Caiman Hunting and the Walk of Wild Pigs

so one of the first things we did on our trip to the Amazon was go Caiman hunting! Caiman aka a little crocodile (?) that lives in the Amazon. There are three different types...but I can only remember two...the black caiman and the spotted caiman. One is bigger than the other, but I can't remember which!

Anyway the one which we are all holding here is the smaller kind of Caiman. Although my forest freak out for today was not actually in the forest but was holding this little guy here. While I was holding him, he coughed, and I got freaked out, thinking I was choking him and I dropped him!

hmm...so dropping a caiman in the bottom of a small boat at night, perhaps not the wisest of ideas....but thankfully our fearless leader was able to scoop him back up.....

we continued our hunt for the caiman's and Ananji picked up this big guy!

Here you can see how lovely his nails or his fingers are.....

look into his deadly eyes....did you know caiman's have two eyelids? One for light and one for water?

oh my what big teeth you have! the better to eat you with my dear!!

Here Ananji is showing us his ear flaps...

Before returning our new buddy back to the water we also sexed the crocodile! Done by yours truly.....it wasn't my first time....basically you have to stick your finger into the crocodile's uh, hoo-hoo to determine it's sex.....I did this once upon a time ago way back in Mexico when I was first getting into marine biology....anyway the opportunity presented itself again and I can confirm, it was a boy!

So the scariest/ most adventurist/most interesting part of the trip for me, was not dropping the caiman in the boat at night, nor was it being surrounded by trees, but was a hike we did, which I like to call the hike of wild pigs. Dean and I went on an extra hike one day in the late afternoon, in hopes of seeing some wildlife. The first thing we saw very early into the walk was a newly shed snake skin, which our guide informed us belonged to a snake about 2 meters long (about 8 feet).....and what kind of snake was it.....um....I don't know.....insert scary snake name here....cobra....python....I don't know all snake names are scary to me....

So the guide starts walking slowly forward, clearly looking for this gi-normous snake and he informs us that is quite dangerous. We are proceeding cautiously along the path for about 5 more minutes....I would say adrenaline is elevated....I mean this snake could sneak up behind us and eat us in one bite! (or atleast in my mind it can.....)....then all of a sudden Ananji stops. Picture Jennie and I almost bumping into each other he stops so abruptly. We all listen intently. Now if you ask me what we heard, was the sound of a jungle cat rising from the sitting position, sniffing the air to find some prey, and making a low growling noise. However if you ask Jennie, she'll just say there was a rustle in the bushes. Next Ananji turns around and says, do you know how to climb trees? Now take a look at this tree....

and tell me if you can guess what my answer was.....

Anyway we listen quietly, not moving for the next few minutes and Ananji says we need to turn around, because he's afriad for our safety if we go any farther because we can't climb trees. Several minutes pass on our hike back to the boat and Ananji stops abruptly again to listen. Finally Jennie and I gather up the courage to ask what's out there. Ananji says wild pigs. There is a pack of 30-40 wild pigs feeding in the area. Jennie and I exchange dubious glances, wild pigs? This is why we can't continue our hike? Seriously? But we're not talking about Wilbur on the farm pack of pigs. We are talking about vicious, will destroy anything in their path, 1 foot long tusks type of wild pigs. Ananji sees our dubious looks and says they are one of the most dangerous animals in the Amazon; people get killed each year by wild pigs. So I found this google article about a new type of wild pig in the Amazon, and while they don't look scary, it does say you have to climb a tree to avoid them....

Anyway at this moment, adrenaline is rushing. We are walking back towards the giant snake skin, we are being hunted by a pack of wild pigs, my tree climbing abilities- I have just found out- appear to be lacking....and all I can think of is hunting pigs in the book Lord of the Flies. Needless to say we got back on the boat, all in one piece, without having to climb a tree. And nothing really happened, but in my mind that was the scariest, wildest adventure of our time in the Amazon!

The Crew, The Food, The Wildlife....

So this is the crew. Obviously the crew of friends that came together from far away places to have an adventure in the Amazon. The boat crew consisted of the captain (Vaudinho):

the cook (Cristavo, his name is written conveniently on his arm in case you forget):

and this is our fearless leader and guide: Ananji

The food was excellent, which was surprising to us.

On the boat we ate fresh fish almost every day.

and here's a photo of my favorite food item: Tapioca!

in Manaus, we went to a juicebar and tried lots of different type of juice. The best Acai and Cupuaçu.

