Magpie's Flight: Hey Y´All!!

Tire?

Just the beginning...

To the rescue!

Dear lord, where is our bus?!

I´m back! Short blog break for the pampas. They were AMAZING! It was such a warm relaxing week :) Getting there was a different story- some traveling days are better than others, and this was maybe the worst. Yup, worse than the boat ride to the border. We were told to get to the bus station at 10:30 for our 11am bus departure. The bus "station" turned out to be just a street, that smelled awful. We waited, and waited, and waited, and at 11:30, the bus showed up at least, however all the people were shipping there entire crop and house of furniture with them, so they then spent FOUR hours loading far too much cargo into the bottom of the bus, and on top about 10 ft high, literally. We had potatoes and babies and blankets bursting at the seams. At 3:30pm, movement! The bus was so dirty and smelly and packed. Leaving the city we were stopped at a check point for having too much cargo- shocker, but after much arguing "PORQUE?!" we were allowed to pass. Back on the road with the most terrible spanish love songs blaring, we made it a few hours before getting a flat tire. While they changed it to our spare, all the people poured out of the bus, walked all of maybe two feet and started peeing; men and women....awesome. We reloaded, took off and made it to a stop for some food while they properly fixed the tire. I tried to sleep for a bit afterwards, but on top of being uncomfortable seats, the music was deafeningly loud, and the funk in the air was growing. The women in the seat across from us had passed out, sprawled all over the seat, with her breast out, baby attached but also sleeping, and the woman in front of us had stowed her baby under her seat to sleep, so I was terribly nervous about kicking or stepping on it. Next catastrophe in line was getting stuck in the mud- three times...sigh. Luckily there were tractors to pull us out, so it didn´t take terribly long each time. The grand finale was the road being completely washed out, and we had to walk the last hour to Rurrenabaque. I was only to happy to walk an hour just to be out of that nightmare on wheels. A 36 hour journey...I immediately bought a plane ticket for the return trip. Back to the good stuff! The pampas tour was a small motorized boat, with really comfy little lawn chairs of sort for us to sit on, and we just glided across the water in the sun, looking at all of the animals. We saw tons of ALLEY-GAY-TORES!, tucans (sp?), herons (I really don´t know how to spell bird names, anyhoo). lizards, rampas (I think that´s the name- the largest rodents), squirrel and holler monkeys, PINK DOLPHINS (yay, yay), parahnias, snakes, butterflies...and and and. The first day was just animal watching, and it was just awesome- we went out after dinner also and looked at the glowing camon eyes and the beautiful stars (peace). The second day, we got up and went hunting for anacondas, which now I think, why the hell did I even go? I don´t want to see an anaconda! Luckily, we didn´t find one, and just ended up tromping through the swamp in boots that leaked for like 3 hours- it was exhausting and disgusting. A guide from another tour was just barely scratched by a green mamba, and apparently if you are full on bit, you die within 30 minutes (another fact that if known pre-snake hunt, I would not have gone). He was okay, but spent the entire night vomitting- scary! After snake hunting and lunch, we went out fishing, and I caught a parahnia!!! You just put a piece of red meet on a hook on the end of a string, drop it in the water and pull it back up, wa-la, dinner! We did cook and eat them that night, but they pretty much tasted like muddy "meh" fish. We put a lot of sauce on them. Day three, we got up at 6am and watched the sun rise while listening to all of the birds and monkeys and sounds of the swamp. AW, it was so nice. After some breakfast, we went swimming with the dolphins! They keep the alligators and parahnias away from you, but you´re still in brown water, knowing that somewhere very close by there are parahnias and alligators, so it´s not the most relaxing/enjoyable swim. And the guide, of course, thought it was hilarious to yell, "Alleygaytore!" as soon as everyone is in the water. Alright, it was a little funny. The dolphins are so cool though- they are grey on top and pink on bottom, and pretty playful, though they don´t actually touch you- they are curious enough to stay close, but won´t come all the way up to you. We had a three hour boat ride back to our jeep, which was the perfect end to the tour. Right before we loaded into the jeep, Stef (friend from Switzerland) was bit by ants, and within about 5 minutes had a horrible allergic reaction, so the ride home was really scary because it was 3 hours to a hospital, and her whole body was a swollen rash. Another girl (met more really cool people on the tour again) had an anti-hystamine, and that tied Stef over thankfully. She´s better today, but she had a rough night. Rurrenabaque is a nice town- small, friendly, cheap, and warm. I went out with some people for dinner and drinks and a little dancing, but went to bed fairly early after realizing that the beer that I was drinking is 7.5% :)