Radio City Music Hall

Getting ready to watch the Rockette's. Beautiful theater.

Crazy girls

Statue of Liberty

Waiting for the metro

Goes against my NYC rule of walking everywhere, but I guess 5 miles may be a bit much.

Fortifying for a day of sightseeing

Enjoying a chocolate croissant at a French patisserie in NYC.

NYC visit

Saw Matilda last night. Fun!

Enjoying Apple tea after our meal in Sirince

Apple tea is the National drink of Turkey. We drove up to this old city on the top of mountain for lunch and the proprietor brought us complimentary apple tea to finish out the meal. Yummy food, too.

More Ephesus

Lots of walking today! The first photo is the Library of Celsus (it was reconstructed by the Austrians in the 1970s to its present condition). Multiple agencies from around the world are contributing to the protection of this site.

Ephesus

We visited this ruined city today. This is the theatre. We were able to climb to the top and take a rest in the seats.

Cooking in Kusadasi

We are fixing up a meal for dinner tonight. Dave and I went to the grocery store and picked up the fixings for a pasta dish. We are crossing our fingers. Nothing like picking out a cheese that looks like feta, but having no idea if it is any good. You'll notice the glass of wine. Dave says you need a glass while bullshitting your way through dinner. Wine is always a good idea. And bread.

Hagia Sophia

After dinner we took a short stroll.

Arrived in Istanbul

We arrived in Istanbul after a 10 hour overnight flight. We boarded at 11:20pm and were served a tasty Turkish delight right after take off. About an hour later we were served a great pasta dish for dinner (and two glasses of wine--because maybe it will help me sleep?) and about four hours later along comes breakfast! Great start to this vacation. We are going to eat our way through.

After checking into our apartment we went for dinner where we had a tasty Meze starter followed by kabobs and Turkish meatballs for dinner. Lots to eat!

Yes!

Bows in progress

Evening hobby time:

Marlee's bow is shooting

Marlee helped put the finishing touches on her bow with me Saturday and tried it out. Will still need a final coat of finish and a handle wrap at some point. She also made her own string, turns out she's a natural at that.

Bow Making

 

 

Last night Marlee helped me start cranking out a new batch of longbows. Apparently she thinks one is for her.

Look who is Parol of the month...

Archery sequence

Cailin's first comment on seeing the pictures below was, "OMG, my elbow is too high!"

Fellow Travelers

I think before I continue any further with my Guyana posts, I need to explain just a bit about my fellow travelers. In all, five of us were able to make the trip happen. Our fearless leader and the organizer for the whole trip was Andy. Andy has done quite a bit of travel over the years with work and for fun and is good at putting trips together. From what I understand, he was watching a show at 3am one morning called "River Monsters" and was fascinated by that episode's location on the Rewa River. And so the idea for this trip was born.

Andy's standard attire for the whole trip centered around his vest. He liked to use it instead of a daypack for all of his "stuff." If you needed it, he probably had it in his vest. He also often was identifiable by the GoPro camera around his chest to capture all of the action. Andy usually sat next to me during the boat rides. By the end of the trip, I was becoming jealous of his Tilley hat as well.

 

Grant is Andy's son, now in his early twenties. The timing of the trip needed to correspond to Grant's winter break from college. Grant was usually identified by the fact that he was sleeping. In the boat his head would be down on his chest. At the village he was curled up in a hammock. On a plane he'd be leaned to one side. I was amazed at how easily he could sleep in almost any position and situation. Grant and I shared a cabin during our time in the village. He was a fun guy to have around when it was time to be awake though.

Bruce and Susan were the official photographers on the trip.I was guessing they probably totalled between 15 and 20 thousand shots during the trip. Bruce is Andy's brother. While we couldn't resist cracking a few jokes about all of their camera equipment and electronics, we are definitely looking forward to their final set of pictures. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know both of them and hope to hang out with them on another of Andy's adventures one of these days.

