amazon adventure

hola amigos!

just got back from a 3 day amazon jungle trip! it was crazy! From Merida, i took a jeep with three other people, Aldo(italy), Paul(Germany), and Linda(france). Linda was also our guide throughout the trip.

The drive into Los llanos took 7 hours and then we took a 2 hours boatride upstream to this remote farm in the amazon. the boatride was really cool because the river is this chocolate brown color... it´s as if a semi-truck filled with coco-puff cereal fell into the hudson river and turned it into a sweet brownish treat.

anyhoo, we got there and our host,(Gabriel) had dinner ready for us. there were a million mosquitos and even with the bug repellent, i got bit a million times. i counted 50 bites just on my right knee! we slept on the patio in hammocks and fell asleep to the sounds of crickets, bugs, cows, and other bugs. i woke up alot throughout the night because the stupid rooster started crowing at 2am. i really hate birds. they are pretty to look at but they are really loud. they had a couple parrots too, and they wouldn´t shut up either.

in the morning, we went horseback riding for a couple hours. the horses were pretty tame. they weren´t like the other horses i´ve ridden where they go buck wild and start running without any concern for the rider. my horse was really hungry and would eat grass and flowers throughout the ride. we came up to a large lagoon/marsh area and we decided to get wet and ride on through with the horses. that was my favorite part. we had two little dogs tagging along and they had to doggie paddle their was through.

later that day, we went out on the boat and fished for pirranah! all i had was a two foot long stick, some fishing line, hook, and little bits of red meat. it was really easy to catch them, you just stick some meat in the water and within seconds, they go for it! when we ran out of red meat, we cut up the smaller pirranah and used them for bait! they were eating their brothers! Paul got bit by one of the pirranahs... that was pretty funny. those dang germans.

i was freaking out since we saw a crocodile about twenty feet away from us. i was like, ¨should we be throwing red meat into the river with that croc over there?¨ it didn´t seem to bother our guide or boat driver. so, we went on fishing.

speaking of crocodiles, there were all over the place! we went out for a boat ride at night and we saw over thirty crocs! i had my super flashlite with me and their eyes light up when you shine on them. we came across a bunch of tiny baby crocs, so we stopped and linda and our driver jumped out to grab a few. they were really cute, about 10 inches long with little paws. once again i was like, ¨should we be handling these baby crocs when momma croc is sitting just 15 feet away?¨ everyone was so excited about baby crocs, they didn´t seem to care.

that´s about it... or at least the highlights. we saw a bunch of other stuff too. monkeys, dolphins, iguanas, chickens, parrots, anacondas, and bats. one bat almost fell on me when i was swinging in the hammock. Gabriel saw it and smacked it with his flip-flop(much to the horror of our guide Linda) it sat there for a bit, until one of the cats saw it and ate it up within seconds! that was pretty cool too.

gotta run, talk to yáll soon. and keep those emails coming to S america. i look forward to hearing from you guys,

-patrick