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.