At Night, the Bugs Rule

Well, last night, I struggled to fall asleep despite not having slept for more than an hour at a time in nearly 36 hours. Why? You may ask? It was really frickin hot and humid. And, well, I was slightly traumatized after seeing a moth get snatched up by a tarantula on the other side of my bedroom wall. Here’s the story of how we got here…

After a home-cooked dinner and a hearty nap, we ventured outside the guest house, but this time, at night. And oh boy can I say that the Amazon turns into a different place at night. First, it is pitch black. So black that you don’t know when your eyes are closed or open.

So originally, we were hoping to go out to see a tarantula. I was, of course, a little scared, but also, very interested. We walked outside, and the first tree we checked had one sitting on it. Great. They’re everywhere.

The wildlife we found on our first nighttime walk

Since it took us no time to find our first tarantula, we kept on looking for frogs, moths, leaf cutter ants, millipedes, bats, crazy species of vines, and basically whatever else is creepy and crawly at night. The results were horrifying, and now I have all my belongings zipped up, hoping that I don’t accidentally adopt a tarantula.

In the clearings, we got a wonderful view of the night sky. That kind of view where you see the milky way, and there are so many stars you can’t tell which are part of a constellation and which aren’t. What’s also very cool is that, of course, since we are in the southern hemisphere, we could see the southern hemisphere constellations. I’ve never had the opportunity to see any of these, so I welcomed that opportunity. Most obvious was the southern cross, depicted on so many flags, but Tony pointed out others, most of which I do not remember now. Regardless, I can confidently say that this is a new scene for me.  

And that’s when “it” happened. As I was heading back to my room, I was simultaneously alerted to the presence of both a moth and a tarantula sitting on the other side of the wall to my room. I think moths are disgusting, though a night in the Amazon isn’t complete until at least fifteen moths hit you in the face, and a tarantula is a tarantula. In an instant, I saw the moth fly too far into the wrong direction, and the tarantula, with its lightning fast reaction times, snatch it out of the air, slowly devouring it as its midnight (probably more like 7:30 PM) snack.

After a hot and sweaty night (at least the beds had mosquito nets), we woke up at 6 to go out and spot some birds before it got too hot. The Amazon in the morning is so refreshing, and I was so glad that all the night’s creepy crawlies had gone away. We actually ended up bird spotting for much of the day, seeing different species of hawks, terns, eagles, macaws, toucans, you name it. I mean, even during the day there’s never a moment of silence here. There’s a continuous cacophony of bird calls. I wonder how the birds find it—if the other calls confuse them at all or not.

Tony is amazing, and he knows every bird and its call, he can spot them in spaces you’d never see, and he knows just where to look for just about every species out there. On our searches throughout the day, we also encountered some more dolphins, a monkey, and an iguana.

We left Buenos Aires after breakfast and headed even deeper, two hours upriver again. There, we set up camp, consisting of a rain tarp and a tent each for Zack and me underneath it. Tony and his dad, like last night, are sleeping in our boat, under their own mosquito nets. Quickly after setting up camp, we headed farther upstream in a small canoe we’d tugged behind us from Buenos Aires. The naval architect in me was seriously concerned about the canoe’s stability, seeing that we had only an inch of freeboard (boat above the water) in some places, and I could easily see a situation where we tipped too much, resulting in down flooding and a capsize. But, the adventurer in me was, first, trusting of Tony, and second, not scared of capsizing. What’s the worst that could happen? We end up a little wet and are swimming in piranha and snake infested waters? We were, after all, on our way to fish for piranhas! And, Tony said that he’s never capsized in this boat. We got to the source of the stream—the area where the stream is no longer a stream, and instead, is just a flooded forest. Here, we found a branch to hold on to, cut up some meat for baitr, and cast our lines. These fishing poles, mind you, are just sticks with lines attached to them. They’re not your fancy REI or Big Bass Pro Shops rods, what with reels, sinkers, bobs, etc. Just plain and simple. I quickly caught three sardines, and after a bit, Zack caught a salmon. We continued to go through the bait, and I ended up catching two more sardines. I got close to catching a salmon, but he wriggled his way off the hook after I’d already pulled him above the water. To catch piranhas, you need something more “alive” than just the meat and the long dead fish that we’d been using as bait. Piranhas are attracted to the scent of blood, after all. So, to solve this problem, we cut one of my sardines up and used it as bait. We were unsuccessful, even after using the entire sardine. We were all disappointed, as we’d hoped to enjoy some nice, fresh caught piranha for dinner.

Fishing trip!

After dinner, we did what is quite possibly one of the wildest things I’ve done in my life. Remember that canoe which I though was going to tip every time we paddled? Well we took it out in the pitch black of night (it was only about 7:00, though) during pouring rain and swarms of bugs for a nighttime ride. Now, the canoe itself wasn’t inherently unstable, nor would it sink by itself, but the water that had made its way into the canoe was making it sit really low. Of course, during the rainstorm, the amount of water in the canoe only grew, and we also started canoeing down river, so if anything happened, we’d have to fight the current to get back to our camp. Despite me inhaling several flies, we made it back alive, filled with adrenaline and soaking wet. From this point on, all my stuff smelled disgusting, and much of it was damp, unfortunately. Besides the adventure of eimply night canoeing during the rain, we did get the opportunity to see many bats, which I enjoyed illuminating with my headlamp.