2012-05-24
To avoid what everyone described to us as a horrific 20 hour bus ride, we took a short flight into the Amazon Basin and did a three day tour of the pampas (flatlands). This area is famous for its teeming wildlife including monkeys, caimans, aligators, birds, and pink river dolphins. We went around the river on a small boat and our guide stopped along the way when he spotted animals, which happened every couple of minutes. At one point, I had a monkey climbing on my head, but it was a guilty pleasure because he was only there because our guide was feeding him, something which could easily strip him of his ability to find food on his own. One night, we went out on the boat in search of alligators by looking for their eyes reflecting in the light from out flashlights and found many. Another day, we went swimming with some pink dolphins, who love the sound of the boat motor. They brushed up against Massey a couple of times, but they didn't engage with me. Massey described the sensation as rubbing up against a warm leather couch. We also went fishing for piranhas and somehow Massey and I got stuck on the side of the boat where there weren't any fish, at least that's what we told ourselves after we didn't catch any. We were the masters of accidentally snagging the jungle plants and joked that we were catching the salad to go with dinner. Luckily, our friends in our boat caught a bunch and we ate piranha that night. Even more luckily, we didn't fall out of the boat.