101 Media Travel Guides, Travel Tips

We are on an excursion, heading upriver deep into the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon. Suddenly, our skiff driver takes a hard turn to port and increases throttle as he guides the boat speedily toward the bank. He’s spotted something, and none of us can see what it could possibly be. The guides have eyes like a hawk. We have just barely reached the shore and the guides are already jumping off the bow and stepping into the water. They have grabbed onto something, and whatever it is clearly does not want to be pulled out of the river. How a skiff driver managed to spot it from over 20 yards away is a complete mystery! We now see a tail. Two guides and one driver are working to extract the creature. Now another guide and driver have joined them. Five men are struggling. Finally, they have hold of the animal; at least for now. It is putting up one hell of a fight. J-Lo starred in a horror movie about this creature… and it is less than 15 feet from us!