January 5th - OMG! Part 2

We awoke this morning to a not so gentle banging on your door at 5AM - not that we weren’t warned.  After stumbling out of our bunks and getting a quick cup of Brazilian coffee (thick and rich) we grabbed our life vests and headed to the waiting canoe.  The expedition canoe is about 25 feet long with seven rows of seats, each holding two people.  A 50 horse-power outboard and driver sat on the back and our guide on the prow.  Off we headed from our anchorage into a small tributary of the Amazon, across the gig river to the other side, and then up the river bank to what we soon realized was a floating gas station and a small floating village.

 

The village was a collection of houseboats - some homes, others restaurants and services.  We passed by the small collection watching grey dolphins jumping around and chasing our boat.  As we entered the tributary we sighted a tree sloth, many birds, and watched at the jungle once more encroaching onto the river.  This area is known as Lake January and was full of birds and wildlife.  We spotted skunk and possum.  We wandered through the waterway several miles from the Amazon River and took hundreds of photos.

Eventually we worked out way back to the Amazon River and headed back across and past our anchorage.  Traveling further up the small tributary where we had spent the night we eventually pulled over to the riverbank, Wayne tied us off to a tree branch, and we were each handed a drop line with hook and a cup of red meat.  It was time to fish for piranha!  We snagged and tossed and caught ourselves a handsome array of river fish included a whole bunch of the little guys with the REALLY big teeth.

After our fishing adventure we headed back to the boat to show off our catch and get ready for lunch.  Following lunch we enjoyed our “siesta time.”  Around 3PM we all got back into the canoe for a visit to a local river village.  The little town sat high above the river with a long stairway and landing dock.  There to greet us were an assortment of children from the village and to our surprise none begged for money or trinkets.  We have been warned by Wayne to not start that tradition and we were pleased to see smiling faces that were curious about us and not what might be in our pockets.

We were escorted up the stairs and into the village where we stopped at the local meeting place, a large canopy covered cement area where the villagers held there meetings and celebrations.  We sang a terrible rendition of “You Are My Sunshine” and the kids returned the gesture with one of their own.  We then wandered through the quaint village past many small houses with children and adults peering out of windrows.  At the top of the hill we worked our way down to the banks of a neighboring tributary of the Amazon and through the boat works of the village – their principle source of income.   It had started to sprinkle and that cooled things off a bit.  Our canoe has navigated to this meeting place and was waiting for us.  What was in store next was a huge surprise.

We motored up the river a bit further sighting more birds and another sloth before tying off next to a couple of teenagers who were checking their nets.  Once again we were handed fishing lines and this time we started catching catfish - one species of which we were told not to handle as it was poisonous!  Yikes.  We fished for about an hour until it started to get dark.  We were all wondering how we were going to find the clipper since we were so far inland.  We pulled in our lines and much to our surprise headed further upstream as it grew darker and darker.  How Calico maneuvered that boat without light to this point was both a mystery and amazement.

Soon it was pitch black, so dark you could not see your hand in front of your face.  Suddenly Wayne pulled out a spotlight and started shining it at the riverbanks...ah; this is how we would find our way back to the big river.  He would stop occasionally and focus on one spot and then move on to another.  Occasionally he would mention the name of a bird.  Eventually we say a possum foraging along the bank and many birds.  At one point he motioned to our driver to head toward shore.  Once we were in the reeds that bordered the river bank he suddenly stood up with a long pole in his hand, reached over, and with  a jerk pulled up a five foot long Cayman - the Amazon's version of the crocodile.

He handled the Cayman, now illuminated by the spot light and gave it to Calico who carried it along the gunwale of the canoe and allowed each of us to touch and handle it.  It was both exhilarating and scary as this guy was none to happy to be out of the water.  After a short time it was released back into the river and we continued our search.  At this point we all later admitted we were concerned that the next thing coming out of the water would be a snake.  This did not happen, at least not on this night!

We were all so excited by this surprise night safari that we had forgotten that it had been raining the whole time and we were all thoroughly soaked.  We laughed at our wetness as we traveled the small river back in the darkness, quiet so that we could hear the hundreds of unique sounds around us.  We eventually worked out way back to the Amazon and to our boat were we changed clothes and met later for a great dinner buffet of local foods including some amazing fish!