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Day
4 (August 28, 2025) Amazon
Before
On our second day, we will spend our time on the activities
proposed to us, which would include: sailing on the Amazon to
watch pink dolphins, piranha fishing, or a night walk in search of
tarantulas and frogs.
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After
Another early morning wake up. We are waiting to have breakfast at the time they open, 6:30 AM, and by 7:15 AM we are ready
to head out. It’s time to sail along the tributary we are on until we reach
the main river: the Amazon.
This
first hour is the best for spotting
wildlife and, in addition to all the cormorants that gathered last night by the
river and are now leaving, forming patterns in the sky, other animals begin to
appear among the trees such as monkeys, a sloth, ospreys, and
other birds.
Then we reach the main
river, the Amazon itself, much wider, where we come to see the popular
pink dolphins. At first they are shy and only show the tips of their
backs here and there until we begin to see them more clearly, showing
their fins and their heads. There is no way to guess where they will
surface, so the safest way to catch them is to leave a video recording
running in the area.
 
We take
a few more turns along the Amazon before sailing to the tributary that
takes us back to the lodge. There they tell us that the next activity
will be at 3:00 PM, and we kill time until lunch. After eating we have
time to rest in the hammocks. However, when from my terrace I see a
couple returning in a kayak, I go down to the dock to ask how it works.
They tell me it’s free, that I should just grab one and a paddle if I
want. I do so and enjoy a free and magical time.
At 3:00 PM we are
ready for the next activity: piranha fishing, but first we make a stop
to see the largest aquatic plant in the world: Regina Victoria. They
are like floating trays, and the ones here are small, since they can
grow to several meters in diameter.
It
turns out that this place is also where we are going to do the fishing.
They give each of us a stick with line and hook. You just have to put a
small piece of chicken as bait and throw it into the water, and
immediately they start pulling out piranhas, with a striking orange
color on their bellies. The guide shows us their serrated teeth before
returning them to the river.
When
everyone has caught several, I still haven’t gotten my first one. They
eat my bait without biting the hook. The trick turns out to be that
near the surface there are small fish that can nibble away at the bait,
but if you lower the bait deeper, that’s where the piranhas are. When I
finally catch one, the second comes right away.
Little by little we all stop, and we finish for good when a woman in
the group pulls out a piranha four times larger than the ones the rest
of us have caught.
 
We kill some time since the next activity has a specific time and
place: watching the sunset. We stop at a spot where the west is open
and free of vegetation, and we can see how the landscape changes as the
bright orange ball gradually disappears behind the horizon.
Back at the lodge we have the same schedule as yesterday: dinner at
7:00 p.m. and heading out for a night walk at 7:40 p.m. The walk is a
hike through the jungle around the lodge in search of frogs and
tarantulas. For this we wear headlamps.
The first thing
we see is a large frog that doesn’t flinch despite the lights shining
on it and how close we get. Then the spiders begin to appear in the
trees: first two tarantulas and finally a whip scorpion.
At the end of the walk we clean our boots at some taps set up for that purpose and turn in for the night until tomorrow.
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