The worst: Jeripapao (gross!)

after the eating and adventures for the day we did a lot of relaxing and soaking up the atmosphere......

we enjoyed many a lovely sunset......

and saw many a wild animal....

a wooly monkey? but not a spider monkey....and I'm pretty sure this wasn't a howler monkey....sigh....you know me with non-ocean animals....

ok so I know this blog is entitled the crew, the food and the wildlife. and I apologize for the lack of more wildlife pictures. but we saw lots of spiders, and forgive me but I hate looking at those photos so they are not included.....we saw lots of birds but sadly I can't tell you what any of them are.....and we saw lots of pink dolphins....but we never got a really good photo of one..... but we stopped in this one place and the water was so still and so calm, the trees were reflected perfectly in the water. it was amazing.

Amazonian Women

I had my first two friends from the states come and visit for almost 2 weeks. Our destination: The Amazon. And while it’s no big surprise that I had hesitations about a) wanting to go there, I mean it’s far away from the ocean, and b) if I would have fun being surrounded by trees the whole time, I was able to limit my forest freak outs to one per day and in the end was pleasantly surprised with the trip. (The look of the forest freak out below:)

First let me just say the Amazon is huge. It has many tributaries, which feed into it and little did I know in one spot it also has surfing! A place called Porrorroca, has at certain times of the month, the longest wave for surfers to ride. Surfers can ride for more than 20 minutes on a single wave in this part of the Amazon. Sadly, our itinerary did not include this spot, next time.

We boarded a houseboat in Manaus, and were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were the only ones scheduled for the week, therefore we had our own private cruising boat!!

Our first stop, a place called meeting of the waters, where two tributaries of the Amazon come together, but because of differences in temperature and current speeds the two rivers do not mix for about 15 miles. You can see each of the two rivers distinctly side by side, one a light brown color the other a dark blue brown color.

Next on the day 1 itinerary was a stop at the Lily Pad Pond. These Lilly Pads reminded me of the ones in fairy tales; they were so big and so green I could just imagine a frog jumping right off one and into my hand. If I kissed it would it turn into a Prince?

Next on our first day of the adventure, was Piranha Fishing! We used bamboo fishing rods andchopped up pieces of meat to fish for Piranhas in a tributary off the Amazon, while also seeing lots of birds.

Jen and Jennie were really good at spotting birds and me, well, I claim my marine biologist eyes couldn’t adjust to seeing non-salty wildlife. Weaver got really into the Piranha Fishing and within minutes had caught her first Piranha.

I struggled and first caught some algae and then finally caught a Piranha. And Jennie eventually, right before we left caught her very own little guy.

Aww Dean's cute little Piranha....isn't he vicious?

Other activities included on our trip in the Amazon, lots of kayaking and canoeing through flooded forests, hikes through the rainforest, caimon (crocodile) hunting and seeing lots of pink river dolphins! Once back on land, we took a few days to hike the waterfalls at Presidente Figueredo and then came back to Fortaleza to enjoy a few days at the beach! One nice side note, the bugs in the Amazon weren't bad at all. We spent most of our time on a smaller river that lacked sufficient oxygen for mosquitoes. So thankfully we kept the bug bites to a minimum! More photos of the Amazon and more stories in the next blog. BJS to both Dean and Weaver for venturing into the Amazon with a marine biologist with dendrophobia (fear of trees).

Only in Parajuru.....

Acorda Parajuru! Acorda Parajuru! (wake up, wake up Parajuru!)

I roll over and look at my research assistant and then at my watch. It's 4 AM. It's sunday morning, and my research assistant and I are in Parajuru, a beach town to the east of Fortaleza. We have had an unusual 24 hours, made only stranger by our early morning wake up call.

Let me start from the beginning, my research assistant and I caught an early morning bus to Parajuru to do research for the weekend. We didn't have a place to spend the night, or know anyone in Parajuru, but in Ceara, it's normal to turn up in a beach town for the weekend and find a place to stay once you are there. We weren't 100% sure where to get off the bus either, and so as we neared our destination, we struck up a conversation with a young guy who we had overheard tell the bus driver he was going to Parajuru. It turns out luck was on our side, and this school teacher from Parajuru turned out to be our hero for the day.