It should be noted that unless one of the daily downpours hit us, Susan and Bruce usually were in this position:

 

Our guides were great at pointing out all of the birds and wildlife along the river, and they had the equipment to capture it. Some of the pictures of the fish, wildlife, and general stuff that I've posted or will soon be posted are courtesy of their initial distribution of teaser pics. I would like to bring up the subject of appearances though. I couldn't stop chuckling one morning as we headed out for a walk to try and catch glimpses of wildlife. Bruce had outdone himself that morning:

 

 His cargo/travel pants were tucked into his white socks which were in turn visible through the sides of his sandals. He also preferred a vest, although his was full of electronics and trash bags to keep his camera dry. This particular morning, he also had an emergency space blanket shoved in the pouch on the back giving him a distinct hunchback appearance. His giant camera was slung around under one arm. His small video camera was under the other. His GPS was hanging from his neck. His camera bag with extra lenses, batteries, etc hung from his side. And his floppy hat and sunglasses completed the North American tourist look like I've never seen it pulled off before. (I probably owe him a beer for poking fun at him one more time, but at least he rolls with it gracefully.)

Finally, there was yours truly. I'm sure I looked ridiculous in my own right at times. And while I couldn't keep up with Grant sleeping everywhere, I occasionally found a spot to lay down and catch a few winks. Here I am in Port of Spain, Trinidad, outside the airport between flights. The ocean breeze made a 10am nap in the shade downright perfect -- even with the stone mattress.

Girl Scout survivor games

Given a sheet of paper, four life savers, two paperclips, three straws and six inches of tape the father/daughter team needed to make an air-powered car for racing. Emma's car won third, then first, then first. (It helps to take a big breath first and durability apparently counts.)

Piranhas

So y'all may have noticed I left out a particularly infamous species of fish in my last post. Well, that's because I felt piranhas deserved their own spotlight. Like most children in North America, I grew up believing that the rivers of the Amazon basin were swarming with these little fish with sharp teeth. If you dared to set foot into their waters you'd be eaten alive in minutes.

Naturally, the first fish we went fishing for was the dreaded piranha. We had a "down day" at Rewa village between when we arrived and when we were to head out on our expedition. So that morning we motored upriver a little ways to a beach where a couple of caiman patrolled offshore to try our luck at snagging a few piranha. I believe I caught one of the first little buggers on hand line. Hand lining can be frustrating to do, and hilarious to watch, btw. It turned out that was the smallest fish of the day. Before long we were all hooking black piranha. The first thing I noticed was that they were bigger than I imagined:

The picture below was proof that I also caught the biggest fish of the day, although by then I had switched to a rod and reel. That black piranha was approximately 5-6 lbs. Our guides told us that on the upper stretches of the Rewa river, they occasionally catch them as big as 10 lbs. Damn!

   

Well, I think it's worth noting the teeth on this particular fish. While no one wanted to stick their fingers in its mouth to pull its lips down, a stick sufficed. Note the size of my finger down in the left hand corner of the picture for relative size. (There are just as many teeth on the top, but we only had one stick.)

 

That first morning catching piranha was cool. We brought them back to the village where the big one was grilled/smoked for our lunch and the rest went to the village. The meat reminded me of shark meat in texture and flavor. The bones were straight from hell. The entire fish is full of these little "Y" bones. Picking them out made for a slow meal and some colorful language.

As the trip went on, our feelings about the piranha went from "Cool!" to "Son of a *&%!$!" Those little (and big) suckers were everywhere. If they didn't steal your bait directly, they were taking chunks out of the fish you were reeling in or more often than not cutting your line. Yep -- even though we used steel leaders to keep the teeth of the fish we hooked from cutting the line, they were not long enough to be effective against the piranha who would inevitably attack our hooked fish and often cut our line in the process. (Which reminds me, I still need to mail our guides some replacement fishing gear.) One morning I decided to throw a lure off the beach while we were waiting for the second boat to join us. In 10 minutes, I had hooked six piranha. But unfortunately the rapala lure I had borrowed from Bruce just wasn't up to the task:

 

I believe that Bruce hooked yet another fish with that lure and ended up with only the head of the lure to show for it. Both hooks and most of the wooden body had been bitten off.

