Rurrenabaque - Two Billion Mozzies and an Invisible Sloth

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Arrived in Rurrenabaque around 7am after 14 hours on a bus and headed straight to a hostel for a couple of hours  of catch up sleep before heading down the street to line up a three day tour of the Pampas for the next day.

There are two different types of tours you can do, one which is in the jungle and the other in the pampas which is basically wet lands...supposedly the wetlands tour has more animals to see and less plants so went for that one.  As per usual we did a fairly vigorous search of all the tour agencies (I think we checked two) and then went with the cheapest one.  Then had several beers that night in the hottest (and I mean that literally) bar in town to mentally prepare for three days in the pampas.

World championship turtle diving...riveting stuff.
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First day we turned up at the tour agency on time as usual...not sure why we bother, the guys hadn't even started loading up the 4wd and then had to get petrol so our 8:30am start was closer to 9:30am.  What followed  was seriously one of the three most uncomfortable hours of our lives as we belted along the worlds most bumpiest road sitting on hard bench seats and with slight hangovers...had to spare a thought for Brodie the Canadian guy who also had to deal with some major intestinal problems.

Funny looking wombat.
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After the 4wd ride from hell we arrived at the river were we loaded up our boat which was like a big long canoe with an outboard.  The next two hours as we motored along the Beni River towards our lodge and home for the next few days was quite enjoyable as we saw turtles, alligators, capybara (big wombat lookin things), monkeys and heaps of birds.  At one point we stopped at a tree crawling with little Spider monkeys and the guide gave Jo a banana to give to them, she didn't actually get a chance to give it to them as about 15 little monkeys mobbed her and took it by force, by the time I got my camera out to take a shot they were all back in the trees again.

The monkey that mugged Jo for a banana
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Arrived at our lodge which was in ok condition but not the shiny new looking thing the guy in the tour agency had shown us.  Then we had to wait outside with the mosquitos (who we would get to know quite well over the next few days) as the guides tried to locate the keys to the dorms.  After finally getting in we spent the next couple of hours cowering in our beds with the mozzie nets down.

Once it was dark we piled back into the boat and went spotlighting for Alligators whose eyes light up quite brilliantly under the shine of torches..plus as an added bonus got to use our neardy head torch.  On the way back the guide pulled into the bank at what appeared to be just a random spot, I was leaning over the edge looking in the water trying to work out why we were stopping when a little bastard fish jumped straight into my face...then they started jumping into the boat from every direction, in the boat was absolute mayhem, I think I might have squealed like a little girl until I realised what was going on.  The guide was in at the back of the boat in hysterics laughing at us trying to throw these little fish back although I am sure he has done the trick twice a week for the last 10 years.

Sun rise over the Pampas
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Next day we went for quite a long walk into Anaconda territory and found two which apparently is really good as half the time they don't find any.  Later  in the arvo we went swimming in the river with pink dolphins....actually they didn't come within a 100 meters of us so we were really swimming by ourselves.  On the way back to our lodge the guide spotted a sloth in the trees on the bank and got quite excited, he spent 10 minutes trying to point it out to us but as no one could see the bloody thing so he pulled onto the bank and made us trek through the mosquito infested vegetation to the base of the tree, another 10 minutes and 100 mozzie bites later we still couldn't see it then another guide turns up  looks at the tree for about a second and goes "oh yeah  there it is".... still not sure if they were making stuff up or not but at least we can say we stood next to a guy who saw a wild sloth.

Eagle in flight.
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Finished the day with a game of soccer and then headed to a bar called The Pink Dolphin  (sounds like a gay bar I know) for a few beers.

Final day we got up early to watch the sunrise (although some didn't make it Jo included) which was really good and then went fishing for Piranhas in the arvo.  Managed to catch a couple, including a red one which was a reasonable size, frustrating fishing though as you either catch one or lose your bait within 5 seconds.  That was pretty much it and we were glad to be leaving the mosquitos behind.