Brazil

In the morning we headed away from the Anavilhanas Archipelago towards the Santa Maria village. This is a “Caboclo village where we even had the opportunity observe the Ribeirinho way of living. The Ribeirinho people live by the river and make decks for their homes from the sticks sticking up from the river. Then these people build their houses on top of the decks. Next we got to go Piranha fishing which sounds unusual but was actually a really exciting experience. Because these fish are so aggressive they usually grab on to the bate pretty easily. The hard part is reeling them in because they put up such a fight. We did end up catching one fish but once we got it into the boat one of the guides took over because the fish were dangerous. After this we returned to the boat and went to the beach to relax and swim. At night, after eating dinner, we went on a canoe trip to go alligator spotting. It took a little while for us to spot one of the alligators but when we saw one it was a surreal experience. The alligators were so still and that they almost looked like a big log floating on top of the water. It was pretty dark out so the only thing you could really see was the alligator’s bright yellow eyes. We were getting a little tired then so we returned to the boat to rest. Tomorrow morning we have to get up early to go bird watching.