A Delightful Change of Scenery

11 Nov 2002 

I'd had my fill of the desert, but was keen for more mountains, so I hightailed it south. There wasn't much to see on the way so I took one bus all the way to Santiago, 1600km and 20 hours down the Panamericana. After the horror of my last long bus trip into the Amazon, I splurged on a premium class ticket. This was a revelation - who knew buses could be so plush?! There were only 24 seats, three to a row, each as wide a business class airline seat. They even brought meals around! The seats didn't quite lie flat, but came close, and I managed a rough approximation of sleep. The scenery was monotonous - flat, featureless desert, although it perked up a bit on the outskirts of Santiago, where there is a thriving horticulture industry.

A huge portion of Chilenos live in Santiago, a bustling, dirty city of 5 million. Sticking with the theme, the buses in Santiago were a terror: big, boxy, diesel belching monsters that would roar down the city blocks, racing each other to get to the next stop. I wasn't inclined to spend very long there, but on my planned day of departure I felt like death warmed over - the dreaded gastro was back with a vengeance. The hostel manager looked me over and gently suggested that perhaps I might like to see a doctor. Having been sick on and off for some weeks, I took his advice and coughed up for an English speaking doctor at an expensive private hospital. He gave me some antibiotics and said not to go climbing any mountains ...

[As an aside, public transport is a sensitive subject for Chilenos. During my second visit in 2007 I witnessed the Transantiago fiasco: the left-wing government made a hash of nationalising the public transport system. Routes were much longer, wait times were inordinate, and the clean new buses were too big to fit around the tight corners downtown. (There is a fascinating podcast on it here - trigger warning for Hayekian libertarian views!) More recently, a protest over increased fares snowballed into widespread discontent, resulting in a re-write of the Pinochet-era constitution and a radical left-wing president.]

The antibiotics worked their magic and I was soon another 750km south in the Pucon, the tourist mecca of the Lakes District, a land of snow-capped volcanoes, verdant beech forests and gushing rivers. In other words: Wanaka. I had hoped to do some decent treks, but El Nino had dumped unseasonably late snow that blocked the high trails. Despite that, there was plenty to do, and with high rivers rafting looked like a good option.

I discovered that it was much easier to make friends with the locals in Chile and Argentina. I presume it's because there was much less distance between us in terms of wealth, culture and privilege - and they can afford to be tourists in their own right! I shared my dormitory with two Chilenos: Jorge, a importer-exporter who split his time between working in Indonesia and snowboarding down volcanoes in Chile; and Carlos, a recent tourism graduate who was looking for a job. Carlos was keen to improve his English and I spent a memorable/exasperating evening helping him to pronounce ship, sheep, cheap and chip. There is no 'sh' sound in Spanish, and each vowel has only one pronunciation, as opposed to the English 'e' which has at least a dozen!

Jorge was more keen on drinking and describing his exploits in the outdoors, and with women. He got me thoroughly drunk, the downside of which was the early morning wake up call informing me that, despite initial doubts, my rafting trip was going ahead after all. But it wasn't just rafting - it was hydrospeeding. Hydrospeeding is slightly mad. You put on not one but two wetsuits, with extra padding on the lower legs, hook your arms into a modified boogie board, then jump in the river and hold on for dear life. The guide said in no uncertain terms that I was to follow him exactly, else risk getting swept into class 5 rapids and never come out again. For someone who was seriously hungover (and maybe even still a little drunk), this did not sound like a terribly good idea. But the guides were pumped because it was the first run for the season, and I was the only punter so didn't feel like I could bail. The river did a good job of waking me up, but my stomach, still recovered from gastro, did not appreciate the turmoil of being swept through rapids, waves coming from every direction. Even if I had been in top form, it would have been terrifying. I stuck it out for a fair while, but eventually collapsed in a thankful heap in the safety raft.

