Amazonas Adventure

To our huge relief the weather held and the our flight with Amazonas Airlines went ahead. Flights to Rurrenbaque, in the amazon basin are renowned for being cancelled or delayed in the rainy season due the runway simply being grass. The only other way to get to Rurre is by the infamous 18 hour bus/roller-coaster so we were keeping everything crossed for our 45 minute flight to go ahead. We squeezed onto the 17 seater plane and in true South American style bumped into friends, Juilen and Charlotte who we had last seen in Torres del Paine, Southern Chile. The flight went as smoothly as a small tin can in turbulance can but only 45 minutes later we were stepping out into 40 degree heat with about 100% humidity.

Rurre felt a world away from La Paz´s cold and antiplano climate. It was more like being in africa with mosquitos the size of your head, the heat and buzz of a small town - oh and lots of soldiers walking around with machettes. After finding a flee bitten hostel for the night we headed to a posh hotel which had a pool and met up with Julien and Charlotte. From Marseille, they are travelling South America whilst on honeymoon and were also heading into the wilderness.

We did a bit of classic backpacker shopping around, always having to find the best deal even though we`re in the cheapest South American country, and decided to go with the company Fluvial Tours for 450 BOB for a three day expedition into the Pampas. This was an incredible price and the service was brilliant. The following day we met with the six other guys in our group; Paola from Peru, Andrew and Annelie from Oz, Doris from the Netherlands and Sarah and Michael from Ireland. We boarded our rickity jeep and drove for about 2 hours to the start of the wetlands and waterways. We arrived in the middle of nowhere, the sun was baking and all of a sudden another boat (dug out canoe style) arrives, returning from a three day tour with punters. As they disembarked we saw one girl covered from head to toe in mosquito bites, handing out the warning that the mozzies here could bite through anything. Then would you believe it behind her was Thomas and Loes from our Salar de Uyuni journey. A very bizarre coincidence but then as we keep realising South America is a very small place!

The next three days were incredible and within ten minutes of cruising down the waterway we were spotting Howler Monkeys, Turtles, all sorts of birds, Caimen and the alusive Pink River Dolphins. We reached camp by late afternoon which was situated on the bank of the river. Our huts were on stilts as the camp was also home to a whole host of animals including an agressive Caimen and toothless Aligator. Returning from a trip down river became a mini adventure of it´s own when you had to jump the caimen or dodge sticks being thrown down from the trees by Capuchin Monkeys. Each day was awe inspiring, and our luck the second day continued as we went looking for an Anaconda. After a sweltering walk across the boggy plains we eventally found one. It was around three metres long and moved with effortless speed through this partially submerged pasture. The attack of the mosquitos went unoticed whilst we were striding through bogland but on return to the camp we saw that Han´s back was covered in bites, and they´d managed it through 2 layers of clothing. We were all hot, stinky and gagging for a swim. We changed and cruised down river to where we´d spotted some river dolphins earlier on. Before you could say Bolivian referendum results we were jumping into this amazonas waterworld and swimming with pink river dolphins. Now, swimming in the Amazon, which has Caimen, piranas, Aligators, flesh eating diseases etc and all that ´hype´ wouldn´t normally stop me, but when the dolphins suddenly left the scene and we were still splashing around all those Natural History programmes of young wilderbeast being pulled under by crocs came flooding back. Needless to say we all hopped out sharpish!

The final day came and we went pirana fishing, before we knew it we were arriving back where our jeep had set us down two days before. As we bounced along the dirt track to Rurrenbaque the darkest clouds formed and the winds picked up. The heavens opened and our flight back to La Paz the next day evaporated in front of us. That night we had a few cheeky cocktails in the Mosquito Bar with the group along with Julien and Charlotte, who were back from their jungle tour.

Customer service isn´t something you should expect if you come to Bolivia and Amazonas Airlines are the epitomy of this. Our flight ended up being delayed for five hours and we had to force them to store our luggage. Once we were about to leave for the airport we were told we would have to pay more money for a transfer to the military airport, as they´d rescheduled our flight from there! All I wanted was some sort of drinks voucher to make me feel like a valued customer or some stupid rep telling us what the hell was happening. Alas, no not here and not with Amazonas. We eventually made it back onto the little plane, and took off headed for La Paz, sad to be leaving the Amazonian wilderness that had been incredible to explore.