When we got to Parajuru, he helped us find a place to stay, took us to lunch, helped us do research, brought us dinner from his parents restaurant and took us out at night. All throughout the day he kept saying, "Only in Parajuru"......

So "Only in Parajuru...."

1) would we have to walk for 30 minutes in thick mud, getting extremely dirty, at the end of doing research (watch this video of my research assistant trying to cross this stream in the mangrove mud.....)

2) would we find 3 seahorses, including the first juvenile seahorse with filaments I've see in Ceara

3) would we find out that Parajuru has a night club and go and visit it.....

4) would we see the town blind man, standing outside the nightclub at 1 AM, snapping his fingers and dancing

5) would we have tapioca and grilled chicken brought to us for free, courtesy of the Professor's family restaurant

5) would we eat homemade ice cream at the house of the Professor

6) would I have a black cat sneeze consistently on my ankles while I ate dinner

7) would we see 12 baby kittens on the side of the road

8) would we walk 4 km after getting muddy doing research because the professor's cell phone died and we had no way to call a ride

9) would the muddy muddy mangrove areas be known as the lover's lane of Parajuru...that's right guys if you want to take your lady to a secret spot for a little smooch, nothing sets the atmosphere like mudy muddy mangroves.....

10) would my research assistant and I sit on the back of a moto taxi together to get to and from our research site....the second time covered in mud.....

11) be awakened at 4 AM by the equivalent of the town crier, yelling in Portuguese, Wake up Parajuru! Wake up!

12) would we meet so many people with names I can't pronounce.....like Azaiel...Drvonka (drah-vonka?), pedoroda (pay-door-o-da)....or at least I think those were the names....

13) see a german mother and her two young teenage daughters dancing with the same young gentlemen at the Parajuru club.....

14) would we play a game at a restaurant, with the rules written on the table, which led to the Professor singing at the top of his voice a song about how much he loved Jesus, me trying to dance like Michael Jackson, and my research assistant giving a 43 second stare to someone at another table. (yes the rules of the game were quite strange....kind of like truth or dare but not really....)

15) would we make plans to meet the professor, at the same time, on the same bus, next month, to visit Parajuru....

Iguassu Falls Brazil

Iguassu Falls is such a special place that it deserves its own blog. And the pictures were just that amazing that I"m breaking it up into pictures from the Brazil side of the Falls and pictures from the Argentinian side of the falls. Iguassu Falls as I said in the previous blog is located on the border of Argentina and Brazil. The falls are on both sides of the river that divides the two countries so some of the falls are in Argentina and some are in Brazil.

We stayed at a hotel in the National Park on the Brazil side of the Falls. This is the only hotel in the National Park and a truly amazing place. Because we were staying in the park we were able to see sunsets over the falls, sunrises and hit the walking trails before any other tourists were in the park.

view from the sunset tower at the hotel....

We arrived late in the afternoon at Iguassu Falls and decided to take a jetboat ride underneath the falls. Mom was a little nervous about this, Dad was really excited and Lindsay was excited but worried about being cold. We first had to walk down to the river on a trail through the woods. Along the way we caught glimpses of the first of many waterfalls to come. Here is a tranquil small waterfall we saw along the way.

At the end of the trail, we boarded a floating dock where we donned our life vests and prepared for our wet and wild ride through the falls.

While on the boat, we caught glimpses of amazing vistas and waterfalls. These waterfalls shown below are called the three muskateers. We actually went in and underneath the falls.

As we approached, the mist grew thick, the spray grew more intense and we could barely see another boat just coming out of the falls.

In the end, Dad loved the experience, Lindsay liked it but was cold and I'm pretty sure Mom didn't like it. But it was an exciting day and a great way to experience the falls first hand!

Our second day at the falls we took advantage of staying in the National Park and got up early to walk the trails before the tourists were allowed in. We were greatly rewarded by our efforts as we saw rainbow after rainbow, marvelous vistas and almost no one else on the trails.

My parents thought this waterfall below, looked like the virgin mary. what do you think?

The highlight for sure was walking to the platform that was built out over the falls. There was practically a 360 degree view of waterfalls all around you. check it out here.

It was really amazing to feel and see the mist from the falls in the air.....

and of course there was a rainbow.....

Lindsay and Dad foolishly pretending to fall into the falls.....

one of many family photos taken at the falls.....

aww mother and daughter.....

That was the highlight reel of photos for the Brazilian side of the falls......photos from the Argentinian side of the Falls coming soon.....