My Amazon Trip Days 1-3

11/16/10
(typed and written by Christopher)
First, we went to breakfast. Then, we watched soccer, did homework, and played Phase Ten until 2:45 p.m. At 2:45 p.m., we were picked up to go to the airport. We were in Lima, Peru, and we are traveling to Iquitos, Peru. When we arrived in Iquitos, we were picked up by the Aqua crew. The Aqua, is the boat we are on when we are on the Amazon River. We had a drive of about one and a half hours to the boat. We got on the boat and ate dinner. I had soup, ceviche, beef, cake, and lava cake. Last, we headed to our room and slept.
11/17/10
(written by Christopher, typed by Mom)
Today was our first day trekking the Amazon. If I wrote about the whole day, it would fill up the whole book, so I'll tell yuou about my favorite parts. At night we went down a small black water with caimans (crocodiles). The species of caimen we saw is called the speckled caiman. These caimans are reptiles and nocturnal. While we were searching for caimans we found one about 1 1/2 feet long. Our guide reached his hand into the water and pulled it out. I had a few surprises. One, it didn't fight to get out of his hands. Two, it didn't move. Three, the caiman was very very smooth, even though it had scales. One of the other animals we saw during the day was squirrel monkeys. While we were in our skiff (small boat), my dad spotted the monkeys. They were jumping from tree to tree. I saw about 28 monkeys jump from tree to tree. Our guide said tomorrow we might see some red howler monkeys. You can hear their screech from three miles away! They are the loudest land animal in the world.
(video of mokeys that you can see on the website)

11/18/10
(written by Christopher, typed by Mom)
My favorite part of the day was fishing. You won't believe what we were fishing for. Piranhas! That's right, piranhas. There were six people fishing in our boat. We caught three species of piranha, two species of Oscar fish, a zebra fish, a stinger catfish. I was the first person to put my bait in. Twenty seconds later I felt a nibble. I jerked my pole up, and there was the piranha. I caught five piranhas altogether. The second piranha I caught, the fish grabbed the bait, I tugged, the hook went through the piranha's eye, and its eye fell out of its socket. My dad wasn't as successful as me. He caught three but two of them fell off the hook before the fish got to the boat. On our boat there was a woman named Linda. She must have caught about ten fish. She caught both Oscar fish, the zebra fish, and very big piranhas. After fishing, we found a fishing hawk. We threw the piranha in the water. A minute later, the fish was grabbed by the hawk. Thirty seconds later, a hawk attempted to get a different fish. It missed. A caracara grabbed the fish. The hawk and the caracara, who has the piranha, fought for the piranha. The tour guides were laughing because they have never seen anything like it before.

(video of Christopher catching a fish)

11/19/10
(written by Christopher, typed by Mom)
Today, we finally got to get off a boat. We had a hike through the Amazon Rainforest. At the end of our walk we saw some giant lily pads. I really wanted to nap on one. After that, we went to a school house in one of the villages. Everyone donated school supplies to the children. I got to pass out colored pencils to them. There, the people make pieces of art to make money. I got a wooden piranha with real piranha teeth. I thought it was really cool to see children born and live in the Amazon Rainforest.