Amazon - day two

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Our second day in the Amazon started early as we jumped on a small boat to go fishing for Piranhas. On the way to there we saw several groups of grey freshwater dolphins. They're about 3 feet long and catching them is considered very bad luck by locals (it is said to lead to the death of your first child) so they're safely protected by superstition. We were hoping to see the larger pink dolphins but were out of luck.
Fishing was fun and I'm pretty sure this is the first time that I've used chunks of beef as fishing bait. The fishing rods/poles were simply wooded sticks with five feet of fishing line tied to the end. The last few inches before the hook was thick steel wire, the reason for which was obvious after looking at the piranhas teeth. The fish devoured the bait in seconds so you had to be quick to hook one. We caught around 10-15 in about 45 minutes of fishing including 6 considered big enough to keep. Those little fellas ended up on our plates for lunch and they were pretty tasty too.

After lunch we were back in the boat for a little more dolphin searching and this time we were lucky enough to see a few of the larger pink dolphins as well as the greys. And then the final was a stop at a rather contrived village of a local tribe called the yaguas. They usually dress in western clothes but for a few hours each day they dress up in traditional tribal wear and do dances and blow pipe demonstrations for the tourists. It was surprisingly good fun. The kids were quite handy with the blowpipe so we bought a small one that they promised not to use on each other or our neighbors.

We were planning on a nighttime jungle walk but the jungle didn't cooperate. Torrential rain shouldn't be a surprise in the rainforest but tonight is the first time that it's poured like this. Tomorrow we may have to swim to breakfast.

We have a half day here tomorrow then we leave for the airport for the long journey home. There may be a blog tomorrow lunchtime or maybe just one when we get home. We've had a great trip and would recommend Peru to anyone. Such an interesting country with something for everyone.

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Comments

[Lee]

Grass skirt
Where is the picture of Nick & Ben wearing the grass skirts