Trip to Iquitos (Day 4)

March 8, 2018

My roommates and I woke up around 5:50 to quickly get around and get onto the boats that would be giving an early morning animal scouting tour. Well my roommates (Lis and Helena) and I all epically failed and missed the boats departure. So we all went back to bed and woke up around an hour later to go to breakfast. After a quiet consumption of food, we all got back around to keep up with the work at the sight. The morning was filled with painting. After the basics were done (painting things solid colors), we started to decorate and paint the outside. Because it was our last day to put on the final touches, we were all rushing around, and I somehow got to helping an artistic aspect (I know, not still sure how). We were painting a globe (wait for the picture). While I was so casually painting the continents, someone exclaimed quite loudly, which quite frankly scared the crapperoni out of me. Turns out, a snake had just been chilling about a foot away from my feet. Thankfully the snake was not poisonous and there was no real danger, but still it gave me quite the start. So snake now away from my feet (actually being held by exchange students), I continued work, a little on edge that I was now going to be eaten by a poisonous animal.

We got the painting done just in time (barely) before we headed out for our lunch back at the hotel. A full stomach and little break later we all left to go do something I found quite exciting, FISHING! That is, fishing for piranhas! If anyone thinks that fishing is boring, try fishing for piranhas on the Amazon River. Once in the boat, we went to an inlet of the river, where there was no current and some vegetation. Our guide parked the boat the first time, then had Macie stick her hand in the water (which is kinda terrifying when you know Piranhas are just chilling beneath the surface). Turns out, our first parking job was with water too warm, so we went to go park in a different area. Once we found better waters, our guid gave us all small chunks of meat which we attached to our hooks. This was the most exciting fishing experience of my life. As soon as the meat touched the water, smaller fish began attacking the meat, so by the time you got deep enough for the piranhas to even attempt hooking on, the majority of your meat was already gone. 

After we ran out of meat, we took the boat to a larger part of the inlet and...jumped in to start swimming. Was it crazy and slightly terrifying to be swimming in the waters that you now knew had fish with teeth. The swimming was cool and refreshing, but eventually we had to get back into the boat. This is when two things happened:

1. I asked Courtney to toss me my towel from the front of the boat, she accidentally threw it straight into the river. 

2. I attempted to walk to the front of the boat, slipped on a metal bench, head butted the person in front of me, and gave myself a black and blue bruise larger than a softball. 

After we finished our refreshing swim, we went back to the main river and sat in the boats. We were looking for dolphins, but as another heavy rain had occurred before our fishing, the search for pink dolphins was a fail. Later that evening though, the sunset made up for any lingering sadness of the dolphins. 

Wish the picture could do it justice :(

After we were in the hotel swimming and chilling, Tiia and I asked Dick (one of the guides) if he would be interested in telling ghost stories. So Dick, Tiia, Salome (Switzerland), and some other exchange students all went with Dick for him to tell us some stories. Dick was born in a community a little far away from where we were (a few hours in boat). While all the details are a little lost, my favorite story included water pumas that ate human heads.