Sweaty palms & palm trees...
We left La Paz with Frankie and Nathan in a 14 seater mosquito...now I (Cath) am not usually a fan of flying, let alone in a plane the size of a bird of prey. So I spent much of the 45 minute flight keeping a beady eye on the pilots for any sign of distress. When we finally landed on the grass runway I had enough sweat on my palms to fill a coke bottle..ok maybe a slight exaggeration. Matt on the other hand sat gleefully looking out the window and snapping photos the whole way!
Getting off the plane was wonderful and we were greeted by perfect hot tropical weather, we were in heaven!!! We made quick work of losing our fleeces, jeans and hiking boots for shorts and slops! We arrived at our hotel to find hammocks and ice cold grapefruit juice...yum! We explored the town a bit and then went from company to company looking for a pampas tour leaving the next day. We eventually settled on a company called Amazonas...having been persuaded by a rather convincing Argentinian and his equally persuasive boss Johnny.

Friday dawned and it was Matt´s birthday...he was very happy that we were spending it in the jungle! We set off on our trip in a minibus with a group of 10...2 Aussies, 2 Israeli guys, an Irish guy, and English guy and Nathan and Frankie. The trip was very dusty and EXTREMELY bumpy but actually quite fun. We arrived at the river and were greeted by Niegro our guide, who was so good.
We spent the rest of the day ambling up the river toward camp seeing amazing birds, monkeys and plenty of crocs on the way. We arrived at camp and got settled in and were then taken straight back our on the boat to do some nighttime alligator searching. Niegro told us that we would be catching some alligators, which we thought was a joke = turns out it wasn´t. We first caught a really little guy which everyone except me held...Nathan did drop him in the boat at one point which caused a serious commotion and a lot of scuffling = Frankie, it turned out, was the one to be around in a crisis, who calmly told us all to relax as the croc was between her legs...
Niegro then pulled out the big guns and caught a size alligator = the pics should show this nicely! When we got back to camp, Niegro told us why he only had 4 fingers on his left hand...apparantly alligator catching isn´t always so easy...

We woke up early to the howler monkeys which is an incredible sound, slightly haunting. After pancakes for breakfas we were fitted with wellington boots and we then headed to the pampas area to go in search of  anacondas...we walked through grass the height of me, carrying only long sticks. Secretly, I was hoping that I would not be the lucky one to find the anaconda. 90% of us soon realised that our wellies had serious holes in them so we spent the rest of the time knee deep in swampy mud! Niegro came through once again and called us all over to see his catch. We all got a hold, Frankie being the fortunate one to be pooed on...ananconda poo does not smell like roses. After some serious adrenalin pumping, we carried on searching for the anaconda cobra, but were out of luck! Our next trick that afternoon was swimming with the pink dolphins...they were somewhat elusive but we did jump into the alligator infested water for a cool down...good times! After lunch, some birthday cake for Matt and a snooze in the hammock, we headed off to do a spot of piranhia fishing. We managed to catch quite a few, with all our digits intact. There was a guy on one of the other tours who wasn´t so lucky and came back to Rurrenabaque with a heavily bandaged finger! We ate piranha that night for dinner and had a huge bonfire where Niegro sang us Israeli songs!

We got up at 5am the next morning to go and watch the sunrise, which was beautiful. We made our way back to the harbour for lunch and then the long and bumpy ride back to Rurrenabaque. We were so glad to get in the shower after 3 days!

The rain started on the night we got back and didnt stop for about 16 hours...flights were cancelled because the runway was mud! We found a cafe with 1000s of dvds to rent and ´movie rooms´, so the 4 of us spent the day holed up, watching pirated movies!

On Tuesday, Matt headed off on a fishing trip into the jungle for 4 days with a guide and a cook and I headed on a jungle tour with a tour company for a 3 day tour.

I´ll let Matt fill you in on the fishing trip:

My tour consisted of a motley crew...3 America guys who got stoned the entire 3 days, a Dutch girl, who joined them and a 7 foot New York guy who made calamity Jane look graceful..seriously. The tour in retrospect was pretty funny but at the time all I wanted to see was Matt coming down that river in the fishing boat! Our jungle walks consisted of our, clearly inexperienced guide, macheteing his way through the jungle, cutting down a tree or two, just to show us a small flower at the top, and the stoned travellers laughing their way through it all! 7 foot guy tripped, slipped or fell into water at every turn. Meal times were pretty much survival of the fittest as I was competing against 3 people with the munchies! The cherry on top came on the second day when our guide said we were going on a walk from 10 - 12.30 and we would be back for lunch....we made it back at 5pm, after having to swim across 2 rivers (which were in full flow) and getting dragged up a 7 foot sheer drop with MacGuyvers rope (vine leaves)..all this in 35 degree heat with a litre of water between us! Like I said, funny in retrospect, but a nightmare at the time! Needless to say, when I got back to the town on Friday I was nothing short of relieved!

On Saturday we hired 2 motobike taxis and headed to a swimming pool up in the mountains...it was so nice to just relax in the sunshine and cool off with a cocktail! We came down in time for an awesome sunset and made our last visit to Narguilas Israeli restaurant...where Matt had ANOTHER sheesha!!

Sunday dawned and we went on a canopy tour through the jungle...what fun! There was a German family with us whose 8 month old and 3 year old did it too so I had to act very unafraid!!! We spent our last few hours in the warm sunshine...knowing we were headed back to La Paz...high altitude and cold weather.

After another white knuckle journey back for me, we arrived in La Paz...with the Death Road in front of us!!!