feel landing on our necks. Some just walking, some flying and some biting! Not the place to be if you're not a fan of creepy crawlies. Rome got bitten by a massive ant, but we otherwise came-out unscathed. We retired for the night under our mosquito nets and fell asleep to the night sounds of the amazon.

The next day, was a very long walk after breakfast (around 4.5 hours) where we saw a lot of the same as the day before. Along the way, Adalid cut off a 2 m section of vine that had close to 300mls of drinkable water that we all took a sip of. He also showed us green leaves that turned water purple when crushed together. We saw some cappucino monkeys in the trees above us too. Sylvia got stung by a wasp when crossing one of the bushes, but otherwise little other incidents during the walk.

We arrived back for our last lunch in the jungle and headed back home to "Rure" after an excellent couple days in the jungle. We boarded at the Orient hostel and chilled the evening to get up for our trip back to La Paz the next day. All in all a great experience and something I've wanted to do my whole life, but without a doubt the last time!