One classic beatles aeroplane ride later, with only a mere 19 seats we arrived in Rurrenbaque, gateway to the Pampas and Jungle of the Amazon Basin.We found our irish travelling gang and booked a 3 day trip deep into the pampas.

The next morning after a three hour ride in a dust bowl, we finally got into the long boat to take us to our jungle massive camp. Our guide and boat driver didn't speak any English, but we've found you don't need loads of information when you're only feet away from giant alligators and caimen.

Infact the shore of the river was littered with them, but that didn't stop us from shouting "theres another one" and pointing repeatedly for at least the first two and half hours. We asked how many there were in the Pampas, and we were assured there were "muchos"...so there you go.

There was also loads of big birds, no not the yellow one from the Street, but condors, vultures, herons, kingfishers and birds of paradise. You start to think you've already got your 50 dollars worth, when pink dolphins bob out of the water next to the boat and you spot a humungous guinea pig roaming on the bank, which apparently are called Capibarra and taste like pork.

And it was our mate Mandy who got "monkey hat", after our guide hid some banana in her hair, and she got several of the little fellas clambering all over her head. She is still finding bits of fruit and monkey crap about her person to this day. Who said eco-tourism was dead.

Our camp was a little basic as you would expect but the cabins and walkways were all raised to stop gator attacks, and the mossie nets were top notch, so we enjoyed our first evening in the "sunset bar", drinking a beer and getting eaten alive as the sun went down and stars and fireflies came out.

The second day started by donning wellies and going searching for anacondas. Fours hours of walking through knee high swamp in the baking sun, we were forced to admit defeat. A little gutting, as the previous day a group had seen two doing a mating dance, but thems the breaks.

After lunch and a quick mong in the hammocks at camp we set off again to swim with the pink dolphins. We saw a mother and baby and various other flashes of pinky grey flesh which was cool although it seemed rather odd swimming in the same stretch of river as Pedro the camp croc!

Later that evening, after another chilled sunset, we headed out after dark to spot gators by shining torches into their glowing orange eyes. Eerie. Our guide also grabbed a baby one from the bank, which we harrassed for a bit and felt its little baby teeth, before putting him back.

Our last day, saw us back in the boat for a spot of piranha fishing with a line and some choice cuts of beef. Tim caught 2 piranhas and a catfish, Debs caught some small twigs and a burnt face. We can't say wether we ate the piranha or not, as it's totally ecologically unfriendly....but we imagine they are probably really tasty with some rice and vegetables.

After a last minute wildlife win sighting a sloth chilling in a tree, we were back in town by early evening for a few civalised caipirinhas and a final tot up of bites.

Feeling only ever so slightly guilty we spent the whole next day chilling by a swimming pool over looking the town while our fellow jungle pals boarded their 18 hours bus back along unsealed roads. Eek!

The following morning we were up early to catch a slightly bigger ex-military plane back to the smog of La Paz.