After the close call on the river, I was relieved the only thing lost was my sunglasses. I don’t have a death wish; I just want to feel alive and not trapped by a fear of what might happen.
It was sunny and warm, which made getting into the river enjoyable. My clothes were soaked after our unplanned swim. We grabbed both ends of the kayak and emptied the brown water back into the Capahuari River.
After a few minor adjustments, we sat back down and continued our journey.
“What does the word Capahuari mean?” I asked Juan Carlos Garci, my adventure companion in the front of the kayak.
Garcia replied. “I believe it is a type of fish similar to a piranha, or it’s the Achuar word for piranha.”
So the water we paddled over is filled with piranhas. I imagined they didn’t have much appetite for Nebraskan because they certainly had their chance to sample when I was in the water.
The other fact is they don’t like fast-moving water. So as I struggled in the current, they probably just waited to see what would happen.
It’s not the first time I had jumped into piranha-infested waters. That honor belongs to my first journey down the Amazon River in 2012 while in Peru.
I had spent a morning catching piranhas to be eaten later that day at camp. Once we were done fishing, I jumped into the water to demonstrate how you don’t need to be afraid. I wanted to show how conditioned we are from movies and hype to fear piranhas.
I had no cuts on my body and no traces of blood to trigger a feeding frenzy. After floating around for a few minutes near the boat, I climbed back in with not even one bite.
It was a simple, yet efficient way to validate my belief that we do not let fear stop us.
Even though the Capahuari River was swift, our progress felt slow with its maddening meandering.
Occasionally, I observed through the trees, the river just on the other side, heading the opposite direction. But we were committed, and there was nothing to do, except surrender to the river.
Darkness began to approach, so Garcia searched for a location to pitch our tents.
Eventually, we found a small stream that merged with the river that was just deep enough to paddle our kayak. We navigated upstream 20 yards and found a flat spot near the bank perfect for a campsite.
Our two Achuar guides quickly cleared the area with their machetes. Exhausted from the day, I promptly fell asleep after dinner.
In the middle of the night, a crashing sound in the water startled me out of my deep sleep.
“What was that?” I asked Garica.
“Not sure.” He answered.
“Well, I’m too tired to get out of the tent to look,” I replied and fell back asleep.
The next morning we noticed the muddy bank near our tents was filled with animal tracks.
“What kind of tracks are these?” I asked our Achuar companions.
‘These belong to tapirs.” Replied the Achuar.
A tapir is a large, herbivorous mammal, similar in shape to a pig, with a short nose trunk.
Apparently, we had set up our campsite in the middle of a tapir highway, and our tents caused a traffic jam and a great deal of commotion. It had me wish I had shined my flashlight to witness our visitors.
We packed up our campsite and prepared to continue our journey.
During the night, one of the Achuar had set up a couple of lines to catch fish. When he checked a line, he discovered he had caught a large catfish.
As he pulled up the fishing line, the catfish head came out of the water.
Attached to the fish head was nothing, the rest of the body was gone. Apparently, the piranhas had taken advantage of the setline before we had a chance for fresh fish.
“Better the catfish than me,” I said to myself.
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