Holding on for dear life

Three keen guides, and one hungover punter

Jorge wanted to snowboard down the nearby Volcan Villarrica and, even though he had plenty of experience, park regulations required he go with a climbing guide. He asked me along and, carefully forgetting the admonitions of the doctor in Santiago, I jumped at the opportunity. Starting from the ski resort at 1500m altitude we eschewed the chairlift and slogged our way up the heavily blanketed slopes. It was very straightforward except just below the summit where we donned our crampons and used our ice tools to clamber over a small shelf. Tame, but exciting for newbies. The summit, at 2847m, gave expansive views over the lakes and forests far below, pierced by any number of other volcanoes. The really cool thing, though, was the fact that Villarrica is active, with a plume of sulphurous steam pouring out of the crater. We had a painful chemistry lesson when the sulphur reacted with the moisture in our eyes and nostrils and formed sulphuric acid. Yowee! Jorge strapped on his snowboard and was soon making fresh tracks. The rest of us learned to glissade, but quickly discovered that we could just sit back on our bums, hold our legs up, and sliiiiide!!! Our Swiss mountain guide disapproved of such juvenile behaviour, but we had an absolute blast tobogganing back to the snowline.

Volcan Villarrica

Our climbing group on the summit

My first mountaineering triumph

Jorge before snowboarding away

View across the Lakes District

To round off my time in Pucon I opted for something a little more tranquilo, going for a day walk in the nearby Parque Nacional Huerquehue. This was a fine introduction to the stunning beauty of the Gondwanan landscape - if you've walked in South Island New Zealand you'll know the vibe. Perhaps I'd been a bit rash in going hard while recovering from my lengthy bout of gastro, but I'd gotten away with it and was having a ball. I felt like I'd found my sweet spot: outdooring adventuring in southern Chile was working out very nicely indeed.

Lago Tinquilco, PN Hurquehue

Cascada Nido de Aguila

Big hairy spider!

Laguna el Toro

Lago Tinquilco

Book reviews 2021

Another year, another 62 book reviews. But this year I added facial expressions!

That's actually less books than the usual 70-80 that I've averaged over the past few years. I blame ME/CFS, which was suckier this year and led to more napping and more TV. I also read a few books that chewed up a lot of time, either because they were dense non-fiction, or agonizing drawn out classics (I'm look at you Dr Zhivago!).

I made up for quantity with quality, however, averaging 3.6 stars, which I haven't done since 2013.

I had a slight uptick in the number of male authors. This is probably because I made a concerted effort to work my way through some books that were on the shelf at home and that I inherited from my parents, so I wasn't explicitly selecting female authors from the library. This year I had to add a new 'non-binary' category to my gender column! I rated male authors more highly (3.7 stars) than female (3.5 stars) this year, though they are the same over the long term.

Reading from diverse (i.e non-white/straight/cis) authors hit an all-time high of 39%. I rated diverse authors (3.8 stars) much more highly than non-diverse (3.4 stars) which is an amplification of the long term pattern.

Special mentions go to:

• Least Deserving 'Classic': Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
• Most Generous Rating: Queen's Gambit by Walter Tevis (probably more like 4.5 stars)
• Most Awkward Mix of Genres: Where The Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens
• Book I Had To Put Down Because It Was Too Traumatic: Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa
  

5 stars (3 books, 5%)
Mornings in Jenin,Susan Abulhawa,"The experience of a Palestinian family through war, dispossession & repression. Harrowing, unjust, intense but brimming with love for land & kin."
We Were Eight Years In Power,Ta-Nehisi Coates,Argues powerfully that America's problems stem from widespread & deep-rooted racism. Valuable new perspective for me. Case for reparations is particularly striking.
The Queen's Gambit,Walter Tevis,"A masterful representation of chess thinking & obsession, with a compelling protagonist and perfectly pitched tension. Game details were beyond me, but it didn't matter - I was hooked."

