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Wildlife and Thieving
After Bonito Lorcs and I headed to the Pantanal, a large area of wetlands in the west of Brazil and into parts of Bolivia, where the wildlife is meant to be the best in the country. We slept in hammocks on a farm and during the days could go on various treks, piranha fishing (I caught 5, Lorcan caught 1....not that anyone´s counting), horse riding, trekking through the bush, looking (but failing to see) jaguars and pumas. The campiste where we were staying in was right on by the river and caymen would just cotch on the sides of the bank, something that was scary at first but after a while we got pretty blaze about the whole thing and ended up swimming just where they were on the banks. Everyone there was so friendly and knew so much about all the wildlife and plants that the whole trip was incredible and the guides let me and Lorcs stay on for free.
After the Pantanal we headed to Puerto Quijarro, just on the Bolivian side of the border, where we had to stay the night before travelling on to Santa Cruz via the ´death train´(given it´s name because of the amount of people that died in the 80´s when they would sit on top of the train as opposed to inside due to it being more comfortable). The place was a little bit wierd to say the least, you could actually set your watch from what time until what time the mosquitoes appeared and went (5.30pm - 9pm) and fireworks and gun shots went off every time someone scored a goal in the football. The train the next night was hilarious for the first half an hour, they came round serving us food with a trolley that jolted so violently that any stray elbows and knees would defineitley have been sliced off. Trying to get the rice on your fork from your hand to your mouth was nearly impossible and on some of the jolts and turns you would fly so far out of your seat that there must have been a good few inches of air sometimes!
Santa Cruz was great until the fat, whispery, crotchy Bolivian decided to f*** up plans and steal Lorcan´s bag which had his passport in. The most frustrating part was that in hindsight it was all far too obvious, but no, Lorcs and I were too busy laughing at how much he was pushing his groin into Lorcan´s face to notice him nick the bag right from under our nose....who has the last laugh now?! I think it is probably Lorcan and mine´s blond hair and complete inability to speak the language, which led us to be targetted as we both do look like complete ALIENS, winging it and relying on others to show us where places are (in the previous week both my camera and my phone had been stolen too, on seperate occasions).
So instead of heading to Potosi and then down to the salt plains, we stayed the night in Santa Cruz so we could sort things out with the embassy and go to the police the next day.
We are now in Samaipata, a mountain town just 3 hours drive from Santa Cruz and it is the biggest, most heavily guilded silver lining of the could that Was - The Thieving. Unlike the more urban area in Bolivia, everyone is much more willing to smile, and there are far fewer tourists here, we are staying in a hotel that is the cheapest but by far the nicest place we´ve stayed so far (and has AMAZING breakfasts). Yesterday we went to a place where we heard you could rent horses but turned out to be an animal sanctury as well. They had monkeys hanging about willy nilly and were so friendly they would just come and jump on you and give you a massive monkey hug! Lorcs and I hired two horses for the day and trekked up into the mountains, it was pretty scary at first as we didn´t have a guide or anything, but really really cool (even when Lorcan tumbled off his horse because the saddle kept slipping about...he was not...HE WAS NOT, a happy bunny by the end of it!). Today we went to a pre-Incan site where there were cave paintings and a vast rock with loads of ingravings in where the God Pachamama was said to live. It was brilliant!
- comments
rachel boo hiss i hate the groiny bolivian and the cammy theives. but glad your still surviving and the monkeys sound fabo. love you xxxxx