Do you remember that song? Jim Stafford. If you’re under 50 you’ve maybe never heard it. Anyway, it came into my head on our walk this morning and has been my earworm the rest of the day.

This was the 6 AM sunrise. I had been up since a little after 4:30. Ash got up about 5:30. There was a 6 AM excursion, but we decided to skip it and just relax a little bit. That was the right decision. 

It was a rubber boot day again.

This is the rainforest we were parked by and where we would walk for the next over two hours. 

From a weather perspective, this was pretty uncomfortable. Hot, humid, bugs, etc. We could not wait to get back and take showers.

A pretty little pond on the way.

This is a leftover swimming pool from someone’s residence. When the owner died, it just became neglected.

Leftover statues.

A baby anaconda. Our guide George believes this is probably about 5 feet long. The head is pointing top right.

A red-backed poison frog. Yikes. The boy from the jungle did not seem phased by it at all. 

This is actually not a spider, but something called a wheel bug. The assassin variety although I couldn’t quite get what that meant. Seems like something you’d wanna stay away from. 

Above and below: a brown wood lizard. And that’s our guide, Jorge, aka “George of the Jungle,” a reference he seems to enjoy. He grew up here and knows a lot about everything. 

Photo above and video below: bullet ants. Definitely something you want to stay away from. These were a good 1-1.5 inches long. They are known for having one of the most painful stings of any ant species. 

Jorge actually poked a stick down in the hole get the ants riled up. It worked.

Interesting tree trunk. The roots do this to provide stability in shallow soil.

Above and below: a tarantula. Yes you read that correctly. A leg span of probably 4-5 inches.

Kind of pretty though? Honestly, it gave me the willies just being this close to it.

Known as a walking palm.

Adorable scorpion origami towel when we got back to our room. 

At 11:30,  we were visited by the Shaman from the local tribe we spent time with yesterday. She has been in this role for 19 years. Shamans are the spiritual and medical leaders of the community. The presentation was on the different variety of plants and bark she uses to treat common ailments like colds, coughs, arthritis, mosquito bites, snake bites, etc.

And then she did a blessing for everyone in her native language. It was beautiful. And Ash bought a mask from her.

Lunch was a lasagna appetizer, pork with spaghetti, and a lovely flan type dessert with something resembling vanilla pudding.

We went back to our room after lunch and rested a bit. Ash is still napping. It is approaching 3 PM and there was a 2:30 swimming excursion that we very consciously skipped. We will go out again at 4:30.

I was sitting on the deck while I was writing up to this point.

Then had to wonder why I was sitting outside with the heat and the bugs when there’s an air-conditioned room 20 feet away. So I spent the next hour or so in here just reading a book. 

——-

Scratch that. We did not go out again at 4:30. It was going to be fishing for piranhas. Ash originally wanted to do it. But by the time it was time to go he was feeling hot and lazy and I certainly wasn’t going to get in the way of that. Last night, when they were going over the agenda for today, I had kind of decided I was only going to do the rainforest walk and that was it. So I got my wish after all. 

And the only reason to do any of that was to get a photo of a piranha, which I got anyway when they got back.

They caught a bucket full of them and will be frying them up for dinner tonight.

Here is a close-up so you can see the teeth. All piranhas have teeth. Our guides have been telling us that 80% of them are vegetarian. I don’t know yet which ones these are.

At 7 we had lectures on piranhas and snakes, and then the agenda for tomorrow. We might not get off the boat tomorrow. Will see how we feel. The lazies are kicking in.

The appetizer was a pumpkin soup which may be the best thing I’ve had the whole trip. Rich and flavorful. And these adorable breads baked to look like turtles.

The main was a chicken thigh and vegetables.

And of course thee were the piranhas- deep fried.

Tricky to eat because of teeny bones – and of course teeth. But we both tried it. Just your basic white fish. It was ok.

They had a pear poached in wine for dessert which we passed on and just had fruit instead.

And that’s the day. Tomorrow is our last full day on the boat. On Sunday we make our way back to Lima and leave that night for Rio.