On our first day, we sailed to our camp which was built over water on a number of narrow decks and huts. Alligators and caiman regularly hung around our camp, hoping for food; it was pretty creepy to get up in the morning for breakfast and see a 4 metre long alligator lurking right beneath your feet in the swamp!
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| Our hut above the swamp |
Our guide was absolutely hilarious and kept referring to himself as 'el jefe' (the boss), saying he only came on tours when a really special group was involved. We were flattered but I'm pretty sure this was a lie - I think he just liked to refer to himself as the one in charge! He was a great guide though, we saw so much wildlife in those three days. One afternoon we saw a group of howler monkeys, and he told us that one male howler can have up to 8 female partners at one time.
'Mucho hanky panky for him, must be great life, no?' he said, and grinned at us, clearly incredibly amused by the idea of monkey sex. We were more entertained by the use of the words 'hanky panky' coming out of a Bolivian tour guide's mouth.
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| Crocodile Dundee |
That night it rained and rained and rained some more. It was absolutely chucking it down, relentlessly, for about 9 hours. It meant we couldn't go out that morning because we would have been soaked before we'd even reversed the canoe away from camp, so we just had to sit in our rooms and wait until it stopped.
When it did we sailed up river a bit to a huge swampy field where we hunted for anacondas! We were wearing wellies, which was just as well as the water nearly came up to my knees. Sadly we didn't see any anacondas, but Josh had lovely squelchy feet from the experience as his wellies both had holes in the soles!
We tried our hand at piranha fishing again but as before, had no luck. I'm far too impatient for fishing; sitting around watching a piece of string in the water and trying to get excited when your bait gets eaten right off the hook just doesn't do it for me!
Our experience in the pampas allowed us to see so much more wildlife than in the jungle: all in all we saw monkeys, sloths, parrots, toucans, turtles, snakes, caiman, alligators, and dolphins (which we actually swam in the river with! Or near, I should say; it's not Sea World, they're still wild animals.) It was a fantastic three days, and despite the hundreds of mosquito bites we accumulated - and 'hundreds' is no exaggeration either, I looked like I had measles - it was worth it. Plus now I can say I've been to the Amazon!
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| Relaxing |
