I'M AT: The Caracoles Lodge, three hours by rough road from Rurrenabaque, which is itself 22 hours by rougher road from La Paz. We took the plane, though. Caracoles is an 'eco-lodge' built from wood and hope, with mosquito nets round the gentle beds, a dining hut, hammocks under papaya trees, wandering llamas and a super-friendly, super-energetic stray dog they call Comer Nunca.
Rurrenabaque is a staging post for trips into the jungle and the pampas (grasslands). On arriving and shedding several stone in balmy sweat we checked into a place called El Oriental and slumped into hammocks, by green parrots a-squealing. And did nothing for a bit. La Paz is so high that it's generally pretty cold, 15 degrees or so, grey and autumnal, so we needed time to adjust to the heat and humidity, poor lambs - 30 degrees and t-shirt clinging to hot wet skin.
After a slump we clenched free drink tickets in damp hands and sloped to Moskitto Bar, were Premiership highlights flickered, pool table cambered, and drinks came cold and beautiful. Our tour left the next morning but despite this, I drank enough to give me both a hangover, and the fuzz to chat to an Israeli girl we met at the airport, sitting with her hairy brethren.
So next day we jeeped three hours to the Lodge, via sloths hanging like dark prunes in the trees, and a yellow-beaked toucan perched like a sentinal. Then patches of heron, and a pink spoon-beaked bird that nattered and swept. The wildlife in the pampas is magical and visible.
And so to the Lodge, dump stuff and swing, before we - a German couple, an Oz-American couple, and the four of us - Mark, Helene, Amanda and me - settled for a maté and food at a painted table. And after being burped and weened we staggered to our motorboat, a thin cigar of wood.
I simply could not believe that less than four or five feet away, and only a couple of minutes away from the fenceless lodge, lay countless alligators, thin strips of eye beaming as they lowered themselves into the water, and closer to the boat. They didn't look more scared than us. Prehistoric beasts with horny backs and threatening lurch. But eyeing them was strangely fascinating, and we kept our hands out of the brown water.
My camera also caught turtles, and hairy capybara as they sat like old Dukes on the shore, sniffing the air and waggling too-small ears. And later we set out again at night, to see by torchlight the reflected lenses of alligators, and mammals, and fireflies flicked the treetops.
The next day bought heat, sunblock and the stupid cricket hat I bought in Peru, and we eased again, right this time, to slip down the river and pick small yellow squirrel monkeys out of the trees, and a couple pirated themselves onto the boat, scenting mandarins, but we fed not. And then in deeper clutches of water we saw the humps of river dolphins break the surface, a gentle puff, and a silvery dive, and once again they'd beaten the shutters of our lenses.
Later we fished with wire and ham, and I caugt two yellow-bellied piranha, later eaten with salad and papas, and Mark caught a tiddler, and the German girl, tutored, caught a basket of fin - catfish and piranha, and later a small turtle, which she weeped pinkly over whilst it was unhooked and tossed back.
After a second night of heated sleep we ditched the boat and took hats and forked stick on a hunt on dry land for anaconda. 36 or 38 degrees and later 42. And after a bit we saw one, twisting as it warmed itself, and then I spotted a coterie of three mating snakes, and all in all we saw 11 anaconda, and one cobra, sitting in their holes or amongstthe dry grass. The whole area would be submerged by the rains, which would come pouring in the next month. Now, though, at the end of the dry season, small pools of water flapped with fish, and birds clinked empty cups, and all was survival, and sweat, and staring in awe. And our boat got stuck on the river bed a couple of times.
And after this, it was back to La Paz, on the road of flat tyres, and we wilted, and coughed dust, and sweated our slow way back to the waiting hammocks.
Rurrenabaque managed to spring a last surprise as, back at Moskitto, over a couple of cold ones, the gents played pool in a pair against the ladies, but with an inspired handicap - one of us would make the bridge, whilst the other cued, holding the shaft.
And we still beat them. The alligators ate well that night.
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