We flew early Friday morning to Rurrenabaque, got in a jeep for 3 hours along a horribly bumpy dusty road. We got lunch in a small town and headed to the river where we met our guide Diego, a local guy who'd grown up in the jungle. Diego was crazy and great fun. We spent the first hour motoring up the river spotting wild life, we saw everything, Dolphins, alligators, monkeys, hundreds of herons, they were like crows, as well as other Amazon birds.
Diego teased the monkeys onto the boat with a banana and head them walk on our heads. One monkey decided to poop on Marks head. We stopped to swim in the river, not more than 10metres after seeing an alligator, Diego assured us we were fine. We made it to camp, had dinner and headed out back up the river to see the sunset. It was cloudy so we didn't see much but we had a beer and played some football. The heat made it impossible to play though as it was roasting.
On our way back to camp we shined torches into the water to spot the alligators hunting at night. A roasting hot sleep and we were up for breakfast. It was time to go snake hunting. If swimming with alligators was scary this was terrifying, we were wearing wellies and we had to walk thru fields looking out for snakes, if we saw a snake we'd yell for Diego he'd come sprinting over catch it by its tail swing him around a bit then catch hold of there necks and we'd get to hold the snake. The Cobra I found had just eaten a baby Anaconda and ended up regurgitating him and we released him back into the field.
After lunch we got to go piranha fishing and swimming with dolphins, not at the same time though. The Dolphins would nibble at your feet, the water was very dirty so you couldn't see them coming. We didn't manage to catch a single piranha which was very disappointing. Another sunset and back for a roasting hot nights sleep. We had half a day left so Diego let us choose what we wanted to do. We chose piranha fishing in an attempt to make up for the day before. Luckily we did manage to catch a few, Meave caught 8, I managed to catch one myself after several near misses and fish missing the boat. It was basically just a hook on a piece of gut using raw meat as bait, once you felt a nibble you had to pull hard on your line, hoping to either hook the piranha or pull him in with force as he's biting. It was very difficult.
We had a final lunch before heading back down the river to the jeep to a hostel in rurrenbakie. We were meant to stay for one night and fly back to La Paz in time for the Irish match. But the plane was cancelled on the Saturday so we were pushed back by a day. We watched the game in a local pub and had everyone in there supporting Ireland. we headed back early Tuesday morning and after everything that had gone on I decided it was best if I flew the plane.
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