Bitten to smithereens!

The jeep was loaded and we all piled into the car. Our guide was accompanied by his wife who would be the chef for our trip, and also their 4 year old son (he was later dropped off with family). After what felt like driving down every road of Rurrenabaque making random stops we were finally on our way. The dirt road was seriously bumpy but it made for a fun drive. The driver suddenly stopped and shouted Sloth. The 3 of us thought no way, that’s not possible. But it was indeed a sloth. How had he seen it in a tree along the road when we were zooming along?! We could barely see it standing under the tree. Either he had insane vision or the sloth is there every day. We will never know. The road also had other wildlife such as ostrich (yep!) and capybara.

After a stop for lunch we soon found ourselves at the ‘port’ where there were several very thin boats, just wide enough for 2 people to sit down on what were essentially metal picnic chairs. Our kit was loaded and then for no apparent reason we waited 45 mins to leave. Once the clock struck 1400 it seemed acceptable to leave so we all took our seats. Decked out in trousers and then borrowed wellies and ‘Dad’ shirts (ideal for painting) we looked and felt the part. The river was absolutely teeming with wildlife. We didn’t know where to look for the next 3.5 hours. Birds just everywhere. Alligators. Caiman. Monkeys. Capybara. Pink dolphins (so weird) and a whole heap of turtles. The weather was glorious and everything was going well. Little did we know that through our clothes hundreds of mosquitos were attacking us. They were so stealth that we didn’t see or feel them.

After checking into the lodge which consisted of bunk rooms and very basic showers we headed off to the sunset bar. This entailed a short boat ride and ended with a bar that had no drinks. What a let down. It was pretty cloudy so the sunset wasn’t the best. On the way back Alex had to shine his torch along the river so we could see where to go. The mossies ambushed his hand!! So evil!! That night when I was changing I caught sight of what turned out to be hundreds of bites on my thighs. It was horrific and they where going to get worse….! We all separated into our beds and hid under our mossie nets. We could hear a lot of squeaking and we saw a whole mouse family in the roof above our beds. There was also a bat that kept flying around. At least they’d be eating some of the mosquitoes!

After a very itchy night we woke up to hear the most deafening howling. It sounded like a gale. It was howler monkeys. Such an incredible noise. After breakfast we went to look for anacondas. It was unbearably hot but due to the bites I wasn’t taking any chances and so wore my very unbreathable waterproof trousers hoping that mossies couldn’t get me through them. After trawling through a field looking for an anaconda we came away having seen a dead cobra and also being very close to some rather large alligators. Alex and I wore mossie nets on our heads and at times we easily had 100+ of them on us. BUT they couldn’t get in hahaha! Our shirts were white and soon they were starting to look like a crime scene with all the squashed mossies on them. We headed back for lunch and in the afternoon went fishing for piranhas. Slem was the only one to catch one! We headed back to the sunset bar and this time they had beer. hooray. Good thing too as when I took off my waterproof trousers my legs were so painful from the bites I burst into tears! The chef got some pure alcohol and using her scarf rubbed it on my legs. Then she got some amazing menthol stuff like Vicks and covered my legs in it. An antihistamine and beer later and life was looking much better. We now carry the menthol stuff with us. mossie ready. That night we had an enormous thunderstorm. At 2am we were all awake and trying to do anything but scratch!!

The next morning we headed off down the river to look for the pink dolphins. They have such long noses. You can swim with them but having seen the number of alligators in the river there was no way was I going in. Also it would give the mossies the chance to attack again! After an early lunch we headed back to the port. We had booked a flight for that evening as we had been assured the tour would finish in time. We waited at the port for about 90 minutes. Our guide seemed very relaxed but we were getting stressed as our flight time was fast approaching and we still had a few hours of driving. Finally the car turned up and we were on our way. After a very muddy and slippery journey, with our driver going at breakneck speed, we made the flight and it was only 30 minutes back to La Paz. The Pampas were amazing but mosquitos certainly dominated the trip!