were the only river dolphins in the world but I’ve since found out
river dolphins live in five different areas in the world. The pink ones
only live here and on the Mekong in
The grey ones are lovely, like normal dolphins. The pink ones are strange
creatures. They have an odd snout and no fin on their back. They don't
jump up into the air so they are really hard to spot. It was very cool
to see them though. They are most found where the mouth of one river
meets another, so we went to where the Yanayacu meets the Amazon. There
is an island in the Amazon that villagers have populated. It has a
beach. We were with a group of 10. Tim and I were the only two that
dared to go for a swim. "For God's sake DON'T WEE IN THE WATER!"
shouted Kay as we ran to the river bank. They are great girls, and I’d expected them to dare it, but they are both doctors, so you can’t blame them really. Tim had dived in way before me, and so had the two guides – Naycer and the guy who was looking after the other group that had joined us that day. I trust Nacyer so much, and I figured if Tim was going to get ill I might as well suffer it
with him, so in I went. It was lush and warm, but the current was really strong. I was swimming with all my strength and going nowhere. I tried my best to savour the moment and
not think about the disease or the piranhas.
There are piranhas galore in there. I know - we went fishing for them yesterday just a few hundred meters downriver! I know they like to stay in the pond area, but what’s to say they wouldn’t come up this far? What if they could smell their little brother that I had eaten yesterday on me? Ok, that’s a little too paranoid, but come on, we’ve all seen the film. Naycer had giggled when I asked him and checked my legs ‘no blood, you’re fine, they won’t get you.’ I never know when he’s serious or not. I got the feeling this time he was winding me up about the blood bit, but sod it, he was in, so was Tim and there were lots of fishermen that were fully immersed with their heads in the
river reeds, so I ventured. I'm glad I did. Whenever am I going to get the chance again? It’s the Amazon after all– and anyway I’ve had just about every jab going. For once in my life though, I succeeded in keeping my mouth firmly shut, the piranhas didn’t come looking for revenge and no, I didn’t pee.
Last night we went out on the boat again to look for caimans - no joy again, so we went to visit the strangle trees - home of the tarantula. I still cannot believe that I went into the jungle in the dark with a million moths and mozzies flying at my face and stoodunder a strangle tree full of tarantulas. You are a brave girl, you might be thinking. WRONG. I was virtually hyper-ventilating!
They are very beautiful, especially the rosy haired tarantula that is pinkish in colour, but I still couldn't help darting when one of them moved. It wasn't long before I realised that I was probably much safer under a tree full of tarantulas with Naycer rather than in the jungle onmy own , so I made a sharp move back. What did they say about anacondas? Shudder.
Tonight we are going to try one last time to look for caimans and then we are on a junglewalk tomorrow before we set off back to
Fish
Red Bellied Piranha
Fresh Water Brycon
Peacock Bass
Small Mouth Fish (this is one of those that clearly isn’t
in Naycer’s translation book)
Amazon kingfisher
Black Capped donacobius.
Black fronted Numbird
Black Vulture
Black collared hawk
Blue Grey tanager
Boat Billed Heron
Chestnut eared Arucani - also known as a Tucanet
Chestnut Woodpecker
Cobalt Winged Parakeet.
Cocoi or white necked heron
Cormorant duck
Great common Egret
Great Kiskadees
Greater ani
Greater Yellow Headed Vulture.
Horned Screamer
Large billed Turn
Lesser kiskadee
Lineated Woodpecker
Pauraque Nightjar
Red Capped Cardinal
Ringed Kingfisher
Riverside Hawk
Rufescent Tiger heron
Scarlet Crowned Barbet
Short tailed parrot
Slate coloured Hawk
Striated Heron
Turkey Vulture
Wattled jacana (We renamed this the 'Slapper bird' – according to Naycer the only bird species known to ditch her mate after shagging and then leave her babies to be reared by the caiman while she searches for a new fella. Go on girl! )
White eyedparakeet
White throated Toucan
White winged Swallow
White eared Jamamar
Wood Stalk
Yellow rumped carique.
Iquanas, the coolest lizards - about a meter long with a big red patch
on their backs, Three toed sloths and loads of
monkeys.
Trees and plants of all descriptions with all sorts of uses
ranging from curing stomach cramp and diabetes to torturing Spaniards
and adulterers! (This is a tree that is nick named the torture tree and
houses what they call red 48 hour ants. They get their name from the
fact that when they bite you the large red welt that appears lasts that
long. During the Spanish invasion the tribes people would tie captives
to these types of trees to torture them. When you tap on the tree,
hundreds of them come spilling out of a small hole half way up it.
Since they are not allowed to torture Spaniards anymore, the tree gets
used a lot less, but, apparently if you cheat on your partner round
here you get rather more than the offer of marriage counselling.
We have spent almost triple our allotted budget on this
trip, but boy has it been worth it. I'm really glad we paid out for
something well organised. Just before we left
had done a similar trip on the cheap. The guide dropped him off at a
local’s house who had 14 children. He said he saw nothing but spiders and mozzies and came back covered in blisters because all
he did was trek through jungle for hours with a guide that couldn't
tell him much about what he was seeing. He was close to tears.
We also struck lucky with Kay and Nicola. All our excursions
have been Naycer and the 4 of us and we have had a lot of laughs. The
rest of the tourists here are really quiet. Last night they cancelled
their boat trip to go out to try to find caimans preferring instead to
stay in!
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