Just got back to La Paz from Rurrenabaque which lies 18 hrs of death road north, in a warm tropical lowland jungle region. I'm happy to say we arrived in one piece this morning. You really can see why those roads are so infamous. it was probably the most scary bus journey we'll be making. Our nerves weren't calmed by the driver's selection of DVD entitled "Disaster Movies".We watched the terrible 'Perfect Storm' and then just before falling asleep 'Alive'. So we fell asleep holding hands and running over potential escape routes in my head.

We are a bit tired out from the week down there. You've already heard about the mountain I climbed. And then we cycled down the death road. On top of that we've just spent a night in the Jungle and two in the Pampas, which is a river based safari, in the Amazon basin.

It all started with a 15hr bus ride along winding bumpy cliff side road, with a family of 8 sitting on the back row just behind us. The game of the night was to see how far they could kick the back of our seats. After about an hour of this I finally snapped. The softly softly approached having already failed I opted for an all out verbal assault, in English, hoping the terror in my voice accompanied by the confusion might shut them up. It did, thankfully, otherwise I might have had to carry out my threat!

Despite a wet start and having to push our boat upstream to get to the camp, the jungle tour was excellent. Mainly taking long walks through deep jungle, running into all sort of creatures along the way . We did some running through the jungle, dodging spider traps, trying to catch some of some wild boars. Well, maybe not catch them, just scare them a bit. There were about 30 in a herd and we managed to head them off at a stream. Those that didn´t make it across the stream had to come right passed us, leaving behind their strange odour. One baby got left behind, trapped in the stream, fortunately it managed to find a way out! Our guide caught some fish from the stream by stunning them with the back off his machette, pretty cool.

Other highlights - massive spider walked across Em's face. I had a bee stuck in my cap that gave me a nasty nick. We made some invisible ink tattoos from the juice of a jungle apple. The guide also showed us which tree bark could be made into tea to make a natural viagra and another which was a steriliser for men and women. We also went on a night walk but it was raining so a bit dangerous so we were only out for about 15 minutes and didn't see much. A tarantula and caterpillar being the only things that spring to mind. And a frog and we like to think some armadillos!

The next day was all about ants. We saw fire ants and giant ants about an inch long which are simply called '24'- because that's how long its bite hurts for! Also did a bit of walking through a swamp and some face painting. Was interesting to see how the dye was made. By crushing leaves to produce a red dye then adding some water and pouring the mix into a container made of a big leaf, that we first thought was going to be a toy boat.

If we'd stayed another day we would have made jewellery out of mini coconuts. I think I can just about go on with life having missed out on that experience. In any case our guide, Mario, made one for each of us. He used a mix of clay mud and ash to polish it. Em's is cracked now and I'LL NEVER WEAR MINE.

That was pretty much it for the jungle, before heading off to the Pampas we spent one night in Rurre. Whilst having an ice cream we noticed the news mentioning Michael Jackson too many times for something not to be amiss. Then the man in the shop said "Michael Jackson" and then made the sound of a neck breaking and sliced his hand across his neck! Then he laughed and asked us if we were American. Don't think I'll forget where I was when I found out he died!

The Pamapas tour was a completely different affair, much more relaxing. It's basically a boat safari down a river that feeds into the Amazon. Lots of sitting on the boat and looking out for animals that live on the banks - which was mainly crocodiles and birds but there was also some Capibara (the world's biggest rodent) that look like dog-sized guinea pigs. When the sun came out some turtles crawled up on to the banks.

When we arrived at camp I sat down on the river bank and watched a pair of pink river dolphins swim upstream. The next day we went swimming with them, over looked by the crocs. And the day after that, while piranha fishing, we watched them feed. This triggered the fishes' defense reflex which was to jump out of the water. We were soon joined by a bald eagle that we thought was going to catch the fish mid air. But just maybe, it was waiting for our guide to throw it one of our fish. And this he eventually did, so the eagle came down and plucked the fish out the water right in front of us.

We spent the nights with Joe and Clem, two boys from London having a completely different travelling experience to us. This mainly revolved around drinking and getting to know the 'local' tourist night life and the hostel 24 hr party lifestyle. They were good lads and it was great to spend some time with some English people. They were working their way through the beers whilst we were sharing one between us each night! Our excellent guide, Oscar, treated us to a heartfelt rendition of Hotel California and then the awful Celine Dion song from Titanic. Both extremely funny and hauntingly beautiful.

On the first night we went down the river for a night cruise. By shining the torches towards the banks you could see the glowing eyes of the alligators and caimans. We stopped by an alligator nest and, as the mother was out, our guide picked up one of the babies and passed it round for photos.

On one of the afternoons, after some snake hunting (we found two anacondas), we went to a football pitch for a kickabout and were challenged by some particularly completive Israelis to a game of football. It was all a bit scrappy and our strategy mainly involved lumping the ball high and long from the back. Everything got a bit heated and we ended up losing. I joined the next team of Bolivians to challenge them in the next game. It was interesting playing with South Americans. They really do take football extremely seriously, but weren't very good. More long balls and very hard tackles followed by the obligatory chest to chest face offs! Maybe it was mix of their passion and the Israeli competiveness, but the whole thing didn't sit very well. We won by a scrappy goal and after that I can say I much prefer playing football in Asia.

That was that for Rurre, we liked it a lot, it was nice and warm. With all the banana plants, palm trees, motor bikes and karaoke bars it felt like being back in Asia, but without the food! The bus ride home was a bit hairy but the scenery was amazing, perhaps the best I've seen, lots of hills covered with thick jungle. Would have been nice to stop and spend some time in some of the towns we passed through along the way. If the road strike in Peru doesn't lift soon we might head back for a couple of days.