Trip to the Pampas

Home Sweet Home

(It´s on stilts for a reason....water, and reptile protection)

"How did you convince me to come here IB?"

"What´s that Debo??....insurance....Yeah it´s all up to date....Why?"

Yumm....I smell a Scotsman - I love foreign food!!!

We went on a 3 day (2 night) trip to the Pampas - which is a kind of swampy, jungle-y region in Bolivia. We had another small plane trip to get there (much to Debo´s delight), which took about an hour. On arrival we met another 3 people, on our trip, and piled into a 4x4 for a 3 hour drive from Rurrenabaque to Santa Rosa (stopping for lunch on the way). We then loaded our gear into a long canoe type boat and went for a 2 hour sail up the Yakuma river to our camp (3 huts on stilts, with no glass windows...only mozzie screens). It was about 6pm when we arrived at camp, so we unloaded our stuff, had dinner and then went back out on the river (in pitch black) to look for alligators. Before we even got into the boat, Angelo (our guide), took us round the back of our sleeping hut, shone his torch...and we saw a pair of big red eyes staring back......that will be alligator number 1 then....and a bit too close too home (this is when we realised why the huts were on stilts). We then went out onto the pitch black river, with our torches, to find some more (why are we doing this when the engine on the boat kept stalling). We saw a few more (one a bit too close to the boat for comfort) and then back to camp. Luckily our beds had mozzie nets round them too and, with the aid of earplugs, we slept suprisingly well.