Day 6: A Day On The River

We managed to wake up around 5:30am, right when the sun was rising. After striking camp, we headed back to the cabin for breakfast, which consisted of some breads, jam, fruits, and cold meats.


A fisherman beginning his day early


Our guide looking like a boss


View from the cabin

That morning we took out a canoe and paddled through the the dense brush along the river. We had to be careful in avoiding huge ants and hornets nests-they were attached to the trees and were the size of large backpacks.


We spent most of the morning navigating through stuff like this-note the hornets nest in the upper left (some of them were water-level too)

Unfortunately on the way back to the lodge we managed to capsize the canoe, though fortunately the area near the cabin is not a particularly dangerous area for being in the water. The bad news was that I lost my glasses (though I had brought a pair of contacts with me). Also, I brought my point-and-shoot camera with me on the canoe trip instead of my SLR, which meant my point-and-shoot was dead, but at least I didn't ruin the SLR.

After lunch we set out to go piranha fishing (sadly no pix-I wasn't bringing my SLR for water-only activities...). We settled in on a few calm areas where tree coverage was decent and set our lines (a line on the end of a stick with chicken as our bait). Piranha fishing requires a lot more patience than any other fishing I've done because of how the fish go for the bait. Instead of biting down on the bait and getting caught in the hook, piranhas swipe at the bait, making it more difficult for them to be caught. Thus, anytime you felt a slight tug, you'd have to jerk the line quickly and hope the hook would get caught in the piranha's mouth. This was more difficult than it sounded as between the three of us I was the only one to catch a piranha the entire afternoon (thought our guide caught six). Most of the time when the line was pulled there was no fish and the chicken was gone. Occasionally the hook would catch, but only briefly, sending the fish into the air only to land back in the water. I also managed to get my line caught in a tree (oops).

After fishing we had dinner (but not the piranha-yet) and set out to go caiman spotting (on the water again-no camera...). Caimans are the alligators of the amazon, and are easiest to spot at night, especially if you shine a flashlight into their eyes. Our guide easily picked several young caimans out of the water for us to hold (definitely not the adults-those are several meters).


Sunset after dinner-getting a clear picture at night was difficult due to the presence of bats-lots of them

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To be continued later-time to go judge a high school science event