After a fairly restless sleep lastnight I was up early to do my exercises and prepare for today's Pampas trip. The Pampas is a flood plain in the Amazon where most of the diverse range of animal wildlife live and where tourists can go to see them in their natural habitats. At 8:30am David and I packed our things, payed for the room and then headed down to the tour office. There was a huge group of people at the office and something like 30 of us heading out into the Pampas. We were late to get going but by about 9:30 we were loaded up into our troop carrier and off on our 3 hour drive towards Santa Rosa and the pampas. Our group consisted of the 2 German girls again; Miriam and Julia, a really nice Spanish couple, a young American couple and their friend. Once again we had a really good group and everyone got on well from the word go. The drive was incredibly long and I did my best to try and sleep on the way to Santa Rosa. When we arrived in Santa Rosa we were taken to a restaurant where we ate a very basic lunch that unfortunately I could barely eat any of- pasta soup and rice with a few chicken pieces. After lunch we were driven over to the start of the river and unloaded our things along with about 50 other people. We chucked the sunscreen on, grabbed our waters and boarded our little river boats. Almost straight away we saw pink dolphins frolicking in the shallow waters and alligators sliding into the water. The journey to camp was incredibly relaxing and absolutely jam packed with wildlife; from turtles to cute little squirrel monkeys, giant birds to Caimans and everything else in between the river is truly a place of diverse life. The sun was belting down and the river was a buzz with boats loaded with tourists and animals making the most of the perfect conditions. We came to a point where we were given the option to swim if we wanted and off with the clothes and straight in I went: Check - swim in the Amazon. The water was a perfect temperature and incredibly refreshing however the current was strong so I swam back to the boat before I was washed away downstream. The journey up river took over 3 hours and our guide stopped every now and again to explain the various animals and habitats. Our guide only spoke Spanish which was actually a bonus as my Spanish ear was able to practice and I could understand most of what was being said. We arrived to the lodge and we were all pleasantly surprised at what we found, the rooms were basic but they had a cool hang-out area with hammocks and a table tennis table we could make use of later. After a short snack and a briefing on the next days activities we were back on the boat up the river to a viewing platform to watch the sunset. Unfortunately the clouds covered the sunset but we enjoyed hanging and chatting whilst the sun went down. We returned for dinner which much to my dismay was Spaghetti Bolognase again without meat and a tiny salad so I went hungry again; luckily we had a lazy day and I wasn't ravenous. After dinner we returned to the boat and went night watching for alligators; we seen a few eyes and a few birds but nothing too interesting. We returned by 9pm hung out for a while before heading to bed for an early night.