Jon Kaase reports on what he considered “the wildest night yet”:
I found our rafting experience quite wild and very fun, but as my childhood dream had always been to see the wildlife of the Amazon I was still longing for more. It was during our two days camping I had the “wildest” experience so far, and probably will be when this trip is over. The night began, for me at least, when Felipe (our guide) told us there would be caimans in the water a couple of meters from our tents during the night. Furthermore, they are easily located by shining light in their direction as their eyes will light up. I spent the night shining my flashlight around looking for glowing eyes. After some time I could see one orange/red light that I strongly believed could be exactly what I was looking for: a caiman! I ran and got a confirmation from Felipe that, yes, the color of their eyes would be orange/red. After showing Felipe where “my finding” was, he organized a boat trip to get a closer look. We got close — the caiman was probably around two meters. As we got approached it turned towards us in interest and shot toward the boat, only to disappear into the water, leaving us all with wonder.
The boat trip continued while we our guide looked for a right-sized caiman we could catch and hold. It took half an hour, but after some “hunting” Felipe grabbed down into the water and triumphantly brought up a young half-meter-long caiman in his hands. He gave it to Jerrell to hold and it went down the boat to any who wanted to hold it. The caiman had frozen with its mouth open and did not make any noise or movement until it was my turn to hold it. When I moved my hand towards it to grab its neck, in a split second it turned and aimed its open mouth for my thumb. I barely got away. After that I was struck with excitement and fear and realized the caiman had had enough. A little disappointed, I didn’t get a chance to hold it. We let it go. It was wild.
