2/10/2010
Source: Mirror.co.uk
Piranha fishing in the steaming Amazon Basin is nowhere near as easy as you'd think.
I had assumed you bunged a bit of meat on a hook, lobbed it in the muddy brown waters and the voracious little chaps would practically catch themselves.
Not so. For a start, Eduardo, the owner of the Baltimore homestead in Peru's Madre di Dios region where I'm staying, uses fish - not meat - and while the toothy terrors may indeed queue up for their underwater nibble I drew a blank.
I felt bites by the dozen but I just couldn't snare one in the creek dappled by early morning sun and where the numerous fish jumped almost mockingly in front of me.
Of course, Eduardo soon shows me how it's done and quickly becomes proud possessor of a sizeable piranha. And a nasty little so-and-so it is too.
It has a vicious set of inward facing teeth and makes a rather unsettling hissing noise as Eduardo poses with it for my photo before putting it back to bite another day in the murky creek.
There are also catfish weighing up to 130lb in the water plus stingrays and electric eels that can deliver a 500-volt shock.
The Baltimore homestead was the first of three places where I stayed on the Tambopata River, itself a tributary of the Madre de Dios River, which runs into the mighty Amazon itself deep inside Brazil.
I began my journey to the Amazon Basin in Puerto Maldonado, a town with a real frontier feel and the place where the men who dredge for gold in the rivers blow their earnings.
It's also the base for Rainforest Expeditions, which runs guided tours up the Tambopata, using zippy longboats that are covered for protection from the fierce tropical sun and the even fiercer tropical rain.
The boat rides are all part of the adventure with rapids and shallows to navigate and the sight of amazing masses of twisted tree roots that look like weird alien structures.
Now it would be fair to say that the Baltimore represents an extremely basic introduction to life in the Amazon Basin.
But when you're five hours upriver from the nearest town it's hardly going to be the Ritz is it? However, there is a purpose behind homestead accommodation.
The Inter oceanic Highway linking Peru to Brazil is due to open next year and it's feared rampant development will follow in this environmentallysensitive area.
So a buffer zone between the highway and a national park in Madre de Dios is being created, with sustainable tourism in places such as Eduardo's a real cornerstone.
The idea is that if a viable economy is in place there's less likelihood of an inrush from loggers and gold dredgers.
Accommodation at Baltimore is shared in palm-thatched stilted huts and there's no electricity (hook up an electric eel? Just a thought) so light comes from candles, kerosene lamps and torches.
There's a shower and loo in a hut (cold water only) and a central eating area where you can meet for a chat, eat some simple but welcome food and grab a Peruvian beer or three.
Then it's an early night under the mosquito net with a couple of chapters of my book by candlelight (rather pleasant, to be honest) in readiness for an early boat to the next place I'm staying at, the Tambopata Research Centre.
This lies another four hours' boat ride upriver from Baltimore and is a decent hike from the river - a hike in pouring rain.
And when I say pouring, I do mean it. It may be the "dry" season in the rainforest but it's called a rainforest for a reason.
As the name suggests, research is carried out here, specifically into the jungle's magnificent native macaws, parrots and parakeets, which are under threat from logging.
Besides research, the centre also has accommodation for tourists.
It's mid-range for these parts. The rooms are again shared and open to the jungle on one side.
There's just a curtain instead of a door but there are decent bathrooms. Cold water only again though.