The Pampas in Bolivia

To get to Pampas (wetlands in Amazons), I had to first get to Rurenabaque, the remote city in the amazon basin in Bolivia. Most tourists take an easy 1 hour flight from La Paz. Being on the budget, I decided to give it a try and take a as its known, " a long 19-hour, bumpy, uncomfortable bus ride" instead. Only 3 hours are on the paved road, the rest is the dirt road, also passing through the famous Death Road, ascending high Andean mountains and then descending into the subtropical vegetation, before entering amazons. The trip turned out to be not bad at all. I actually quite enjoyed it. Wow!! It was hot and very sunny!!! I missed that so much! I miss not having to put soo many layers after the sun goes down!!! Rurenabaque was lovely! It did not even seem like it was Boliva. People did not have that indigenous-inca look here. They had more of an amazonian tribal look. People seemed to be soo happy, lots of little children running around, young couples holding hands, lots of families. And all seemed to know each other and greeted each other with a big smile. Also, they use scooters for a taxi here. Even though the town is tiny, I made sure I took a couple of motor taxi rides here , that were so much fun!!! I stayed in another cozy and friendly hostel here with hammocks on the terrace. I spent soo many hours in those hammocks, that its embarrassing to even mention... :)) I even spent one night there... red wine, fresh air, warm, stars... who needs to sleep in the room?!?! I also met some great peeps, Marcel from Germany and Claire, my girl from New Zealand, there and it could not have been better!! Then, I had to pull myself together and book the Pampa trip to see the wildlife in the amazons... the 1st reason why i came here..:)) There are pampas (wetlands) and the jungle all around Rurenabaque. Pampa is best to see more wildlife, and jungle is better to experience the deep jungle forest and some wildlife too. Since, I had an experience of the jungle in Ecuador before, I chose to go to Pampas. I booked standard 3 days, 2 nights trip... It was unforgettable!!! The highlights were the caymans (crocodiles) ..... and hundreds of them all around!! Also, learning that they are not that dangerous for humans... unless we mess with them.... Since, these areas are still reasonably untouched by humans, humans did not yet got a chance to piss them off as much as they did in other more populated areas, where they do happen to attack people. Our guide even convinced us that it was even safe to swim in the river. One of the activities was swimming with endangered pink Delphine while crocodiles were just nearby. No joke, it was a bit strange, but a few big crocodiles were just 5 meters away from us while we were swimming... We also went looking for crocodiles at night, by shining light at them and looking for their eyes reflecting on the river ... Again, could not believe my eyes, how many of the crocodiles were around!! We also fished for pirana and ate them later. Another activity was looking for an anaconda on foot in the swamp. We a bit unlucky with that and never found one, but... during one of our boat rides we did see one!!!! We also saw numerous monkeys, birds, cabreras, spotted a lazy sloth, and many-many big birds... My unfortunate ride to La Paz