HIGHLIGHT OF THE DAY: Getting hit by a flapping piranha
BUMMER OF THE DAY: It’s bloody hot
WORD OF THE DAY: Piranha
Another day in the Amazon, you know how it is. It was a free morning, people could go for another hike in the jungle (no thanks), and people had the opportunity to go an overnight stay for the last time and not as far as yesterday’s group (no thanks) or a fishing trip or dolphin trip. Kate and I decided to chill in the morning and then do a fishing trip in the afternoon. I know, me fishing, but it’s not normal fishing we are fishing for piranha’s…… so that was our day planned.
After our last lunch in the Amazon at 3pm we headed out in the motor canoes to try our luck for the last time to catch us a piranha. It was nice to see some blue skies. The rain comes and goes here. It will rain for 10 minutes, clear up and rain again an hour later. We have been lucky it hasn’t been any torrential rain and we are quite happy to put up with the intermittent showers as it also helps cool things down. The two boats motored upstream to a new section of the river and amongst a new water forest the engines were switched off as we paddled (well the guide) through looking for a good spot to drop some lines. We didn’t catch anything at the first stop so we moved on and after settling in for about 10 minutes Kate yanked up her line after feeling a niggle and low and behold there was a piranha attached for around 3 seconds before he decided to let go of the bait, he hadn’t been hooked and he was flicked into the boat and before any of us knew it the fish had slapped me in the side above my hip and starting flipping around my feet. So then I screamed as I thought of his little knife like teeth ripping into my lily white flesh as he flipped and flopped around in the boat. I could hear him but I couldn’t see him, so with my feet in the air, Kate laughing her head off and the flip flip if the piranha I was rescued when the guide came along and popped him down the back of the canoe. Talk about a catch. Well done Kate!!! So we upped anchor a few more times and at the last spot Sharon caught 5 piranhas at the same spot. Show off, I had some bites but didn’t catch anything. I guess some people are born fishermen, Sharon, and some people are not, that’s me.
On our way back to the lodge we tried our luck in the lagoon to see if we could spot pink and grey dolphins and today we were lucky and we saw both. It was cool to see the pink dolphins as you are just so used to seeing them a grey color and they are a lot smaller than their sea faring family members. It is so hard to get photos of them though, so I have some splash action shots but none of them breaching the water. Oh well a memory I will have to lock away in my memory bank instead. We sat there for around 40 minutes and as we did we watched the Amazon sky slowly change colours and I got some magic shots of the sky as it moved from blue, to orange with sunset coming in. It really is a peaceful place and I can see why is such a special part of the world. We are lucky to be here. We got back to camp just after 6pm and the weary trekkers from the previous night were back. They had a great time and saw jaguar foot prints, a lot of Macaws, a tarantula as big as a DINNER plate and some scorpion spiders. It was a difficult walk and I am glad that I didn’t go. That is definitely not my cup of tea. There were 3 people heading out tonight only hours walk away, but the creepy crawlies is just too much for me, so I won’t be joining them. They will be back in the morning in time for our departure at 10am.
Once the sun has set and the moon and stars take over for 12 hours and you are out in the wilds with no street lights, car lights or house lights, you can look up into the sky the stars seem so much brighter and cleaner and the moon shining in all her glory looks fabulous. You really appreciate what is up there and wonder if there is another life form looking back at us. Will we ever really know?
Dinner was amazing as usual and it will be missed. Speaking of missed I am missing Z terribly at the moment, after spending 4 weeks, 24 hours a day with each other I keep thinking I have left something behind. But time is steadily ticking by and the days are moving so quickly so it is with this thought that I go to sleep tonight for the last time in the Amazon.
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