Our first bit of bad luck when we arrived was losing or getting the camera stolen, Tadgh checked went back across the river, broke into the bus and checked it for the camera, at that stage either someone else had it or it was long gone.
The 5 of us shared a room that night in a hostel adn met up with the rst of the crew to compare our journey horror stories. Apparently the bus was a nightmare as well.
Next day we went on a mission to book our trip. At this stage we had a ready made group of 7 people so we had good bargaining power. Got a good deal of 15 dollars a day for the Pampas tour of 3 days. Spent the day stocking up on mozi repellant and sun hats and when we were finally organised went for a traditional Bolivian meal in case we risked starvation over the next few days and to harden the stomachs!!!
Set off the mext morning and straight away the agency messed us aroud by throwing another person into the group. He was a nice guy though so we didn{t create a huge fuss but you generally can´t believe a word the agencies tell you. Headed off in the jeep for about 3 hours on a nice dusty ,bumpy dirt road. Stopped off for lunch along the way the usual Bolivian fare of soup,tough meat and rice yummy! Then we had to load up onto a boat and take a 3 hour trip down the river to our camp. we were no sooner in the boat than we were spotting aligators,tropical birds,caipivaris (related to the mouse but its massive so we christened it mouse horse adn it became our favorite animal!).The we came upon a tree full of yellow monkeys and of course breaking all the eco rules started to feed them with bananas.The little guys knew exactly what was going on so I´d say we definately weren´t the first. Eoin got bitten by one of them but is still alive to tell the tale so we reckon there was no transfer of scary diseases.
Got to the camp on the rivers edge that evening, Just consisted of a dining/kitchen hut another shed with our bunks and a mingin outdoor toilet .....not a sign of running water in the whoe camp so we resigned ourselves to going smelly for the 3 days. Got the boat up to the sunset bar,another campwith a bar right ont eh river where we drank a beer adn watched the sunset over the Pampas....would have been amazing if it wasnt for world war 3 with thé mosquitos. Went back to the camp again adn had a massive feed before heading out aligator and caimen (big aligators) hunting. This involved all of us sitting int eh boat shining our torches along the rivers edge while our giude Martin made very strange noises that sounded like someone with a bad case of constipation.We saw a few red eyes in teh bushes and Martin found a dead Anaconda but that was about the extent of our success.
Decided to have a bit of a sing song aroudn the camp fire that night with the other group who were staying there. It started off pretty okay till two Danes took over and murdered a few songs...they insisted singing songs with 5 mintue pauses between each line which we took as our cue to clap but unfortunately we were always premature. Martin the guide chipped in with a few south american love songs, obviosuly the grog was making him a bit love sick.
As the night wore on the booze ran out so the lads ended up going up the river on a booze cruise to the sunsetbar to buy a slab of beer. After that the whole thing developed into a rave aroudn the camp fire.I had the responsability of mobile DJ with the ipod and speakers hanging out of my neck while I used our torches for the flashing disco lights! We managed to keep the madness going till about 3.30am when we decided to call it a night.
Next morning we were up at 8am for a 3 course breakfast....just the job after the nights boozing. I discovered that the mosquitos had also been feeding well....on me. They had obviously attacked during the night through all my clothes and savaged by backside and legs! I could barely sit down with the swelling!
Anyway we headed off Anaconda hunting that morning. None of us were too enthusisatic as we´d heard that some tour groups keep one in a cage adn produce it during the hunt to pretended they caught it.So afteran hour of wading though mucky water up to our ankles,in teh heat of the morning we decided we would let the Anaconda come to us and found sheltel under a tree. There was another very enthusastic tour group hunting at the same time so we reckoned they woudl do a better job than us. So while we sat there dozing with Stephen up a tree serenading us with Lady in Red sure enough the Anaconda came to us curtosy of the other group. And again despite warnings of the damage that suncreams adn DEAT residues from the repellant can do to the snake we all held it and posed for photos...probably breaking the second eco friendly rule of the trip. We left happy with our days work....or rather our good fortune at not having to work!
Back to the camp again and after another massive feeding (these tour operators certainly don´t let you starve) we had a little siesta to recover our tired bodies. The evenings entertainment was piranha fishing. off we went in the boat again to a secluded little pond where we got a quick 2 second crash course in fishing and off we went. The little buggers are obviously very smart becase they had a great old feed on our bait without a sinlge casulty. Well,except for Martin our tour guide who manged to catch about 13 of the little monsters with relative ease. They´re pretty small guys but buy do they have a set of teeth...I can see why they were often a favortie method of torture for many of 007s adverseries. On the way back we stopped with a tow remaining pieces of bait and Sean adn Tadgh set to work....thankfully Sean redeemed our bad record and caught one...so it was gringos 1-tour guide 13 !
