Trip to the Pampas (Ally)

While Graeme decided to go on a 5 day "get in touch with the jungle tour" Russel and I went on a 3 day pampas tour. It was a long bumpy trip to the river but along the way we got to see a crocodile scampering across the road and a baby sloth high up in a tree.

After a bum numbing 3 hour boat journey, our guide said we could go for a swim. We were not too keen as were in pirhana waters but then we heard the unmistakable sounds of a pink dolphins blowing air. Our guide assured us that dolphins would not be where the pirhanas were so we duly dived in.

Pink dolphins are curious creatures so they bumped Russel on his feet to find out who he was. They would playfully come up for air or slap their tails right by you. It was exciting but also a little scary as the water was dark so you didn´t know where they were. They are unfortunately really hard to photograph as they just come up quickly to breath. We did see one with a stick in its long beak and it was having such fun playing with it from side to side. The bbc website has some good pictures of them . For me this was the highlight of our pampas trip.

The next day it was mission " find anaconda". Booted in Wellingtons, we set off to explore a swamp infested with worms, snails, snail eggs etc in the water. In no time at all my boots had sunk below water level and so it all went in my boot and, being waterproof, not a drop leaked out. To say I was an unhappy camper would have been the understatement of the trip. Everyone else was fine as they don´t have size 4 feet. I tell you, it is feet discrimination that size 4 have a shorter boot!! Then I nearly had a sense of humour failure when the guide admitted to us that we were very unlikely indeed to see an anaconda as it is the rainly season and they could be anywhere in about a 4000km radius (between Peru, Brazil and Boliva).

That afternoon was fun as went went pirhana fishing. We were given a hook in the end of a line with fresh meat and let it dangle in the water. Cleverly they would nibble at the meat so that you constantly had to replace it in the hope of catching something. Russel caught one whose simply could not resist a big chomp but it was just a tiny one. I think that section is a tad overfished. I felt something pull on mine and I just simply don´t have the heart to yank hard to secure the hook. As I brought my line up I saw that there was a turtle at the end of it and I was so glad that I had not hooked it.

We got fed so well and they even made us a cake with "welcome to the pampas" written on it. It went down a real treat. Graeme did not fair so well as his guide told him that he was not hungry so did he not get fed for 24hours. Graeme took it as one of his personal tests of the jungle. I have to admit that as pleased as I was that he survived the Amazon jungle, he smelt so bad (any bergie would have been proud to have been able to create such a smell) that all affectionate hugs were delayed until after a very long hot shower!!

Russel´s mighty catch!

The squirrel monkeys came very close

The Pampas was very social and we had a great group (Mostly Australians, we are picking up contacts galore)

Fruitlessly searching for annacondas in "wellies"

A lovely rainbow