Rurrenabaque

Well this is going to be bloody hard, it's been quiet a few days since my last post, but after spending 5 nights in Rurrenabaque, the Internet..and electricity aren't a given like most places.
Left La Paz for Rurrenabaque last Thursday..and it was a tough decision..should I catch the bus..which is meant to be very hairy in some places...and the bus ride takes about 20 hours if your lucky. The other option was a 40 minute flight..it sounds easy enough, but not when you take into account the plane is a 16 seater Cessna..a single engine plane..and the only plane that seems to have fatalities in Australia..and we are talking about Bolivia!
Anyway, Nick, Jess and I didn't nearly make the flight..and maybe in another country, we definitely would not of. Nick and Jess thought the flight left at 4.30pm, instead of 4.15pm, but there ended up being a massive traffic jam near the airport..so we decided to walk the remaining bit on foot. The only problem was that every single person we asked pointed us towards the other airport..TAM...but after some nifty taxi driver though the TAM section, we got to the correct airport at 3.45pm. We need not of rushed..there seemed no rush from the check-in desk when we arrived.
The flight wasn't to bad, a few shaky moments, the plane felt like it was just a piece of tin over some parts. The scenery was amazing though, it felt like you could stick you hand out and touch the snow capped Andes as we passed the mountain range.
The 5 day in Rurr was pretty cool. After being in La Paz, which is a crazy big city, it was great to be in small town...very chilled out place.
We spent 3 days in the Pampas...which is basically a waterway where you can get to see loads more animals than the jungle. It's was cool to cruise down on the boat..we got to see loads of Alligators and Turtles, we saw one group of Spider Monkeys as well, but would of love to have seen more monkeys. On the second day we marched though long muddy grass for 1 1/2 hours each way to look for an Anaconda. We did eventually see one which was cool, but the effort didn't really match the reward. What was more rewarding was fishing for piranhas later in the arvo. I have never caught a fish before, and I managed to catch 3 piranhas...even though you would hardly be impressed by my catches..they were no bigger than any goldfish I've had before..and they certainly didn't have teeth like I was expecting.
On the last day we went swimming with pink dolphins...but even though there were quiet a few where we were swimming..the water was so brown..and they weren't your Flipper kind of Dolphins..a bit shy. The boat trip back was pretty funny in some respects, I nearly caught a big piranha..but it wasn't due to my fishing technics..the bugger flew out of the water as we were cruising along and fish slapped me in the face. haha
The last two days was spent in Jungle, a 3 hour boat ride from Rurrenabaque. It was a cool experience, got to see one of the best sunsets I've ever seen. We went for a few jungle walks, the night one was far and away the best...all we had for light was our head lamps...and some of the insects we saw even gave me the schivers. We also visited a jungle community, but it was hardly what I expected. They are pretty poor, but we only met some kids and one older guy, who gladly took our 50 Bolivianos each. The community did give me a chance to take a few happy snaps of some of the worst looking animals I have ever seen. Chickens with hardly any feathers, and it seemed every dog looked like it had gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson.
Besides this, I had the best fish I have ever tasted in Rurr a couple of times. God knows what the fish was, but it was soaked in this delicious garlic sauce. I have never been much of a fish eater, but if it all tasted like this..I would be chowing it all the time.
The last interesting thing we did in Rurr was catch motorbikes to the airport after missing the bus. It wasn't such a problem, only a 10 min ride, but we did this with all our belongings, I had my big backpack, a little backpack on my front, and my shoes in my hands..another interesting experience in Bolivia!