Bo Bo Bo, Li Li Li, Via Via Via, Viva Bolivia

So it's been about 12 days or so since my last post so i'll try to hit all the highlights without making this too long winded. We chilled out in La Paz to rest our weary souls for a few days barely leaving the hostel, but with good food and good beer it was pretty easy to do so. Finally, after moving to a dorm room we hit the town, and by hit the town i mean go to the other gringo hostel in the area, Loki. This one had a pretty big and cool old fashion ball room looking bar. There we ran into our friends from Lake Huachina and the Inca trail, in typical gringo trail fashion. From there we head out to the clubs but on girl in a shared cab gave us a thorn in our behind. Taxis in La Paz run around 8 to 12 Bolivianos which is about $1.10 to $1.60 or so and everyone chips in 2 or 3 bolivianos. As we're trying to find correct change for our cab this chick gets out and proclaims she'll contribute a grand total of 1 boliviano or about 14 cents to the cause, and pretty much told us to deal with paying the cab. Talk about being a tightwad! She then proceded to buy $3 drinks at the bar. Our dreadlocked German friend called her out on the dance floor which was mildly amusing.
Another major activity that has gained popularity in Bolivia is this down hill mountian bike ride on a dirt road dubbed "the most dangerous road in the world" primarly due to sheer cliffs and it being about 1 car wide. Now the road is mostly unused but bike tours going down it have become popular. The major company 'gravity assited' was too much money for us. We found another company Vertigo that used legit Haro bikes and provided good gear. The ride wasn't as freaky as expected but, going off the cliff would be pretty much death, so some caution was required. Lora and I didn't fall but other people in our group weren't so lucky. The trips starts of with a trip down a paved road where everything is brown and boring. By the time you get to the dirt road with sheer cliffs the scenery changes into a healty green of plants, small waterfalls, and great vistas. As a plus our guides kept us entertained and the mechanic checked up on the bikes mid journey.
The next day was a great day to watch some World Cup Qualifiers on TV with people from the hostel. We went to the Irish owned Hostel called Wild Rovers to watch the Ireland/Italy match which ended in heart breaking fashion, 2-2 after Italy equalized in the last few minutes. The real gem though was the meaningless qualifier between Bolivia and Brazil the next day which we went to in La Paz. We went with our hostel to the stadium and bought drinks at liquor stores that ran out of cold ones and cheap Bolivian jerseys to wear at the game. The stadium was about half full and Brazil fielded it's B team which in some sort of combination of slacking or high altidude weakness had the Bolivian team running circles around them. Our seats were on the goal side and we got to see the Bolivian side put in a nice free kick over the wall. It was quite enjoyable even though there was a quite a tourist crowd that couldn't get any chants going. The Brazilian travelering fans were mostly subdued as well. The final result was Bolivia 2-1 which is always nice to see brazil lose one in the end.
After La Paz we took a brutal 18 hour bumpy bus ride to the jungle town of Rurrenabaque to do a 3 day Pampas tour, a wet grassland of sorts. After getting off the bus we go to Erlan's nice hostel with hammocks overlooking the Beni River. The next day we head into the Pampas with a group of 6. This involved a 3 hour bus ride but the 3 hour river ride was awesome. The number of aligators, turtles and birds is simply astounding. There were about 3 gators around every river bend. We also go to see monkeys of different sorts and this big marmot like rodent. We also went hunting for an anaconda but came back empty! There were also pink river dolphins, but they were a bit shy and stayed away from the boat. We went swimming We stayed in primitive cabins along the river and pretty much traveled around by boat. Our guide Ronaldo, though speaking mostly spanish kept us entertained with guitar song, which made up for his lack of warning of the crazy walking throught grassland conditions we encountered. The second day we went swimming the river, despite there being aligators and piranhas which we went fishing for with little chunks of meat. Lora caught a few but I wasn't so lucky!

That's pretty much all i can get out of my brain after another 18 hour bus ride back to La Paz, but just be glad I didn't go over an andean cliff.