we then arrived at a solitary line of snow capped peaks, turned the corner and were blown away by the site of la Paz. Coming down from 'el alto', we saw a huge crater filled to the brim with housings and high rises.
La Paz is kind of like how I had visualised south american cities to be like before we had started this trip. Its big, busy and dirty - but it does have a certain charm to it.
We decided, as this was our last stop in a city, to stay in a party hostal. We really haven't been part of that scene on this trip. There hasn't been much time between activities and the gringo bars just remind me of west street. So I prefer to save my money and party properly when I'm home with friends.
It was a bizarre experience. The wild rover has all the home comforts including Irish pub, Sunday roasts and full Irish breakfasts. At night it has a reputation for a good party but when we arrived they were waiting for a police inspection so everything closed up early.
Which was probably a good thing because on the monday we flew - in a VERY small plane - to rurrenbeque in the north for a pampas tour.
We spent three days with a group of Irish and Canadians going up and down the river in a boat looking at caiman, turtles, monkeys and birds. (see below).
The caiman were pretty scary at first as you're really close and some of them are up to two meters long, but you get used to them surprisingly quickly.
Our guide victor reminded me a bit of cheech out of cheech and chong. His catch phrase was 'no problem!' and he would switch between 'jungle time' and 'German time' depending on if he wanted us to do something or not. His main method of steering the boat would be to crash it into the side of the river and then get us to rock the boat until we were pointing in the right direction. Which was a bit scary when we did a night tour on the first night. although it turned out to be brilliant because sardines kept jumping into the boat and everyone thought it was a caiman attack!
We also did some piranha fishing with bits of steak, which dermot thought was a bit of a waste but he's just jealous because I caught the first one.
On the second day we went anaconda hunting- which mainly involved sitting under tree while our guides traipsed around a field. Then victor asked us to help this cow that was stuck in the mud- ten of us started to roll the wretched thing out of the mud but it was obvious that it was nearly dead anyway - and then the vultures started circling. God knows what the farmer thought when he got to the field and found the cow lying upside down! bloody tourists.
We also sort of swam with pink dolphins- but I'll have to save that story for when we get back.
It was a really amazing trip, although we still didnt see any toucans.... until we got back to the town and checked into a hostal - and there was a toucan sitting next to the pool! Unfortunately it was a hollow victory as it was an illegal pet and had had its wings clipped...... we decided to call it tupac. after both the rap star AND the inka king.
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