4.5 stars (6 books, 10%)
The Nickel Boys,Colson Whitehead,"Based on the history of a brutal boys home under Jim Crow. Nuanced critique of Rev King's call to love thy oppressor. Devastating, but with some small consolations."
The Goldfinch,Donna Tartt,"Life blown apart, a boy hurtles through chaos toward adulthood, tethered by a few curious friends. Detailed but riveting, with brilliant characters. Thoroughly enjoyable despite apparent pointlessness, for which ending over-compensates."
Shuggie Bain,Douglas Stuart,"Alcoholism & poverty: the weeping sores of Thatcher-era Glasgow. Desperate, raw & hopeless. Love was a rarity, and didn't stand a chance."
Less Is More,Jason Hickel,"Decoupling economic growth from resource use is a fantasy. Degrowth is essential, but need not reduce human well-being. A clear & decisive reminder, but only briefly addresses how to actually get there."
Hillbilly Elegy,JD Vance,"Inside view of hillbilly culture from someone who escaped the quagmire of violence, dysfunction, ignorance & hopelessness. Told with love & empathy.  No easy solutions."
Long Walk to Freedom,Nelson Mandela,"Commitment, drive, vision & humility in the long fight against apartheid. The cost to his personal life, and family, is staggering. Strange how he went into prison as a normal man, but came out as a mythic figurehead."

4 stars (14 books, 23%)
Dominicana,Angie Cruz,"Teen bride carries family's hopes to New York, which are barely held together by strength of will in the face of harsh reality. Immigrant women were made of stern stuff."
Future Girl,Asphyxia,Deaf teenager finds herself as society tumbles down a dystopian energy descent. Highlights dangers of dependence on corporate lab-grown food. Strong sense of what it's like to be Deaf. RetroSuburbia fictionalised.
The Best Australian Science Writing 2019,Bianca Nogrady (ed),"Enthusiasm, awe & solastalgia for the many wonders of the natural world. Particularly good on female sexuality, plastic in seabirds and krill."
Arcanum Unbounded,Brandon Sanderson,"Short(er) fiction from the Cosmere universe, showcasing a range of fascinating worlds and distinctive magic systems. Provides some much needed background to the novels."
How to Bee,Bren MacDibble,An endearingly incorrigible girl fights for love & life in a post bee-pocalyptic dystopia. Heart-warming but a bit brutal for a kids book.
Growing Up Disabled In Australia,Carly Findlay (ed),"A range of voices, some stop-in-your-tracks powerful, with similar stories: discouragement, prejudice, community & identity. But how well does #MECFS fit into the social model of disability? Well-timed - I now have a wheelchair."
In The Dream House,Carmen Maria Machado,"Powerful & empathetic memoir of being sucked into, but finally escaping, the awful quagmire of emotional abuse. Surprised at old presumption that abuse wouldn't occur in queer relationships."
Debt,David Graeber,"Anthropological exploration of the origin, development & philosophy of credit, markets, money & capitalism. Debt has had profound cultural influence. Fascinating but a lot to absorb - will require revisiting."
Factfulness,Hans Rosling,"Data-based tools to bridge the vast gap between our assumptions & the actual state of the world. Some things are bad, but many are getting better. Touching & well-chosen anecdotes from a clear-sighted, hopeful & caring man."
The Winds of War,Herman Wouk,"The star of this book is World War 2 and the strategies and motivations of the great powers. The actual characters are merely a narrative convenience. Underwhelming romance, fascinating but disturbing history."
Such A Fun Age,Kiley Reid,A black nanny negotiates the well-intentioned but racist opinions & actions of her employer and her boyfriend - coz white knows best. Great job showing the subtleties of prejudice. Very American.
Kindred,Octavia Butler,Unsolicited time travel immerses woman in her ancestors' slave past. Highlights the discomforting intimacy & dependence between master & slave. Visceral & clever.
21 Lessons for the 21st Century,Yuval Noah Harari,"A broad survey around our greatest challenges: algorithmic AI, biotech & environmental collapse. Fairly light treatment and nothing particularly new, but brings a refreshing clarity and deeply considered perspective."
All About Yves,Yves Rees,"Being, and becoming, trans. An open & accessible primer on the feelings, complications & trauma for us clueless privileged cis-types. Thought-provoking on feminism."

