Catfish and Anaconda on the Rio Bobonaza in Ecuador

This is the picture I took of Ingaro Gualinga, who was one of our guides from the rainforest community of Sarayaku, on the river trip I took in Ecuador last October. We had stopped on a sandbank to camp for the night, when a local fisherman approached to show us the two enormous catfish he had caught on that stretch of the river.

The man told us the story of how he had been fishing from that very sandbank, when he had been attacked by an Anaconda, the large boas that live on the water’s edge and coil themselves round their prey and crush them to death. Luckily, his wife heard the barking of his dogs and came to rescue him by shooting the snake in the head.

The Anaconda are the creatures most feared by the local people who live by these Amazon tributaries, and later we were pointed out a muddy bank below a military post, where a soldier had been killed by one. Even so they are very rare and our guide Ingaro admitted that he had only seen one a few times in his lifetime.

As we girls walked round the curve of the sandbank to find a more private place to wash, the boatmen frantically called us back. We must stay beside the camp to wash, they advised us, and suddenly we knew the reason why.

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You can see my photos from the river trip in Ecuador on Flickr here.

This article is originally published at Heatheronhertravels.com

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