Blogging Gapper from South America

After our two day stay in La Paz, we set of on our journey to Rurrenabaque and the Amazon Basin. Our flight left La Paz at 7 a.m and landed in Rurrenabaque an hour later. When we landed we were surprised to see that there was no terminal, or building for that matter, rather there was just a landing strip and a few jeeps waiting to take us to our hostal. The rest of the day was spent exploring the town of Rurrenabaque, a small town located in the Amazon River Basin. The town was beautiful and surprisinly had more internet cafe´s then it did restaraunts. After having the balance of the day to walk around and explore the town, it was off to bed to get ready for our adventure.

We left Rurrenabaque early the next morning and drove for 3 hours to the town of Santa
Rosa, where we had lunch. The boat launch was 10 minutes away from the town and that is where we would begin our journey. The boats we travelled in were long, skinny and wooden, with a motor on
the back. They sat eight people in each, with a guide steering each boat. After loading our bags, we started heading down the river and immediately started to see animals such as Alligators, Tropical Birds, Monkeys and Capybarras, which are the largest rodents in the world. We boated for about 2 hours and then stopped and were given a chance to go swimming with the Pink Dolphins. The Pink Dolphins are fresh water river dolphins located in the Amazon River systems in South America. The dolphins were very shy and we really only saw them when the came up for air, but a few times a dolphin popped up 5 meters in front of you. After about a half an hour of swimming, we got back in our boats and headed off to our cabin where we would spend the next two nights. The facility we stayed at was very simple, it had a big cabin with ten beds for the boys, and a cabin of six and two for the girls. There were two bathrooms, a few showers, and a dinning room and kitchen. Each bed had a light blue mosqutio net attached to them, which succesfully kept out the bugs and gave everyone there on little sleeping oasis. Before dinner, we went back in the boats and went about ten minutes down the river to another cabin to watch the sunset. It was amazing to watch the sunset over the entire jungle, truly one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. As soon as the sun went down, we headed back to our homebase and had dinner, and the minute dinner was over, I climbed into my sleeping oasis and was out in a matter of seconds.

The next day, after breakfast, we went to hunt for Anacondas in the Pampas. We walked for two hours through tall grass, swamps, bushes, and hopped through fences before arriving at the area where the Anacondas were. The guides made us spread out in a long line that covered most of the area, and told us to walk slowly ahead and alret them if we saw any movement.We walked for about twenty minutues and were about to head to another area when a few people from another group yelled that they had found one. The entire group ran as fast as we could to see the snake. The Anaconda was 3 meters long and looked quite scared with thirty plus people taking pictures of it. We marvelled at the snake for a while and then started our long two hour trek back to our boats. We went back to our base and had lunch, followed by a three hour siesta. In the afternoon we went back to swim with the dolphins some more. After another half hour of swimming we went back to our cabin, had dinner, and went off to bed.

The next morning, there was an optional trip to go watch the sunrise in which most of the girls went and almost none of the boys went. Next on the agenda, after breakfast, was fishing for pirhana´s. Some of the group were very good at this, catching upwards of 7 fish. Other struggled catching only two (myself, one being about 3 inches long). After our morning fishing we went back to our base, packed up and headed back Rurrenabaque and to get ready for Copacabana and PERU!

Stay classy everyone,

Dalton