3.5 stars (21 books, 34%)
The Keys of the Kingdom,AJ Cronin,"Simple story of a missionary priest who defies convention and lives by the example of Jesus, rather than institutional ego."
Blood of Elves,Andrzej Sapkowski,"Novel form makes context clearer, but little development of protagonists. Lots of explanatory discussions from empty characters. Holds promise for the series."
Starsight,Brandon Sanderson,"Good banter, quirky aliens and a galaxy to save. Questionable recklessness in baddies. Doomslug!"
Cathy Goes To Canberra,Cathy McGowan,"Reframing politics as grassroots community engagement based on strong shared values. A model that could transform politics and unleash our potential. Staid telling, but hopeful & inspiring."
Lord of the Silver Bow,David Gemmell,"The Greek myth of Troy brought to life in rich detail. Heroes & villains, honour & deceit, passion & bloodlust. Simple but satisfying."
Where The Crawdads Sing,Delia Owens,"A far-fetched but appealing premise, gorgeous nature writing, but underwhelming murder plot. Could have been incredible if put to another purpose."
Factory 19,Denis Glover,"Walshie rejects the modern digital world by recreating a microcosm of 1948 industrial life. Fascinating, thought-provoking concept that deserves a deeper and more nuanced exploration. Trails off in farce."
Smart Ovens For Lonely People,Elizabeth Tan,"Undoubtedly original short stories, obtuse criticisms of contemporary life, often end suddenly"
Dune,Frank Herbert,"Huge potential: feudal machinations, galactic empire, mystical prophecy, ecological transformation, GIANT WORMS. Solid start but gets vague and hurtles to conclusion, missing all the fun on the way."
English Pastoral,James Rebanks,"Repudiates intensive industrial farming. Poetically, and nostalgically, celebrates the holistic wisdom of tradition. An impassioned introduction to the tensions in modern agriculture, but lacks deeply considered solutions."
The Empathic Civilization,Jeremy Rifkin,"As civilization becomes more complex, our capacity to empathise expands, but so does our energy footprint. Did my head in trying to comprehend past ways of thinking. Far too long."
Crazy Rich Asians,Kevin Kwan,Unsuspecting girlfriend catapulted into the stratosphere of Singaporean elites. Cat fights ensue. Unfathomable & disturbing levels of wealth. Otherwise a fairly standard family melodrama.
Walking With Camels,Leni Shilton,"The story of Bertha Strehlow, who married a driven anthropologist and journeyed through the lands of the Arrente people. In poem form, and very readable!"
470,Linda Woodrow,"Sudden climate breakdown: lives upended, norms and dreams swept away. A homestead becomes a sanctuary, from a new rhythm dawns hope, but over an ocean of grief. Unlikely scenario (I hope!), but human experiences & responses feel realistic."
The Master & Margarita,Mikhail Bulgakov,"Satan and his cronies cause havoc on a mad romp through Soviet Moscow. Possibly genius, but just out of my grasp, or at least lacking in context."
Seraphina,Rachel Hartman,A novel way to incorporate dragons (they take human form) and explore inter-species relations and neurodiversity.
The Education of an Idealist,Samantha Power,"As Obama's ambassador to the UN, honestly describes the extent & limits of US power, including how they worked themselves into a corner of inaction over Syria. Very readable, but overly detailed in parts."
Babel-17,Samuel Delaney,"A mysterious language at the centre of interstellar conflict.  A brilliant idea, but fast pace left me scrambling."
The House in the Cerulean Sea,TJ Klune,"Prejudice against diversity grows into acceptance. A well-worn trope given new life by fun, colourful & loving magical creatures, contrasting the Python-esque drudgery of 'normality'."
The Princess Bride,William Goldman,As charming & distinctive as the movie but drowned out by excessive & incessant editorialising. Inconceivable!
Homegoing,Yaa Gyasi,"Follows two family lines: one in Africa, the other enslaved to the Americas. Effectively captures the breadth of experience and weight of trauma across deep time. Individual characters are light on (unsurprising) and the ending doesn't quite braid together."

