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Airports, Amazon and Alligators!

Have you ever traveled with a group of 23 people to a brand new country? It was crazy to say the least! The kids all met up and we had some pizza for dinner and waited around until we could check in for our flight. When we were waiting, we were getting to know each other a little bit and playing games. As we started checking our bags through security, my Spanish was immediately put to the test! We were checking in with the Bolivian airline and I was in front of the line of 19 youth, and some of them had never traveled alone or out of the country before so I wanted to make sure it was a smooth experience. It was pretty stressful trying to get everyone's bags checked in, but we were finally able to and we breezed right through security. We took another red eye flight through the night and made it to Bolivia around 6am which was 4am in the states. So we moved around in zombie-like fashion and made it to our connecting flight. We had a longish layover in Santa Cruz so we met up with a friend named Brigham. He took up to breakfast where we ate empanadas and all sorts of bread. It was nice to get out of the airport after 24 hours. We drove around for a couple hours to kill time and then headed back to catch our next flight. We flew from Santa Cruz to Trinidad which was only a couple hours away.

When we landed in Trinidad, the airport was so tiny it felt like a car wash or something of the sort. We were so tired, but then we met up with our host Ephraim and we loaded up in a bus, van and jeep! We were kind of confused but we just rolled with it. I jumped in the jeep with 3 other girls and it literally felt like jumped into a real life game of Jumanji! It was so run down and bumpy as we began our on-land part of the journey to get to the amazon. We bounced up and down in the jeep for about 30 minutes and were enjoying all of the greenery, it is so beautiful here!! After the bumpy jeep ride, we all met up again and took our luggage down a huge dirt hill and onto a BOAT! Turns out the place we stayed at was a hostel in the middle of the jungle and we had to take a boat to get there. The ride was so peaceful and right from the start we saw so many different types of animals. We were on the boat for about an hour and finally got to our destination after two days of traveling! We pulled up and were greeted by a Swiss lady and her family. They had fresh orange juice for us and showed us to our room.

Even though we were exhausted, we didn't want to waste any time so we had dinner right away and then headed to ALLIGATOR hunting! We jumped on the boat and headed out for a night on the water with our headlamps and flashlights. At first I thought we were just going to be looking for alligators and watch them, but our friend Ephraim caught them with his bare hands! Throughout the night he probably caught about 10, it was un-real. I had never seen anything like it. We all took turns passing the alligator around like it was a newborn baby haha. I was way scared but SO glad that I held it! I was one of the last ones so I threw it back into the water. I had to rub it's belly to make it more calm before dropping it back in the water. It was honestly such a hilarious experience! We laughed until we cried and also cried because we were so nervous but it was amazing! I would say the Amazon welcomed us with open arms.