Rurrenabaque and the jungle

One of the reasons we did the bike thing was because we thought it was safer to do that than get the bus down the road to our next journey. What we didn`t know was that the bike ride only takes off a little bit and you still have an 18 hour bus ride ahead of you to get to the Amazon Basin.

We thought it would be quick and flat, but no, of course not, this is the Andies and the road was still just a dirt track carved out of the moutnainside so that whenever we had to pass a truck the bus was driven so close to the edge that from the window you couldn´t see the road, only the drop to your death. Also we knew that to take busses at night meant you had a deathwish, but not knowing how long the journey was (and not being able to find out) most of it was at night! Although we got there we had to stop for 3 flat tyres, 2 drug check points, some au-natural toilet breaks and some very dodgy looking engineering underneath the bus where I believe they may have been trying to beat the axle back into alignment.

Made it to Rurre in the jungle and settled in - nice town, safe good bars and really built for tourists. We got a five day jungle trip sorted and headed off into the wild. Now I´m not much of a jungle person, I am a bit like that bloke off the Fast Show who works in a zoo but jumps everytime an animal comes near him. Thats me with flying things, and believe me the jungle has some huge flying things. Thankfully I covered myself in DEET spray so avoided the mosquiotos and we sort of did quite a nice trip, no camping for us, we stayed in wooden huts under mosquito nets.

Spent 3 days on one of the rivers and then a couple trecking through thr jungle, all pretty good stuff, loads of animals, photos and things, including watching sunset at a bar which has been built for tourists in the jungle - its not really what Micheal Palin would have done is it!

The motorised canoe trip further into the junge to our camp was amazing. We saw loads of wildlife including strange jungle animals that don`t even have english names but can only be described as crosses between animals we know e.g. a pig/rat! The amount of wildlife we saw was( definately helped by the fact that our guide was fluent in jungle animal language - he literally called the monkeys out of the trees to the edge of the river!. What was most impressive (and scary considering "river swimming" was on the adgenda for the next day) was how many aligators we saw! They were lurking in the water under fallen branches and dotted about on the bank every few meters! It was even more impressive at night when the aligators eyes were bright red (reflecting our touch light). All you could just see was red eyes poking out of the water everywhere staring at you!

We heard about a couple of guys who got an unofficial tour with a mate of a mate of a hoitel owner. Their trip consisted of going out with a couple of shifty poachers who drove them by boat 7 hours into the jungle, proceeded to shoot an endangered monkey out of a tree with the gun he was for some reason carrying, then cut the thing up and used it as bait for them to catch their dinner! They had to spend the first night on their boat as it was the only place they felt safe from all the creatures since mosquito nets were not available!

To be honnest the jungle is huge, and unless you want to put yourselves in danger like those guys, you get to see all the good stuff (oversized eveything! - trees, leaves, insects!) whilst also living a bit more comfortably. Although we had a go at fishing for Pyranhs, our group had 2 guides and a cook who spent all day back at the huts preparing food for us! That is what camping in the jungle is all about.

Went back to Rurre to try and get a flight out to La Paz so we didn´t have to do the death road in reverse. Not bad, slight hitches with them wanting to put us on different planes, but we got on the same flight in the end.

It wasn´t like a normal flight - firstly the plane only had 12 seats and you sat behind the pilot so it was more like one of the planes used for a scenic New York city tour, secondly the airstrip was grass in the middle of the jungle.

We met at the airline shop in town where we got a bus with all the people that worked in the shop. When we got to the airport they then became the people who checked us in. When that was done they went outside, put on yellow jackets and guided the plane into land, next the same people unloaded and loaded the plane and then helped it take off!

It was a brillitant (if bumpy) flight over the jungle, especially as it took ages for the plane to climb up to the height of La Paz, in fact we climbed the whole way!