We’re going on a cayman hunt, and I’m not afraid…

If you ask the boys what their favorite excursion was, they would all say cayman hunting. Hands down.

Now, when I envisioned cayman hunting, I figured that the creature would be about 4 or 5 feet and would have to be caught with a net or some kind of loop on the end of a stick.

I was completely wrong.

We started in our canoe around 8:30 in the pitch blackness of the night. The sky was lit with thousands of stars as we drove our canoe down the river. Our boat driver had a flashlight that he would shine in the marshy areas, looking for a set of eyes peering above the water. We had to keep silent, which the boys did surprisingly well. The anticipation, energy and a bit of trepidation kept all of us on high alert.

Finally, after about 30 minutes of searching, our boat quieted to a stop.  Did they finally find one?  How was he going to capture it?  We watched with anticipation. And then it happened:  our boat driver, Oilson, dove into the water.

We all about shat in our pants.

Was he going to have to wrestle it with his bare hands?  Would it bite him?  How was he going to pull the beast back in the boat?

Then it all became quite clear:  the 18″ cayman resembled an overgrown lizard. How Oilson even managed to spot the little thing was amazing, let alone dive in with such precision that he managed to grab the little guy.

We drove back the the hotel dock in order to properly examine HER (which I know because they specifically showed us).  I found the photo below quite amusing.  What is the matter with my disturbing imagination?

Finally, Thomas got a chance to hold this ferocious beast, risking life and limb for an unparalleld experience…

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Piranha!

Hello everyone! I’m sorry it has been a couple of days – funny enough, we got great phone and wireless internet at our rainforest hotel, but nothing at our hotel in Manaus (the big city we flew in and out of).

It was actually quite funny to be in the middle of overgrown vines in a wooden canoe fishing for piranhas and hear a cell phone ring. I was too cheap to pay the $2 a minute rate, so my poor family got one “WE ARE ALIVE” text and had to rely on the blog for updates.

These photos don’t give the experience justice. It is so hard to capture vastness of the overgrown vines enveloping you as your canoe weaves through the engorged river. There were times we had to duck as low at the boat to avoid the low hanging branches, scrape between two trees, or drive right through a patch of foliage. And then there were the sounds! Monkeys, birds, frogs, bugs. Between the new sounds and sights, I felt my senses where on high alert, taking it all in.

The boys LOVED piranha fishing. Most of the piranhas we caught were young and small, but they still packed quite a mouth full of teeth!

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No Means No!

There were a lot of photos like the one above.  Long protruding flesh torpedos.

But we got some that look like this.  His beautiful pink underbelly was soft and squishy.

Even though we were in the river and these were wild dolphins, they were used to people.  You could feel them swimming past us, under us, and occasionally poking us.

Thomas (and all the boys, quite frankly) were pretty scared of them, which surprised me.  There was something about the darkness of the water that made the experience more uncertain.

I, frankly, loved them.  The pink river dolphins feel different from the grey dolphins we are used to.  More like soft sponges.

But even though they were WILD, they couldn’t help but put on a show for us. AMAZING!!!! Monkeys: Check. Wild Dolphins: Check. Coming up: piranhas and caymas. This place is incredible!

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Hello Little Monkeys!

Greetings, awesome readers! I’m so sorry I’ve been out of touch! As you may recall, Dalai Dan and I returned from France Saturday, May 21st evening, and only 6 days later Dalai T and I were off to visit the Amazon Rainforest.

To say the turn around was a bit stressful is an understatement. I had barely unpacked my bags before I had to repack them – but with an entirely different set of clothes. Between the laundry, organizing, emails, and various obligations I had put off for 10 days, I also wanted to spend time with my kids. I was about to leave 3 of them AGAIN and that thought was creating a lot of anxiety for me. There were times before I left that my heart was racing so fast I thought I may be experiencing a panic attack!  That is when practicing meditation, deep breathing and acupressure comes in handy 🙂

After a crazy long journey (going to Manaus, Brazil is not easy to do from Kansas City) which included flying from Kansas city to Ft. Lauderdale on Southwest, taking a car to the Miami International Airport, racing to catch our Miami to Sao Paulo flight, flying 8 hours overnight, laying over for 4 hours, taking a 4 hour flight from Sao Paulo to Manaus, waiting for 3 hours for our ferry, then finally taking a 2 hour ferry ride to our rainforest hotel…….we were all a little tired.

Can you tell?  Thomas is about ready to fall asleep on the ferry…

The wind and view perked him up, though…

And when we FINALLY arrived, these little guys greeted us:

Mommy monkeys and there babies were EVERYWHERE!

If we had to go back to Kansas City tomorrow, the trip would have been worth it!  Oh, but there is so much more, like cayman hunting, piranhas fishing, boat riding….I’ll show you it ALL!!!  I love sharing this with you and appreciate you enduring it with me 🙂

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