Amazon Jungle10 March 2012

Johns catch

Piranha

We spent the morning fishing for Piranha about 10 miles downstream, John managed to catch 2 and land them but my catches kept jumping off the hook before I could get them into the boat. The boat driver was a very good fisherman and managed to catch about 6 and luckily was there to remove the hook from the mouth with all those teeth.

 We then went in search of fresh water dolphins and saw two types the regular grey and amazingly pink ones. It is incredible to think that dolphins survive in the Amazon, which is very brown and muddy.

We got back about an hour before the lunch bell and watched the pygmy monkeys playing in the trees and coming down for bananas that were strung up around the lodge for them to eat.

Friendly McCaws

Poisonous frog used to mark darts

 This afternoon was a walk in the jungle with our guide who had actually done 3 years of botany at Uni so he was very knowledgeable and told us about all native remedies for illness, one to keep in mind is lemongrass pounded up and mixed with lemon juice to lower cholesterol. We also saw lots of Tarantulas and also tiny poisonous frogs that the natives collect the poison from to make the poison darts

With Wllly our guide

Doing the washing

 The walk was followed by a canoe ride to a local village, which was in the middle of a festival, this basically meant getting covered with mud, getting drunk and dancing. We were offered some drink but home brewed rum at about 40% proof poured from an old coke bottle was not something we were game to try

This is a butterfly

Underside of same butterfly

Tree Frog filmed at night

After dinner we went out into the jungle in a small boat with a torch to see the birds and butterflies sleeping, there were 4 of us in the boat and after 2 people had climbed in I saw a Wolf Spider in the boat about the size of my hand, there was immediate panic as the guides tried to get it out of the boat – turns out it is extremely venomous, I think I would have jumped from the boat if it came up my leg .

Capped Heron

 regardless of the fact that we were in the Amazon.