 And just for emphasis, I'd like to show the head of my peacock bass again from another angle. I hooked this fish and had it up on the beach in about 90 seconds. Look at the size of the chunk missing from his head. I recommend that if you fall into the water on the Rewa river, you don't thrash around and show signs of weakness.

Fish of Guyana

My apologies for taking so long to post up some pictures from my trip. In summary, it was awesome. To expand a little: it was really awesome. I will start posting up the pics in batches. I have a feeling there will be many more wonderful pictures as soon as Susan and Bruce are able to sort through the almost 20,000 they took on the trip and share the best ones. I expect this to take some months, so don't get too excited yet. In the meantime, let's look at what I do have available. Some of the pictures below were early releases from Bruce and some from my camera.

We didn't really intend for this to be a full up fishing expedition, or at least I didn't. I understood that we would do some fishing for food and perhaps some bow fishing. However, it turns out that they basically get visitors that fall into two categories: sport fisherman and bird watchers. They weren't sure how to keep "adventurers" fully occupied, so we ended up fishing. A lot.

The first thing you should know if you decide to go fishing in Guyana is that you need bigger hooks. No seriously, if you're used to fishing the fresh waters of North America you need bigger gear. Look to the ocean fishing guys. 20# braided line is probably the absolute minimum to have on your reel, 50# is better. You don't need many fancy lures -- you just use those to catch medium fish that you chop up into large chunks and use to fish for the real fish. To catch the real fish, you just put on a giant hook, use it to impale half of your medium fish, and toss in the water. (I'm defining medium fish as between 12-18" in length.) You will also need wire leaders as most have teeth that cut through your line in a heartbeat. Finally, bring chunks of lead. Along with the hooks and wire leaders, you'll lose a fair amount of lead.

First up, let's talk about catfish. The first picture is a tiger catfish -- also referred to by several other names while we were there. I caught the first catfish in the dark the night before this picture was taken of Bruce's. It was a tiger cat as well, but bigger than this one by a skosh. I'm still waiting for the pictures of that one, but my guide estimated it at 25# or so. I know he gaffed it instead of letting me pull it up on the beach. I hauled it up to the hill to the kitchen area and we ended up eating some of it an hour later. Delicious.

You can catch catfish all day long apparently. But one of the reasons for fishing for catfish after dark is the piranhas -- they basically go to sleep as soon as the sun goes down and don't steal your bait or cut your line. The other reason is it is awesome to lay back on the sand and look up at the stars. I'm not sure I've seen that many stars even when camping in the mountains.

There are many types of catfish, this is a red catfish, or a banana catfish if I remember correctly. It sqeaks like nobody's business out of the water. Note that all of the catfish don't have teeth. But there is one kind that has nasty barbed fins up front that can clamp your and against its body and keep you there. (They call it "The Policeman.") The other thing to note about catfish is they only have bones in the vertical plane. Most of the fish we caught tasted great, but catfish were especially delicious as you weren't trying to sort out bones as you ate dinner in the dark.

We ate fish a lot of ways on this trip. Our guides would sometimes barbeque the fish in a setup like this with sticks that they whacked with machete, making an impromptu grill. With a lower flame the fish could be smoked over night and therefore preserved and taken back to the village. Many of our fish were released, some were eaten that day, and the rest were smoked.

I'm convinced that almost everything in the water was there to eat you. Some things like the catfish only eat the scraps of you that are you left when the toothier varieties of fish are full. And you don't get much toothier than the bayera, also known as the "Vampire Fish." Guess why. The bones in the fish made it a better fish to eat in the daylight than at dinner. They are a bit scary to unhook and release.

