Bolivia 2/3

La Pampas, an extension of the Amazon

Another night bus ride away (like I said, we're cheap, and who needs sleep anyway) and we've made it to La Pampas.

5 am, enter the bus terminal. Sticky warm air encompasses you. The roar of the night animals is deafening even behind the closed walls of the terminal. Bugs skitter across the floor in the shadows. Stray dogs bask in the pre-dawn heat, hair matted, wandering in friendly companionship during their hunt for food.

We sleep on wooden benches, arms clasped around our backpacks waiting for taxi drivers to arrive. 8am arrives, finally. We unwrap our sticky bodies from our dirty backpacks, brush off the invisible bugs, and follow the young drivers outside.

Their taxis were very unlike our Canadian ones. Not so much cars, but rather rusted motorcycles. I've never woken up so fast in my life like I did that morning, driving along dirt roads, bouncing around ruts, holding on joyously while watching the sun burn off the morning mist from the overgrown mountains. Watching as the locals bustled around their day, opening up shops, sweeping the sidewalks.

We meet the tour guide, and we're off, jerking along in a smaller off-brand version of a range rover toward the river we'll take into the jungle.

Our greatest nightmares

The first day is incredible.

We spend it rushing along the river in an elongated wooden canoe with an old 2-stroke attached to the back. Around every bend is another exotic animal pointed out by our guide. Birds, caimans, pink dolphins. And then what I've been waiting for my whole life to see in nature, lithe little squirrel monkeys scrambling around in the tree tops. These adorably curious little creatures climbed down onto our boat. I hesitantly reach out a hand, hoping not to scare them away. One of the little fellas takes it as an invitation to climb onto my head and next thing I know one is crawling all over Nate as well. My heart almost burst from joy.

More rushing along the river and we make it to camp. Sunburnt, damp from the moist heat of the jungle air, exuberant from new experiences.

In the evening it's off to the bar erected in the forest, standing alone with its wood fires to keep away the bugs. We meet the rest of the people who have come for the same tour, happily telling stories around the fire.

Back to camp, called Mosquito 1, and I learn to truly appreciate it's grand title. We stop in the darkness at a river bend, eyes flashing amongst the mangroves. Our guide pins the caiman with a flashlight and shows us how the reptiles eyes glow red in the light. Every time we stop I lose a little more of myself.

Not from fear of the large reptiles lurking beneath the surface of the water, but to the nasty little mosquitos literally taking parts of my body away with every bite. And oh there were many.

I had made the terrible mistake of wearing pants that did not stop the bites from the mosquitos. It wasn't until a month later during christmas at home that the bites had finally started to fade.

We get back to camp, and as we walk to the screened in room with our supper, I watch Nate jump gingerly out of the way of a giant toad. So, you may be laughing at me for mosquitos being the creatures that caused me the most grief, but at least it wasn't me who was scared of the toads.

The hunt for anacondas, fishing for piranhas, and a swim with pink dolphins

Sleep finds us slowly. The din of the bugs during the day has turned into a roar with the setting sun. Things lumber below the stilted huts. Monkeys play atop the tin roofs, others howl in the tree tops around the river bend. The heat is suffocating.

Sunrise finds us having a meager breakfast of bread, tea, and jam before setting out for the days adventures.

Today we're meant to walk around in the marsh stalking (or being stalked by) anacondas. I'll shorten it to say that we didn't see any of the monsters, but I did almost step on a small one. And by small I mean the length of my inseam, so perhaps not that small. Each step we took had the dirty brown water almost ooze over the tops of our wellies. Each step had us hoping to find one of the lurking snakes. Each step had us hoping that Episode 4 of Star Wars with the Diagona wouldn't play out in the marsh.

Back to camp. Another evening comes, and with sunset the little biting monstrosities and large gurgling toads. Sleep comes slowly. The sun rises and it's time for the next day of adventure.

The past few days have had the added pleasure of our guide telling us about the beauty and harm of La Pampas and the animals that dwell in it. Like the fact that in the water beneath our flimsy wooden boat lie large caimans, even larger anacondas, and ravenous piranhas. Oh, and then we're told that we'd be hopping in and going for a swim.

I should also mention that the dolfina rosa, or pink dolphins, keep away the predators in the water. We rush along the river until we find a few of the dolphins playing around and hop on in. Without fear. Me wearing long pants and socks because maybe there was a little fear. All of a sudden the dolphins were no longer swimming along playfully, and they were gone. So there we are, lounging in the water out of the way from the biting mosquitos and we hear our guide calling to us. We swim back to the boat, taking our time, feeling one or two nips from a curious fish, unworried. Until we realize that the guide is saying get back into the boat, the dolphins are gone, and the carnivorous predators are coming back into the area in which we are swimming. My goodness, did we get back into the boat quickly after that.

Later that day we get back at the lurking predators and try to catch piranhas with a line. I don't want to embarrass Nate too much with the story, so I'll just mention that I caught one without too much trouble and he may not have.

Another day comes to an end, another sunrise greets us with strong rays and the twittering of birds, and we hop into the boat to putter out, hop onto the bus, and then another bus, and another one, and finally to a totally new experience.