Day 44 - Wednesday 14th April

Even earlier 4am start, just managed to catch some of the guys arriving back from their night out as I met up with everyone for the first flight out to Rurrenebaque, the start of the amazon basin and our pampus tour. The plane itself was a tiny 16 person, 2 seat-a-row job and we caught a great sunrise as we flew over the Andes. You end up landing right in the jungle amongst the trees on a grass runway that was unbelievably bumpy but such an experience.

Next a 3 hour dusty jeep ride out into the pampus proper where we boarded a little wooden longboat for another 3 hours amongst pink dolphins, caimans (aligators essentially), piranhas and a whole host of other wildlife. We caught sunset by this volleyball caught on the riverbank (locals vs gringos - we won. Obviously) and on the way back went caimans spotting with torches, picking out their eyes on the river edges amongst the vegetation. To add to the atmosphere our engine cut out for half an hour and so we just had to drift with the mosquitoes amongst the hundreds of caimans we could see, although thankfully our lodge was downstream....

Day 45 - Thursday 15th April

In the morning heat we went anaconda hunting in the marshes. Faning out we waded through the mud and reeds in our wellies, 'hoping' to stumble across a 4m one...'sadly' we failed but managed to find some baby caiman who we rescued from the vultures and took back to the open water. Cute little things...

The afternoon was supposed to be swimming with dolphins but while we saw some they proved elusive when we actually got nearby. With the sky darkening the heavens opened with an unbelievable amount of rain. Most people on the boat stripped to their underwear to keep their clothes dry and we shivered our way back to camp for food and a drunken cards night.

Day 46 - Friday 16th April

Probably the best day of the tour we headed out piranha fishing in the morning. Again our luck prevented us from actually catching any but we got enough vicious nibbles for it to be a good laugh anyway. On the way back we managed to find a few dolphins in a small lagoon and they turned out to be pretty interested in us. With the water silty enough to prevent visibility of further than 2-3cm it is such a shock to have one bump into you or knock you about with it's fin. Cue (manly) screams, especially when one bit this Australian guy Hughie on the foot!!

In the evening back in Rurrenebaque town I booked myself into a private room for £2.50 and went out for drinks, pizza and pool with some of the guys.