3 stars (13 books, 21%)
The Importance of Being Seven,Alexander McCall Smith,Starting to lose its spark. Crises felt manufactured.
The Last Wish,Andrzej Sapkowski,"The adventures of a monster-slayer: sardonic & dour, but professional & honourable. May have seemed better if I hadn't seen The Witcher."
Rebecca,Daphne du Maurier,"A weak-willed young woman desperately strives to find her identity in subservience to her new husband, against the reputation of his seemingly perfect ex-wife. Brooding and over-wrought, but strong feminist commentary."
Accordion Crimes,E Annie Proulx,"A tour of (mostly immigrant) America following an old green accordion. A parade of character studies in excessive but eloquent detail, some engaging, others inconsequential, but mostly tragic, slightly mad, caricatures."
Mantel Pieces,Hilary Mantel,"Writings on a variety of topics, mostly concerning English royalty and French Revolutionaries. Superbly crafted, but only of tangential interest."
Second Foundation,Isaac Asimov,"A bit too pleased with its own cleverness, and far too much back-and-forward exposition."
Foundation and Empire,Isaac Asimov,"A black swan throws a wrench in the psycho-historic predictions, but luckily there is some redundancy. Good to see some concepts beyond the simplistically mechanistic."
These Happy Golden Years,Laura Ingalls Wilder,"Teaching and becoming a young lady on the pioneer prairie. Courting process seems a mite odd (not much talking!), but at least she refused to obey him in their marriage vows. Tornado tales seem unlikely."
The Storyteller and His Three Daughters,Lian Hearn,"Aging man in Meiji Japan spins tall tales about his neighbours, only to stumble upon a cabal of ex-samurai plotting to regain power & glory. Gently told, a pleasant read."
A Wind in the Door,Madeleine L'Engle,"Some cool ideas around mitochondria & cosmic scale, but crisis resolved through laboured & unconvincing dialogue."
Exit Strategy,Martha Wells,"Less outrageous action than usual, but a hint of emotional perturbability in the increasingly human Murderbot."
Insidious Intent,Val McDermid,Solid detective/serial killer mystery. Came in at end of series so can't fairly judge the shock conclusion.
Multispecies Cities,var eds (inc Deb Cleland!),"Solarpunk of variable quality by diverse authors. Less utopian than expected. Some very cool ideas: recording & revival of animal culture, animal mind-melds, cybernetic mangroves, comms-enabled interspecies teamwork."

2.5 stars (1 book, 2%)
Anne of the Island,LM Montgomery,"The Anne books aren't subtle, but this one's as blunt as a blue whale, and not nearly as charming or magical."

2 stars (4 books, 6%)
Harbour Street,Ann Cleeves,"Fairly rote, with characters and a mystery that aren't very engaging."
Doctor Zhivago,Boris Pasternak,"Life disintegrates after the Russian Revolution. Slow, confusing start with a mess of indistinguishable characters. Shapeless dialogue, boring monologues. Interminable."
Throat,Ellen van Neerven,"Didn't do it for me, but most poetry doesn't."
The Living Sea of Waking Dreams,Richard Flanagan,"Contrasts our careless disregard of planetary death with our misguided & cruel desperation to deny bodily death. Clumsy, jumbled, unappealing & prolonged."

Desert Brake Down

28 Oct 2002

[Well clearly I haven't managed to keep up with my 21-year-old self. My ME/CFS has required more wrangling than usual lately and I've had to jettison a lot of activities. I'm still keen to revisit this journey, but I'll be operating on #CripTime from now on.]

I was coming to the end of my allotted time for the central Andean countries, and was keen to head south for a summer of trekking in Patagonia. The scenic route into Chile is via barely existent roads through the salt lakes and volcanoes of the high plateau that sits above the Atacama desert. I had befriended an Englishman on the bus from Potisi to Uyuni - he gave me a lesson in macroeconomics and the collapse of the Argentine peso. His girlfriend was Bolivian but from a community of ethnic Japanese who farm near Santa Cruz. There are so few non-latinx immigrants in Bolivia that no-one believed in her nationality until they saw her passport. We joined forces and took a three-night 4WD tour from Uyuni in Bolivia to San Pedro de Atacama in Chile.

We started by driving across the giant Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. It is really big, really flat, and glaringly white. Smack bang in the middle is the remarkable Isla del Pescado, a small island covered in giant cacti and, allegedly, one (and only one!) resident mountain viscacha.

