It's a very Very long bus ride from La Paz the capitol of Bolivia to Rurrenabaque. They told us it would be 17 hours, but it was more like 20 hours. The bus terminal (Well I would not call it a terminal more like a chaotic road stop), has it all, a fish market, workers on hand ready to assist with you goats and sheep onto the bus roof, and several buses that look as if they might fall apart when the engine is fired. My Spanish was good enough to get us to our seats and begin the painful process of our bus ride. The beginning of the journey is not bad, the landscape is foggy high mountain tops accompanied with hundreds of herds of lovely lamas, you cannot forget that catchy Bolivian tunes they blast over the blown speakers on the bus, but hey this bus ride only cost seven dollars so who cares if your sharing your bus with sheep, chickens, pigs, its all part of the experience.
After about four hours the landscape changes from high altitude mountains to breath taking cloud forest. I have to admit this is where it get quite frightening, the road changes from paved swirvy road to bumpy destroyed skinny road on the side of death mountain. The bus makes many stops so you can fill up on all those umm “tasty” looking Bolivian treats. TIP: Everywhere they sell Coca leaves in bags, the driver told me to chew these leaves to get rid of the sore bum syndrome…. It really worked but not sure if this is legal or not.
The cloud forest starts to turn into thick jungle brush and ever crapier roads, but at this point is where you throw the I pod in and try to fall asleep (almost impossible!!!!). We arrived in Rurrenabaque at about 5 am, we were very tired so we gave in to the countless touts yelling to us it will be the end of the world if you don’t take their moto taxi to there hotel, I politely lied to my driver and said I had reservations at a hotel in my guide book and he took us to our destination. Rooms were very easy to find and Rurrenabaque is a very small town and easy to navigate around.
I awoke to the beautiful sounds of jungle type birds and my bro Mark playing Fifa soccer on his Ipod, this day we just explored the streets of Rurrenabaque and found a tour going out to the Pampas of the Amazon. Rurrenabaque is a great town with much small things to see, its kind of annoying that everything is in Hebrew but hey you cant go wrong with eating Shawarmas and ice cream in the Amazon. The next day we hopped in a small jeep crammed with five other people and launched off to the Pampas. The ride was long, hot, and very dusty but arriving at the Pampas is defiantly worth the journey. They put us into a barrelled out canoe with a long tail engine, and we rocketed off into the Amazon Pampas. For two hours we watched Crocs and monkeys and many types of jungle birds bypass the boat. We arrived at our jungle lodge with excitement… it had a rope swing!!!. It was a basic grass and teak hut with a large dorm. That night we were taken to “the Amazon bar”, which was spectacular, there’s nothing quite as satisfying as drinking in a teak building on stilts in the middle of a Amazon river and flashing our flash lights at the numerous crock eyes below the bar. On the way back to our lodge in the middle of the night our boat stopped and the driver yelled at me, Stephen there’s a Croc in the water reach and grab him. I gave him a puzzled look and reacted quickly to what he was saying, I reached out to the small bright eye I could see and grabbed this baby Croc, really REALLY crazy experience grabbing a baby crocodile like this. 
The next day we hunted for the Giant Boa constrictor… Ya we found him and made everyone else jealous, the experience was a bit strange we were allowed to pick him up and put him around our neck… I don’t think PITA would be too happy. After that we went fishing for Piranha, and of course cause I am a Canadian my wilderness instincts kicked in and I caught seven Piranha, then we returned to our lodging and cooked up our piranhas and ate them for supper. That night we again went to the bar and returned and began to gather all of the giant frogs beneath our lodge too see how many we could catch. 
The next day was great we found a Crocodile and swam up beside him… and we stole some meat from the kitchen and taunted the poor guy, yes not smart but really fun. Our boat driver then took us to swim with the river dolphins, kinda a weary feeling as your swimming in black water and feeling the nose of a dolphin playing with you feet. Then we returned to Rurrenabaque for a good sleep and to prepare ourselves to head deep into the Amazon Jungle.
We woke early so we could catch our boat into the Amazon and hike our way into the jungle. It took about four hours to ride the ferry, get our permits, and hike through the brush to our jungle hut. Again our new accommodation was very cool, just basic grass root huts in the middle of the jungle. We spent our night swapping travel stories with fellow travellers and listening to the sounds of the Amazon. The next day we hiked a trail through the Amazon, the trail was good and our Aboriginal guide showed us many different medicinal plants and we got to taste a few that numbed your tongue. And that’s when I decided to screw around with the world largest army ant, I knew there bite hurt but I had no idea how much. My macho Canadian attitude resulted in me getting bit by this ant and having the feeling that my blood was boiling and the bones in my arms were bending…… DON’T TOUCH THE ANTS. That night after my pain started to dwindle away our guide took us out once again to hike in the darkness of the Amazon, It was very noisy at night. The guide stopped us at a hole by a tree gave me a stick and said lure the tarantula out. So being me I stuck the stick in there felt something grab it and pulled this massive Brazilian Bird Eating Tarantula out of his home… pretty cool. He then took us to another sight where he pissed the Tarantulas off and a hundred small babies swarmed the area of their nest, it was like a scene right out of Indiana Jones. 
The next day we started our way back to Rurrenabaque but this time we had the knowledge of survival in the jungle. We spend our last few days Exploring Rurrenabaque and its beautiful area buying a few masks here and their. Then we departed on our “lovely” bus back to La Paz, only this trip was more enjoyable because me and my friend had our own seats to ourselves….. Until a few larger aboriginal women sat beside us and of course fell asleep on us….. Its all part of the experience.
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