The day started extremely well with the welcome news that the girl with the foghorn-lungs was not going to be joining us for the rest of the trip so the chances of actually seeing some wildlife have gone up faster than a white flag on a French battlefield.
A three hour jeep ride took the remaining seven of us to a boat for a further two hours ride into the pampas – which I now know is just a far more enticing way of saying swamps, and everybody knows what likes to live in swamps: mosquitos. Millions of mosquitos.
Luckily we had been pre-warned, so the previous day along with the Canadians Geoff and Jenney we had gone to a second-hand clothing shop to buy what we had been assured were the best clothes – very loose white shirts. Being 400km from anywhere remotely inhabited the choice was limited to say the least and hence I was now sporting the sort of shirt Michael Bolton would consider 'looked a bit unmanly'. As well as hoping the mosquitos would be too busy laughing at my ludicrous attire to be able to clamp onto my flesh I was also covering myself in three types of insect repellent, one of which was so strong it melted the plastic coating off the top of my watch. Did any of it stop the mosquitos? Not a bit.
The boat ride was enjoyable enough (apart from the endless slapping of mosquitos which just made us look like a drunken oompah band) and we saw lots of caimans, pink dolphins and turtles. As we neared the accommodation lodge the clouds cleared and the sun started to shine, it continued to beat down, soon the heat was relentless.
The architect who designed our lodge obviously held a secret admiration for Japanese designers, more acurately Japanese designers of the 1940's who specialised in prisoner of war camps. Our lodge was reminiscent of this style without the home comforts. When the guide asked if we would like to sail to the local pub, he was nearly crushed in the stampede and the beers we drank steeled our nerves nicely when he started pulling caimans out of the water on the way home – and neatly explained the question of his missing fingers.
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