Train graveyard at Uyuni

Isla del Pescado

Salar de Uyuni

We spent a freezing night dossing down in a rough hostel that sprouted out of the rocky wastes. After hours of driving at speed across the salt, we had wondered what sort of damage it must do to the 4WDs. We soon learned. From an email:

"First the driver took the starter motor out, so we had to push-start or tow-start all the time.  Then the thing ran out of power: carburettor problem. We waved down other 4WDs to help, and they eventually got it going.  Then the stereo chewed one of my cassette tapes.  Arg!  But I managed to sticky tape it back together and it works fine (Yay!).  Then, when we were going up a steep, rocky hill, it went out of gear or something weird, and we started rolling back.  The driver hits the brakes, but nothing happens!  All gone!  At this stage the 4WD behind us became rather concerned that we were going to plummet into them, but the driver did a damn fine job and turned the 4WD into the hill, whereupon we came very close tipping over.  Later that day, we got a flat tire and the jack failed.  All this in one of the most remote corners of South America."

Meanwhile my Amazonian gastro had returned with a vengeance. Bouncing around in the passenger seat, I would hold on as long as I could before begging the driver to stop, whereupon I would run around the back of the 4WD and do my messy business in the middle of an uninterrupted plain. A cairn of rocks was all I could do to obsure my passing.

Despite our travails, the scenery was gobsmaking and alien. Green-blue lakes dotted with pink flamingos sat below snow-topped volcanoes in vast reaches of red rock.

Laguna Pastos Grandes

4WD break down

Arbol de Piedra

The next morning we got up early for dawn at the mud pools and geysers of Sol de Mañana. The geyser was cool but I was disappointed to learn that it had been channelled into a pipe to make it more impressive. There were no safety barriers or walkways of any kind, so skirting the mud pools was a risky proposition! Bubbles of gas blurped out of the mud, a rime of colourful salts coated the surrounds, and steam created an atmospheric haze at ground level.

Geyser at Sol de Mañana

Exploding mud bubble

Sol de Mañana

Our final stop before crossing the border was at Laguna Verde, which sits under the ridiculously photogenic Volcan Licancabur. The green waters of the lake contrast beautifully against the red-black of the mountain slopes. Before the end of the tour, my English travelling companion tried to convey how unimpressed he had been with the safety  and reliability of the 4WD. But the driver was inscrutable, and certainly didn't comprehend the threat of outing the tour company on Lonely Planet's online forum The Thorn Tree (ah, the good ol' days before social media!).

Volcan Licancabur overlooking Laguna Verde

San Pedro de Atacama is a charming little desert town with low-slung white-washed buildings. We hired mountain bikes for a day and had masses of fun exploring some nearby ravines. Then we struggled along a desperately corragated dirt road to take in the sunset at the Valle de la Luna, where the light brought out a rich spectrum of yellows and reds in the eroded landscape. It was stunning, but what I really enjoyed was running/falling/rolling down the giant sand dune.

Within a couple of days in Chile I learnt two things: roosters do not "cock-a-doodle-doo", and Chilean Spanish is a completely different beast to Andean Spanish. Chilenos speak rapidly, barely open their mouths and don't; finish their words. Even worse, if you ask them to repeat something more slowly, they stare at you blankly and then repeat it at full speed. Sigh, just as I was getting past my Spanish training wheels, it felt like I had to start all over again.

Valle de la Luna

Cerro Rico

24 Oct 2002

(Sigh, I had finally caught up with 21 year old Garth, but CFS has tripped me up. Also, my diary entries have dried up for the next couple of months, so details may be sparse.)

Potosi is the city established to take advantage of Cerro Rico ("rich mountain"), which is the largest silver deposit in history. The Spanish fed hundreds of thousands of indigenous and African slaves into the mines and took its wealth back to Europe. Nowadays there's not much silver left and it is mined mostly for tin and zinc by small worker cooperatives. But the working conditions haven't improved much: upon entering the mines, life expectancy drops to 15 years thanks to accidents and silicosis.

