Four of us squished into the back, three in the front, and the boot was loaded with fishing gear and coca cola. We drove for an hour and a half down roads for whom tarmac was a fantasy. Before this were a range of worn-out, bumpy roads, travel for a while down these and you will soon find the humble, yet fascinating city of Trinidad. I won’t dare go into all the differences between this city and Swindon - they are innumerable. Every street is full of motorbikes, dogs and has a dusty road. Often the three are combined in one sudden moment, the biker’s accelerating wheels kicking up dust into the sky while being frantically chased down by a barking dog - an amusing sight… unless its you, but that’s another story.
The city soon dissolves into countryside, houses turn to trees, people disappear leaving us a curious variety of birds and animals to watch, and the clouds roll back to reveal the blazing sun. The place isn’t dense jungle, but it is certainly exotic. Thinking about it, its a strange thought to think we are finally in the Amazon Basin, having pointed to maps, read books, listened to missionaries, we are actually here, driving down earth’s bumpiest road, crammed into a 4x4, the tires sending dust flying high and the speakers blaring out One Direction. There is wildlife everywhere to see, the track is lined with a variety of small lakes and muddy swamps, the lakes - full of alligators, the swamps - full of pigs. Scraggly cows munch on the sparse green grass, huge cranes tower over head, and there is even a mockingbird gently hovering over an assortment of flowers. This landscape is by all accounts humble, yet magnificent.
Bumped and bruised, we finally arrive at our destination, a mud-stained river, rushing away out of sight into the vast jungle. In these waters live creatures which are small but vicious, a missionary tells us of how they bite so cleanly that first, you see the blood, then feel the pain. So with warnings in mind, we take a deep breath, don our strongest Australian accents, and start searching for the ‘critters’. We pull pieces of meat onto barbed hooks, throw out our lines, and wait for bait to be snatched, uncertain of what exactly what will come out of the water.
We know one thing for sure, we are here to fish for a predator - the Piranha.
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The Beginnings of the Jungle
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The Mud-Stained River
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The First of the Catch
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Descaling the Critters, Tom Getting his Hands Dirty
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