There are two fish that really seem to be "the fish" of the area: the arawana and the arapaima. You may have heard of the arapaima: it is the largest fresh water scaled fish in the world. The arawana is it's little brother and a small specimen is held by Andy in the above photo. The arapaima can get up to 8 feet and over 600 lbs. It is protected, but is still pursued as a sportfish in limitted numbers -- always catch and release. The arawana however is much more plentiful and tasty. Both are prehistoric and have no distinct fins but rather look like a modified eel. You fish for them by look at swirls on the surface and casting to them. If you hook one, they fight like crazy. I think I may have hooked an arapaima twice based on my guides' reactions.  Both times the line zipped out and I lost the fish. When they fish for them on purpose, they use a #12 fly rod and a fly that looks like a 12 inch fish!

I did catch one arawana myself though, and it's one of my more vivid memories. We were fishing the muddy banks of an old oxbow pond when I hooked one right in front of a black caiman. The caiman came alive as the fish fought. My guide Ken kept yelling, "Reel faster! Get him away from the crudu (makushi for caiman.)" I tried to back up the flat mud bank to pull my fish away but stepped into a mud hole that was deeper than my kneecaps. The fish was out of the water on the mud and the caiman was still following when I stopped listening to Ken. Something about a 9 foot long caiman with an open mouth closing to within 15 feet of me made my fish seem like a suitable sacrifice! Everything came to a stop. The caiman with his mouth still open was inches from my 28" fish that had stopped flopping. Suddenly the caiman turned and went full speed back into the water. Ken came over and unhooked my fish and released him back into the water away from the caiman. I climbed out of my hole with a great story to tell and what I hoped was only mud in my shorts.

Another interesting fish to catch was the haimara, or "wolf fish." These fish were only slighty more evolved from prehistoric times than the arawana. They don't have the biggest teeth, but I think they have the sharpest. I pricked my finger on one and didn't stop bleeding for an hour. Our guides did not want these little monsters in the bottom of the boat unless they were fully dead. And hence I was introduced to fishing with a club. Most of the fish above were caught on a hand line -- no rod or real. If you look close at my left hand  you can see duct tape on my fingers to keep the line from cutting me too deep when one of these guys gets hooked. Andy caught the big one, which weighed over 30#. The picture above doesn't do the size of these fish justice. We figured that skewer of fish weighed about 80# when the picture was taken. By the time we got back to camp, it was definitely closer to 120#.

One of my favorite fish to catch was the peacock bass, or Lucanani. Not only did they fight well, but they tasted good, had few bones, and no real teeth. They were a pretty fish, although this one is cosmetically deficient as he missing the back of his head thanks to a piranha that sensed weakness as he was being reeled in. In a pinch we often used peacock bass for bait as they could be caught on a lure as well. Several big ones straightened the treble hooks on my lures. You could also see them splashing and feeding in the shallows under vegetation in the evenings.

Here is Andy hand lining for catfish in a deep spot on the river one evening. In the foreground is Shaun and behind is his cousin Robin. Robin was a master guide, but was working as one of the boat captains on this trip. Shaun was a young guide still in training. Strong and a little crazy, he was fun to have around. Ken was our other official guide. We had two more boat captains, a cook, and helper. I'll write more about our great makushi guides in another post.

A fish that we only ever caught with a fast moving lure on the surface is a sword fish. I'm not sure what the local name was, and I think it's more of a needle fish than a sword fish. It has sweet meat, but is boney as all heck. As a result, it made fantastic bait although we ate some of them as ourselves. I caught the only fish the morning this guy swam too close to me.

Finally, I'd like to note that even the little fish have some nasty teeth. This fox fish is only about 6 inches long but enough to discourage me from dipping my toes! Seriously, swimming in these waters is not for the weak of heart. Even the minnows seemed to nip at you, especially if you had anything resembling a bug bite for them to home in on.