Although it could be construed as oggling at the misfortune of others, I figured a tourist dollar was more welcome than a mining dollar, so I went on a tour into one of these cooperative mines. It was pretty intense: hot, muggy, cramped and very very loud. The miners don't eat while working, preferring to dull hunger and pain by chewing their way through bags of coca leaves. One of my fellow tourists (all male!) was completely shocked and overcome by the conditions and was outraged that we weren't also outwardly incensed. Afterwards, we obliterated the physical and empathic discomfort by setting off explosives.

Note the cheek bulge: coca leaves.

Bag of coca leaves

Really, really hard work

Blowing stuff up

Cerro Rico

Amazon Adventure

20 Oct 2002

I joined forces with a couple of Dutch girls who were on my hell bus to Rurrenabaque. We organised to go on two three-day tours: one to the Pampas, which is a massive wetland/grassland, and another into the rainforest proper.

When our boat arrived to take us into the Pampas, who should be on it but Amira, my Israeli friend from Lima! Alas, it also carried her new boyfriend Itai, a big surly brooder that made it very clear I had missed the (Israeli fun-times) boat. The guide and cook from Amira's tour were told to get straight back on for our tour. They were majorly pissed off as they'd been told they were going to have a couple of days off. But it was tourist season and they had no bargaining power, so we set off under an oppressing cloud of disaffected labour.

It wasn't long until the Pampas had worked its magic, though, as it was absolutely pumping with exotic wildlife. Water birds, turtles, monkeys, caiman. I was super excited to see a couple of toucans - they are so colourful and their beaks are outrageously large. There were quite a few capybara - essentially giant guinea pigs - grazing on the banks. But the highlight was seeing a few pink river dolphins!!! (Alas, no photos.) I hadn't realised there was such a thing, and to see dolphins so far inland was mind-blowing. We even swam with them (well, in the vicinity), though this memory is marred by the insistence of an older German guy to swim in the nude despite protestations from the rest of us.

Heading into the Pampas

Turtles on a log

Swimming capybara

Caiman

Monkey

Capybara herd

The next day our guide, Sulo, came down with a nasty illness. But he was a seriously tough guy and he managed to drag himself out of bed for long enough to find us a small anaconda and a cobra. We also spotted a jabiru standing sentinel in a massive nest 10 metres off the ground. We were happy to head back to camp so Sulo could rest, but the annoying German whinged about getting his money's worth until we all told him to shut the hell up. That afternoon we went fishing for piranha, which is cooler in the telling than the doing. I caught one about 10-15cm long, though it had impressively large fangs at least 10mm long.

Holding a baby caiman which the guide had hypnotised

Taking a bite out of an anaconda

Our guide Sulo with a cobra

Back in Rurrenabaque I got into a conversation with some German guys at a bar who were raving about their jungle tour. I was immediately jealous, as they didn't go to a base camp but walked deep into the jungle for several days - and their efforts were rewarded by seeing a jaguar!!! My jungle tour was not nearly so successful. This time Amira and her boyfriend were with us. Their dour attitude brought the mood down, and despite her affinity for animals, Amira was completely neurotic about insects, spending most of her time cooped up under her mosquito net. I started to think it wasn't such a bad thing that I hadn't hooked up with her.

Our guide, Juan, was tiny and muscular - exactly what you'd expect from a jungle guide. He seemed to know his stuff, but the rainforest is a hard place to see animals at the best of times, and they kept their distance from our base camp. We saw the hindquarters of a deer, a few monkeys in the canopy, and some more toucans. Mostly it was bloody hot and humid and the insects were ferocious. Worst, though, was our incompetent cook - she had left some mince out all day, much to the appreciation of the local wasp population. Needless to say, the spaghetti bolognaise that night tasted a bit off, and a few hours later I was throwing up in the pit toilet. The next day our guide gave me some jungle medicine, which was remarkably effective, but I would be plagued by bad gastro for the next few weeks.

A glimpse into the Amazon

Tarzan Garth

Jungle swimming hole

Snoozing on the Rio Beni: Amira, Mirten, Itai and Erika

After the horror bus journey to get to Rurrenabaque, many backpackers fly back to La Paz in a light plane. My ego and penny-pinching won the day, however, and I got on a return bus which was, despite being 20 hours, thankfully much more bearable.