Rurrenbaque can be reached two ways, by a 20 hour bus journey on the world´s most dangerous road or by plane. We opted for the latter and found ourselves flying out of El Alto airport, the highest international airport in the world, on the tiniest plane either of us had ever been on. We skimmed so close to two mountain peaks that you almost felt you could touch them and then we just descended the entire way until we were flying over tropical Amazonian rainforest. That´s when we spotted the landing strip, just bare scorched earth surrounded by trees. I have never been so scared in my life but we managed to land safely and the blast of tropical heat soon eased away the lingering terror.

We opted for a 3 day Pampas tour as we´d been told that this was the best way to see the local wildlife and we were not disappointed seeing loads of alligators, birds (even a toucan - Gareth´s favourite, nothing to do with Guinness he claims), monkeys, turtles basking in the sun, sloths and so much more. We spent a lot of our time cruising around the Pampas on the River Beni in our boat just watching everything going on around us. We even did a night cruise where we were trying to spot alligators eyes shining back at us in the dark, I was absolutely petrified!

Anaconda hunting was the only time when I considered that we were actually crazy to be there as we waded through knee deep water and shoulder high grass, absolutely surrounded by mosquitos, in search of anacondas! I mean why were we looking for something that would very happily kill us! Anyhow it wasn´t warm enough for the snakes to be out basking in the sun so we only managed to see dead snakes and recently shed snake skins. I can´t say I was heart broken.

We even jumped into the river and swam with the dolphins - hoping any other little nasties stayed away particularly as we were to go fishing for Piranhas in the same river!! Gareth had the dolphines swim up and touch him as they came up to investigate, getting right under his feet so he was standing on their backs. They´re really playful and actually seek people out when they´re in the water. As the water is a dirty brown you can´t see them coming and because we knew what else was lurking in the water it was slightly worrying when something nips at your toes but so amazing as well. On our first day one of the English couples on our tour jumped in to swim with the dolphins and only after they´d gotten out did our guide spot the alligator watching us from the far bank - so we were right to be a little worried!

The tour was made all the better because we had a great crew of English, Kiwis and Irish, all of us living in London, but we couldn´t have wished for a nicer crowd to be trapped in the jungle with! And that almost happened! On our 2nd night the rains started and it got really cold which was fine in the jungle but the poor old mud runway wasn´t able for it and we all ended up trapped in the little town Rurrenbaque for an extra night before we could escape back to La Paz. We made the most of it with a helping of Falafels and hummus and a good dose of alcohol and humour. In the end we survived the jungle with nothing more than a small amount of blood donated to the local nasty mozzies!!