Spiders, piranhas and bees, oh my!

Our first forest walk was good fun.  We stomped around the jungle in our gumboots and Jairo showed us lots of things we could eat, use as medicine and smoke.  Then we had to walk through a swamp where the mud was thick and the water higher than our gumboots in places.  I hate to admit it, but I was acting like a bit of a girl about falling in, but in my defense you all know I'm all up for getting a little wet and dirty. I was just concerned about my shocking sense of balance and my camera.

So just as we were getting towards the end of our trek something flew into my ear!  I absolutely flipped out and began turning in circles like a dog chasing it's tail trying to get it out.  I didn't realise I was in a swarm of small bees and they all started getting stuck in my hair!  So I was trying to shake them out of my hair when something started biting my legs.  I was now standing in a bloody ants nest!  So there I was standing in the forest with ants in my pants and slapping at my legs while two guys picked bees from my hair like a couple of monkeys picking for lice. 

At least the afternoon was a little more successful. We went piranha fishing and I caught the biggest one!  He had parasites though so we couldn't eat him and had to throw him back.  Piranha fishing was fun.  We had 1 1/2 metre long poles with about a metre and half of line attached.  We put some meat on the hooks and threw the line in, then we slapped at the water with our rods to make noise to attract the fish.  Within seconds we were getting bites, however it took a little longer before we actually got one in the boat.  Once we did Jairo showed us how you can use a piranha like a pair of hedge clippers which was pretty cool.

< doh, awesome piranha video should be here >

After the fishing we did a night hike to look for tarantulas and bugs.  There were some cool orb weavers out making webs, we threw a bug to one and watched him kill and wrap it up.  Jairo found a big skinny legged spider the size of your hand and one of the girls let him put it on her head!  It ran all over her face and she just stood there calmly while I was trying not to freak out!  We also a cicada the length of your hand and we found way too many huge tarantulas which the sight of made me want to vomit.