The Hunt

Today we hunt. So it's a little dead eye target practice first thing with the ol' bow'n'arrow. After brekkie we watch one the lads hack apart a living tortoise. It only dies once they've cracked it open, ripped the legs off and pulled out the spinal column. Nice!

Into the canoes we paddle upstream, past some giant otters, land and begin stalking prey. This loosely involved stealthy following Harry (local lad, 52 today) through the undergrowth. He shot a bush turkey before anyone knew it was even there! It flew off with his arrow embedded in it's side, and so the chase began - those arrows are valuable you know! After our confirmed kill (when we found the turkey) we all lay low to ambush some Trumpet birds. Amazingly, as the local lads called out to them, they answered back and started walking straight toward us and our trap! A foray of arrows rang out as they approached but we all missed, so we decide to poison some fish instead.

On our way we saw Jaguar scratch marks on a tree - Bejesus, they were some 2½ metres up a tree with a 3" spacing between the claw marks! He's a big, agile, lethal cat!

To poison fish we rip up the roots of a poison vine, mash it up with a make shift hammer and dunk it in the stream to release it's milky poison. It drains the water of oxygen meaning all the fish swim to the surface - while we lie in wait with bow and arrows! We cook them up on a make shift barbie, head home, take another dip in the piranha infested river and eat tortoise stew!

It was so hot and humid today that my shirt was completely drenched through and dripped with sweat, and effectively all I was doing was just walking about!

Posted by Steve Eynon