Back in Bolivia

As many people have already heard, my time in Cusco is done. Now, I'm with my friend, Katie, traveling in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. It was slow going getting out of Peru, due to strikes that closed the roads for a day. Eventually though, we made it to the big city of La Paz. We spent a day here exploring the crowded, colorful city. Ate good food...Japanese, Mediterranean..not much Bolivian food. The next day we took a short, but amazing flight in a little 20 person plane to the town of Rurrenebaque. To get there, we flew over the Cordiollera Blanca, a mountain range with 500 peaks over 5000 meters...it was beautiful! The scenery changed drastically as we neared Rurrenebaque which is about 3000 meters lower than La Paz and in the middle of the jungle. The feeling there, is surprisingly different than other cities I've visited in Bolivia. I think the people there are a little happier because of the warm, sunny climate, even if there is still a lot of poverty there. From Rurrenebaque, we went on a three day tour of the pampas...which is supposed to be different from the jungle, but I'm not really sure how. I guess less dense forset, more grassland/wetland. It was a very relaxing tour. We spent a lot of time riding around in a little boat, watching animals and looking at the scenery. We saw tons of alligators/caiman, beautiful birds, some snakes (including Anacondas...but not very big ones), pink river dolphins, monkeys, capibara (aka giant hamster/rat things), a sloth...and probably more that I'm forgetting. We slept under mosquito nets and had amazing views of the stars. It was a short, but very nice trip. Rather than taking the same flight back, we chose the 18 hour bus. It turned out to be quite an adventure, with dirt roads most of the way and the seat next to us occupied by two women and their three children...so not surprisingly they were spilling over into our laps most of the time. Nonetheless, the scenery was beautiful and we made it back to La Paz. From here we will head to the Salt Flats of Uyuni (the second time for me) and then to Chile. I'll try to add photos when I can.