Competition:Give me a good title for this post

Spent the last few days in the Amazon Basin in the North of Bolivia. It was well class, easily one of the highlights of the whole South American trip. We flew out Tuesday morning in our own little 15-man jet over, and sometimes actually alongside, a big mountain range and eventually landed on a grass airfield in the middle of the jungle. We went from 3800m and 5*C to 300m and 32* in one hour. It felt good to get back into the heat though, the coolness of La Paz was getting to me.

So we spent one night in Rurranabaque, which is a small town where the tours are based out of. Forgot what it was like to have to try and sleep in 25*C heat, i.e difficult. The next day 8 of us piled into a Range Rover and headed off for a 3 hour ride along a dirt track to the River Beni, passing traditional huts made of mud and roofs of reeds along the way. Then it was a 1 hour boat ride through wetlands to our Lodge on the river. We stayed there for 3 days and two nights. We were lucky in one way in that it was rainy season, or at least the end of it and while it did not rain while we were there the river was flowing fast enough so mosquitoes were not that much of a problem, i got around 6 bites in three days which is better than Rio. We were unlucky in other ways in that the river was around several metres higher than usual and so there were not as many creatures to be seen, during the dry season they are much less shy and more eager to get to the waters edge where you can see them.

Saying that though we still saw tons. On the first day we just went for a boat ride up the river and saw lots of monkeys, yellow, howler, weird ones. Lots and lots of freaky birds, river snake and alligators. That night we also went to see the sun set over the pampa's fields which was pretty cool. The next day we went anaconda hunting but since the water was so high, nearly crotch high, they could be passing within a few feet of us and we would not have known, when its dry you can find them actually slithering through the mud. We did see lots of funky insects and stuff, ant nests in bushes where the ants ran from plant to plant along the algae on the water surface, bees the size of you thumb, wasps as big as you little finger-at one stage we heard this huge drone as a swarm of something flew over the fields near us, sounded like a racecar in the distance. After that we found a pod of fresh-water dolphins that lived in the river. they were around 5/6 foot long, pink and blind. They would come up to you and nibble at your feet or arms to see what you were and after a while they would come over to us in the water and you could try and swim along with them. That was well class, so much so that we went back later to a different spot and swam with a different pod. After that then we went piranha fishing which was a bit scary. Had a bit of meat on the end of hooks and when you dropped it into the water it would be gone in a flash, any of us would have been screwed if we had fallen in, not killed but definately mauled in just a few seconds. Cathy the jammy dodger caught one, pictures are in the process of being put up on her site.

The last day was we just went on another tour just to see what we could find and also to go swimming with more dolphins that we found. Was a bit worried about the alligators and stuff that were around but then we found half an anaconda in the rushes. Apparently the dolphins are very territorial and will attack anything that comes into their turf. Good thing i did not know that or i would not have gotten into the water. Several times when i was in the water i was thinking 'what the hell am i doing here?', not only because the entire situation was so surreal but also because i am petrified of sharks and here i was in 20ft murky water waiting for a large carnivorous animal to come out of nowhere and gnaw at my feet. The whole experience was class though. Cathy is putting up pictures but its very slow going and they wont be proper ready i.e rotated, cropped and sorted for a few days, she does hate it when people see her unfinished photo sets.

In other news, kelly, the girl who was travelling with us until Bolivia, has come down with Dengue Fever. Its a nasty viral infection that is sweeping through Rio and Brazil at the minute. Spread by mosquitos its goten so out of hand that the military have been called into Rio to enforce and aid in containment measures, draining stagnant water places and stuff. There is no vaccine against it, you just have to avoid getting bitten. Its not life-threatening, at least if caught early, just like a really really bad flu and you white blood cell count is fucked. She got it in time however and is alright, although having to go to a hospital in a different country is never fun. SHe is grand now though, have yet to find out what her plans for the rest of her trip are though.

So give us a few days and there wil be class photos up on flickr. Heading to Peru tomorrow, going to spend some time on Lake Titicaca and then off to Cuzco and to organise the Inca trail, then back to Brazil for a final 2 weeks of Capoeira and beaches.