Yummy?!?!?!

Normally I am somewhat of a picky eater.  I admit it.  I don't know what happened to me on the trip to the Napo River but I just had the urge to try things....

Like lemon ants!

Yes they do taste like lemon.  These ants actually secrete an acid which kills trees and plants where they don't want to make a nest.  That same acid gives them a lemony taste.

I quite enjoyed the meal we had in the little village.

 

The white stuff is catfish with heart of palm.  It was actually one of my favorite foods on the river cruise!  Our guide said that he knew that Americans don't eat catfish.  I told him that 'Southern' Americans do!  The yellow is a cooked plantain which was just ok.  The small light food near the bottom is white cocoa and it tasted great.  Near the top is a grub.  Yep, a grub.  A roasted grub!

 And I did eat one....and it tasted like bacon.  Really truly!

My temporary craziness did not extend to eating a raw, crawling grub.  First you bite off its head.  Now that was too much even for my temporary food insanity!  Our guide, Juan, grew up in the jungle and loved them.  Actually two of the men on our tour also ate the raw, living grub!  I had to draw a line somewhere!

Creatures of the Napo River

We saw so many interesting critters on this trip!  Here is just a sampling....

Big ants.....

Leaf Cutter ants....those leaves in the photo are being carried by ants.  I resisted the urge to sing, "An ant can't move a rubber tree plant but he's got high hopes."  They move rapidly and for miles and miles. Amazing to see!  It is a parade in the jungle!

 Monkeys....

Sloth....in the interest of full disclosure, this photo was taken by our guide with his 600X super zoom camera.  We did see sloths but they were just dark spots high up in the trees.  Sloths stay in the same tree for up to a week.  They come down once a week to defecate.  If they did that up in the tree the smell would give their location away to their #1 predator a harpy eagle.

 Toucan

Several different types of parrots at a clay lick.  There are many clay licks along the river and scientist don't know why the birds come to this particular one day after day and avoid the others.  It seems to be a social thing. 

Fun to watch them!

Rainbow boa.  We saw him on our night hike!

 

Bats...lots of little bats!  Icky!

 Pink dolphins of the Amazon.  Yes that gray looking thing is a pink dolphin.  They don't jump out of the water like ocean dolphins so their photos aren't too exciting....but seeing them is rare and we saw them twice!

 

Stinky Turkey Bird - His name comes from the foul odor caused by the fermentation of food in his digestive system.  We never got close enough to smell him but he is beautiful!  Looks a bit like a pheasant.

 Can you find the bird in this photo?  He's pretty well camouflaged.

Ringed Kingfisher

Since our river boat was called the Anaconda it was only appropriate that we got to see a real anaconda!

This one was just a little 9 footer....they can grow to be 30 feet long.  I don't think we would have been holding on to one of that size!

Actually it made me kind of uncomfortable watching him coil around this boy's arm!

So fun to see all these interesting and unique things!