That night we took it a bit easier around the camp fire .We were on our own the second night so we didn{t have the singing to entertain us and took to the bunks a bit earlier.It was an early rise in teh morning at abtou 5.30 am for the sunrise. We got there just as the sun was coming up over the Pampas with the other eager beavers from the second tour group there well before us.It was a case of watch the sun rise,remark that it was Fabulous and then head back for breakie! After breakis we were off again int eh boat to swimwith the pink dolphins.After a lot of reassurance from our tour guide that this area had no piranhas or aligators we took to the waters scaring every dolphin within a 5 mile radius. We messed around the water for a while with the lads competing in an off the boat diving competition (some great belly flops). The minute we got back in the boat along came the dolphins again. They´re not really pink but just seem a bit like it from the colour of the water.They´re probably the ugly cousins of the Flipper variety with kind of funny noses,but it was nice to see them all the same.
After lunch back at the cmap we met the pet aligators...one toothless old codger called Maria and the second who we though to be Pedro but turned out not to be a pet a at all. It was amazing feeding them and Maria came right up into the camp for a bit of grub....well used to the sound of a pot being pounded to indicate it was lunchtime. I´m sure once again teh eco warriors would have been horrified but she didn{t look like se´d catch much on her own. We packed up the camp after lunch and took off in our boat back to catch the jeep.Along the way again we saw a load of huge camens this time, and a few turtles engaging in a gang bang on a log.
It was sheer bliss to get back to the hostel that evneing with the luxury of a shower to wash away the grime. But no sooner were we enjoying our comforts,then we were orgainising our 2 day jungle trip for the next two days. We decided on the same tour group getting another good deal and set off again the following morning on a boat down the river to the jungle reservation.
We had decided to really rough it this time adn opt for tents but when we got to camp after abotu 3 adn a half hours on a very uncomfortable boat we foun dwe were actually staying in a hut again. And instead of 2 guides for our big group we onyl had one....another fine example of the crap you get from teh agencies. We set off into the jungle that evening with our tour guide Tombo. He basically told us straight up that we woudl not be seeing any animals. but yet made us walk around as quiet as mice incase we scared any potentials away. So we steam-rolled through the jungle almost definately sending all the animals runnign for cover adn every so often our guide would stop dramatically and pretend like he´d heard something...after a couple of mintues off we´d all go again. This went on for abtou 3 hours, and all we saw was a tree that smell like Garlic,a tree where the extract for viagra comes from, a tree that supposedly walks at night (but actually doesn´t) and some monkey poo. At one stage after it got dark we were supposedly trackign some monkeys, unfortuantely because we had to stay so quiet half of us didn{t know what was going on and it turned into a game of chines whispers trying to get info to the people at the back.....it usually got lost along the way. Probably the highlight of the evening when the fire flies came out it was about the only living thing we saw apart from the trees!
Got back to camp after dark and after a good feed and a few ghost stories it was off to bed. I was only just gone to sleep when I heard the scratch scratch of some wild animal...okay probably only a mouse but terrifying enough especially when I was sure it was running around my bed. Put off going to the toilet (smelly hole in the ground) for as long as I could that night but unfortunately a trip was required at about 3am. I got there okay but on teh way back a good ole rustling in the bushes had me running for dear life back to the hut convinced I was about to be dinner for a Puma!
Next morning we were off again for another walk in the jungle. This time we pretty much gave up on trying to be quiet. Again we didn´t see a thing but got to do our Tarzan impressions swinging out of a vine! Got some great entertainment out of all the lads trying to cross the river....although not half as much as our guide seemed to. He was just waiting for one of them to land face down in the muck...unfortunately for him they didn´t make his day.
We got back to camp for lunch and then caught the boat back to Rurenabaque for a good wash and a feed. Ended up in the Banana club that night...one of the local hotspots. managed to last till about 4.30 am listening to the DJ play 30 seconds of every song while talking continuously over tham as well.
Next morning we had to catch teh bus back to the landing strip in teh middle of nowhere for our flight back to La Paz. The bus journey passed in a half comatosed state and before we knew it we were back at the grapefruit hotel. In true TAM fashion (and I thought the military would be punctual), the plane was about an hour late. When it finally arrived it had a puncture so we spent 5 hours on the runway, sheltering from the sun under the wing of the plane , playing cards etc. until they flew in a new tyre from La Paz!! Our expected arrival in La Paz was only delayed by about 8 hours!
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