If you have limited time, and not inclined to do anything extreme like mountain-biking, mountain climbing or trekking for days at a time, and want to see something of the wild parts of Bolivia, then you have a choice of spending some time in the jungle or heading out to the pampas (the pampas being the flat, humid, wet, swamp like plains of north eastern Bolivia). In the jungle you are less likely to see all the big animals, whereas in the pampas you are likely to see the anacondas, sloths, caimans, taipurs and capybaras. So will it be animals or thick jungle?

Getting into the thick, deep, impenetrable jungle was just what we had in mind. Here the animals are far more diverse and a lot smaller! There were birds aplenty, and biting insects galore!

Our instructions were to meet in the town's plaza in front to the church. Not long after we arrived, two Canadians and two Dutch ladies came and joined us. A little later, a very dodgy taxi driver came along and told us that he was our lift to the next little town of Caranavi. Where was our guide? No, he would meet us there. Really? After a brief phonecall with Ivan, our guide, confirming the arrangements we were on our way!

In mountain biking circles it is well known that the road from La Paz to Coroico is known as the "Most Dangerous Road in the World" and much is made of actually cycling down this 80km tar stretch of road that follows tight ridge lines with precipitous drops on either side to rivers far below. When the road is not following the ridge lines, it clings to the side of valleys with the high mountain tops above disappearing into cloud and huge waterfalls appearing every now and again. This reputation of danger is actually due to the Bolivian drivers dying at approximately 100 people per year through accidents involving mostly male driving machoism more than anything else.

The road that we took from Coroico to meet our guide, Ivan (good Bolivian name this) for lunch in Caranavi was arguably far more dangerous! The road is only 3m wide with almost no space for the trucks and buses to pass. The road passes through extremely remote Bolivia. Should you have any sort of accident or plunge off the side, then your only hope is the occasional bus or truck. Even then, they might not know what to do! So basically, you are very much on your own!

Looking out the window meant staring straight down into the abyss that was between you and the gushing river far below and keeping your heart from leaping out of your chest every time the driver decided you needed a closer view of that gaping abyss! With no barriers, no signs and in some places, the road was collapsing down to that river, it was no wonder that there were a few gasps of amazement when our taxi driver did something outrageous....like go too fast for the road conditions!

There was many an anxious moment when the taxi driver decided that speed, rather than prudence, was the order of the day to beat that truck or bus to the next corner! Our knuckles were white and the handgrips we clung to will long have our fingerprints imprinted on them! Thank goodness Caranavi arrived and we got out, slightly shaken and very much relieved! That is one road we would care not to travel along again!

After lunch and a jungle downpour, we were on our way to meet the boat that was transport for the next three days. Twisting and turning through jungle passes punctuated periodically by rivers falling from high above, we came to our drop off point which turned out to be a long disused jungle runway completed with dismantled aircraft and rusty hangars! What were they for? Just where were we headed? Because these are the lands of the coca growers, after all!

If you have ever trekked or climbed high into mountains and come across rivers, you will noticed that they are very energetic with plenty of rapids, whirlpools, upwelling and breaking waves and that they are usually very fast flowing. You will have also noticed that they are almost always found at the base of deep ravines with the mountains stretching almost vertically high above you. The river we would travel on was no different.

Except that we were high in the Andes Mountains and in the middle of the rainy season travelling through parts of the Amazonian Basin. Everything here is writ large, massive even. When you look on the river from high above, you see the rapids and fast flowing water. But when you get down to river level, it has massive rapids, extended width and the chocolate milk waters churns, swirls, eddies and upwells all the time! All in ominous fashion! Our boat captain, Pancho and his crew would need to know what they were doing in these high and dangerous waters if we were going to get out unscathed! If you fall out of this boat, or it overturns, not even a life jacket would save you!

But in no time, did Pancho and the crew prove themselves more than capable of the handling this "pitifully small" tributary of a tributary of the grand Amazon river. If this "pitifully small 50m wide, grade 2 rapids, churning river" was a baby of a baby of the Amazon, just how colossal is the Amazon then?!

As you travel down this little baby of a river, dodging the grade 2 rapids and avoiding getting sucked into giant whirlpools, the 12m engine powered longboat was dwarfed by everything! The thick green jungle that hugged the sides of the river and the mountains that towered over us were constant reminders that this was wild and remote country; but actually, not as much as we thought.

Since the river and its banks are life, this was generally where you find the humans. Not long after launching, we came across plenty of gold miners; knee deep in water and washing away the sides of the river, panning out the fluvial gold that lurks in the riverbanks. Apparently a hard working miner can average 2grams of pure gold per day! Some do a lot better, and some not at all! Before you go rushing off and searching for your own wealth out here, bear in mind that the miners suffer from arthritis because they spend 16 - 18hrs a day in the water, sometimes up to their neck, getting at what some cultures call "the flesh of the gods". If the river and cold water doesn't get you, there is always the jungle and what it holds that will!

Our first night's camp was a river bank after a jungle stream swim to wash away the sweat and grime the humid season brings. With tents up, the area explored, a massive pile of firewood collected and the sun setting, it promised to be a fantastic evening of storytelling and getting to know our fellow travellers. As the last of the golden light sliding down behind the mountains, and our bellies full of camp food and the sound of the water rushing by with a huge driftwood fire going, all was well and we settled in.

Until, that is, the stars disappeared behind very dark and ominous clouds and the wind howled down the river valley and the heavens opened. In a matter of minutes, the fire was nothing but a hissing, fizzling blacken heap of sad sodden wood and anything that was in the open was saturated! And so it rained the whole night with no let up whatsoever! Out here the expression "when it rains, it pours" takes on a whole new meaning!

Fortunately the weather clears in the afternoons and the sun comes out to dry anything exposed to Amazon rainfalls! After a wet breakfast and views of mist covered mountains and a post rain hush, we pushed off and headed downstream. This morning was a stop for supplies at the jungle mining town of Mayaya (whatever you have seen on TV or at the movies or even read about, this little town was that!) and then lunch at the 37 peopled gold mining village of Carmen and our second night's stop.

Here the 11 children go to school from 8 - 12 and then they help parents in the fields at the gold mine! So routine is their life that anything new and different (like tents, sodden tourists and piles of wet gear) is seen as a fantastic surprise! What's this? And that? Look at all this funny looking gringos! But even though they were miles away from any town and its fashion, the teenage girls were doing their best to be hip and happening in their jeans and tops! What girl doesn't want to be fashionable? No matter where they are!

Day three saw us enter the even more impressive Beni River, one of the Amazon's major tributaries and not even travelling and walking through some of the world famous Madidi National Park (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madidi_National_Park), can stop your backside screaming our for mercy because the lack of a soft seat that becomes ever more apparent! Not even the rapids, now encountered, give cause for concern or raise an eyebrow! Not even the disappearance of the high mountains and deep mountains are noticed and the jungle slides by relentlessly, broken only by another small river joining the Beni and adding to its already considerable size and volume.

The only respite from the humid heat induced haze, the green of the jungle, the chocolate milk brown of the river and the cloud leaden sky, is the sharp and jagged mountain range that far ahead signals the start of the pampas on the other side and our end point of Rurrenabaque. On this side of the fast approaching mountain range, the river seems to sense the wide open spaces on other side and the chance to become more placid as it meanders its way to join the Amazon River, and so it bucks and bolts in seeming excitement to get there!

Our backsides rejoice in the offloading of kit and tour and crew goodbyes, because somewhere in the very near future is a soft seat of even a hammock to watch the world go by in!