Jungle Fever in the AMAZON!!

The Amazon. Omg. I think this was probably the number one place I wanted to visit on this entire trip!! And I am so happy I picked Bolivia as my place to see it! The amazon basin is massive there, and apparently the most bird species in the world are found here!

Chris and I planned to do the trip together because Scotty and Candace had already done it in other places, so we hopped onto a 9 row (total 19 seats) passenger plane that was so small that I was too tall to stand up straight in the plane, there was no door to the cockpit, and the plane was ancient enough that the pilots were using a real map and compass to track where we were. What the shit? lol.  I won't lie, I definitely did a praying session before the plane took off, and definitely before it landed because it was landing on a dirt runway.  There are only about 2000km of paved roads in Bolivia. I've already been on buses driving through these roads, I've biked down these roads, been in taxis on these roads, but doing a plane landing seems like a bit too much especially because Chris had some friends who almost died in this type of plane because the wheels wouldn't come out before landing. OMG. I was definitely nervous about this flight.

The flight was only 40 minutes long, and went without any troubles (thank God), and once we got to Rurrenebaque, we settled into finding a place to stay and grabbed some dinner since the next day we had to drive 3.5 hrs to get to point where we would start our 3 day Pampas tour, which is basically a tour that goes through the Amazon all on boats.  The car ride was pretty painful--we had 11 people in our jeep that should only fit 8 at a max.  Chris and I were sandwiched into the front seat, and since the windows wouldn't roll up, and it was too hot to want to roll them up since there was no AC, the car was constantly filled with dirt and dust.  My nose and lungs hate me right now because of all the work they've had to do to make sure I'm breathing semi-clean air. I became friends with our driver since everyone else in the car was from Korea and Chris went to sleep, so I had a nice conversation with him (well, I attempted a conversation), and he even pointed out plenty of animals for me to see!

We got to the boat eventually and hopped on with another group of english speakers and set off for a 2 hour ride before we got to our lodge in the jungle.  It was pretty much amazing. haha. Different birds everywhere, lots of awesome trees, amazing weather, and we even got to stop and feed some monkeys!! After we got settled into the lodge, we went to watch the sunset, which basically means we went to the mosquito feeding grounds, and so began the endless cycle of getting bitten for me. The sunset was cool, but I was not a fan of the bites I got through my clothes even though I had 40% deet on me. At night we got back into the boat and went to find some caimens (alligators/crocs of the amazon) because in the dark, their eyes shine red in the light.  We actually saw a few, but most were babies.

Day 2:

Woke up this morning after a night of listening to a bat fly all around our room and I think mice scamper up and down the beams of the ceiling...ee! First thing to do was pick out waterproof boots that went almost up to my knees because the morning's activity was ANACONDA HUNTING!  Woah! So cool!! Well I thought it was until we got to where we were looking: a swampy field with grass basically as tall as me, with no visibility by my feet.  Umm..how am I supposed to see the anaconda exactly??  Most of the time I was afraid just to accidentally step on one, I wasn't even sure what I would do if I actually found one! It was so hot out that it become more of a journey just to trek to the other side of the field where there were trees and shade. We were supposed to look around for 3 hours, and most of us were at the trees by the end of the first hour.  haha. I saw no anacondas, but I got plenty of mosquito bites, got really tired walking through that grass, and got my pants permanently stained with mud and mosquito repellant.  I guess I did see a cool looking lizard, an owl, and I saw the maggot that lives inside the Brazilian nut that apparently tastes just like coconut---I did not try the maggot (but others, including our guide, did. ew.).

We got back to the lodge and everyone decided to go swimming in the river since it was so hot, but the crazy part about that is a certain caimen named Frederico.  Frederico sits on the bank of our lodge to get sun, and that afternoon he was in the water at the edge of the bank. Umm, you want me to go swimming while there is a caimen at the edge of the water?? Everyone else did it, so I did too! haha, peer pressure. And people standing near Frederico to make sure he was still on the edge before we jumped off the rope into the water.  It took me a while to jump into the water, but it was mostly me just being afraid of swinging off a rope, not the caimen.  I thought about the caimen once I was in the water trying really hard to swim back to the shore but struggling against the current. I did it once more, but that was enough for me.  Didn't want to take too many chances with Frederico, although we all figured since he got food scraps from the kitchen, trying to eat one of us was way more work and not worth it.

After our afternoon siesta we went PIRANAH FISHING!! COOL!! We didn't actually have real fishing poles--it was just a piece of wood with a long wire wrapped around it and then a small hook--but I guess I shouldn't have expected more.  I spent the first 30 or 40 minutes of this outing getting really excited because I thought I felt a pull, only to pull out twigs and sticks. So sad.  I was providing most of the entertainment for our boat because of this, but eventually I caught one!!!! It was so exciting! Although, I did cringe away from it, and I basically didn't touch it at all. haha. We put it back into the water because it wasn't super big. I also managed to lose my sunglasses in the river. Adios sunnies! Lo siento Madre de Monde!  For dinner later that night, the cook fried up the fish, and so I tried some piranha.  It wasn't bad..although it was hard to really taste anything since there is almost no meat on the fish anyway.

Day 3:

Woke up to watch the sunrise this morning.  TRANSLATION: got a lot more mosquito bites to add to the two nights worth from the sunsets. After some breakfast, we set out to go swimming with pink dolphins!  They are really hard to spot and pretty shy...I thought it would be like something out of Sea World. haha. Nope. We did find them, and we got into the water with them and whatever else was swimming in that river, but no one got to actually touch one.  It was still pretty cool though, and the water felt amazing, even though I've only swam in salt water and I forgot how hard it is to carry your own body weight in the water.  I got tired pretty quickly and hung off the side of the boat a few times. haha. I did get a little nervous because I accidentally swallowed some of that water..parasites, bacteria, omg, sickness! But I was fine. I think--knock on wood--my stomach is super immune now.

We re-did our two hour boat ride and then our 3.5 hour jeep ride back to Rurrenebaque, and Chris and I hopped back onto a plane to La Paz to meet up with Candace and Scott to enjoy a few more nights there before heading to Copacabana! Yes, I said Copacabana--it does exist in Bolivia, too.  I wonder if it will live up to the expectations normally associated to that place.