Pink dolphins. For all of you who didnīt believe me (mostly my family!), check out this link (http://www.isptr-pard.org/dolphin.html) they are real!, for those of you who havenīt yet had the chance to doubt me- I swam with pink dolphins. I promise I wasnt dreaming nor was I drinking, they were pink!!! Anyway, D and I got to experience this incredible adventure during our 4 day tour through the Amazon. We left La Paz and boarded a 14 person plane heading toward a town called Rurrenabaque. The flight was an adventure in and of itself, especially the landing at the airport with a runway made of dirt and grass! Yes, D and I were holding hands the entire way! :) But we arrived safely and spent the night exploring this small, but full of life, town. ( I think my favorite was laying in a hammock on a boat, while drinking a beer and watching the sunset- I thought I could have been dreaming!)
We headed out to the Amazon by jeep and arrived three hours later in the pouring rain, then hopped on a small wooden canoe that took us to our hotel deep within the forest. It was a rough way to find out that the rain coat I just bought is NOT waterproof! Needless to say, everything was soaked by the time we got off our boat and got to the hotel. The place we were staying in was more like a giant cabin. Each room was full of beds surrounded by their own individual mosquito nets - thank God! Upon arrival, our guide told us that if it rains on the 1st of the month, then it will rain everyday for the entire month - guess what, it was the 1st and it was raining! But luck was on our side as it was beautiful weather the entire time we were there.
We called our tour the Princess Tour because each day was spent with D and I lounging in our chairs in the canoe with our feet up, soaking up the sun, with our guide rowing us around and searching for a new animals! It was heavenly, it felt like we should have had our own TV show! We were so lucky in all of our sightings though, we saw endless amounts of birds (including a bright blue and yellow Macaw), giant guinea pigs (as big as my 75 lb. dogs), and monkeys galore. We even went anaconda hunting one of the days. We saw two anaconda that were about 5-6 feet long... nothing too scary, but definitely the biggest snake I've ever seen in the wild. And yes, I did see the news- no one had to be wrestled away from the anacondas grip on this trip! But the best part of the trip came about as we were fishing (think very basic fishing- a 6 inch stick with fishing wire, a hook, and a piece of raw chicken). As we were sitting there, having no luck with the fish, 5-6 pink dolphins start swimming around our boat. I decided I wasn't patient enough to wait out the fish while there are dolphins swimming around us, so I jumped in. D followed shortly and soon we were surrounded by the dolphins. When they are in groups they don't mind getting close to humans, so sure enough we had dolphins in arms length. Because of the color of the water you couldn't see them until they came up above water, which was a little unnerving at times when they would pop up inches from you and you had no idea when or where it would happen next. One swam so close underneath me that it was touching my feet; then I look over at D and there is a pink fin inches from the back of her head. It was incredible to be in their natural habitat with them. All around fantastic trip; the amazon is as gorgeous, green, and full of wildlife as can be expected! Definitely worth the trip (and the second degree sunburn!)
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