How cool is that? To catch these teeth bearing fish straight from the Amazon. Well, I was fortunate enough to do this in the Peruvian Amazon after a trip to Iquitos, Peru.
I'll post more on the other aspects of the trip later regarding the trip and stay in Iquitos. I'll also post regarding securing a boat ride into the Amazon and subsequent stay with an Amazon river tribe. This post I will focus on the fishing expedition me and the some villagers did in the Amazon river.
I'll start by answering the obvious question. Yes these little buggers do have teeth:
This was not something I was expecting on this trip but when approached with the opportunity, of course, I was all over it! Two of the fishermen from the tribal village took me with them on their boat. I only knew we were going fishing, however, I was unaware for what we were fishing. But it didn't take long to find out.
Tha Amazon river is the lifeblood of the tribal villages. It is a major water source for them even though they live in a rainforest. They also get a significant portion of their food from the river along with the farming they do on their lands and hunting in the jungle.
Locals with their fishing boat.
The peaceful Amazon.
I was lucky to be on a covered boat to protect from the sun. Most of the boats in the village was open top. I think they knew a fragile white skinned American couldn't take the heat.
There it is! I caught one.
I handed my camera phone over to one of tribal fishermen to take pictures during the trip. He was happy to oblige as they always were. The tribe people were very friendly and seemed genuinely happy to have me with them. The same thing I later found visiting a tribe in Zimbabwe.
Yeah baby! I'm an Amazonian fisherman now!
The pirhana is not a big a fish. Maybe 6-7 inches long? From all the fictional movies I saw as a kid of actors being consumed by schools of these fish I had a mental picture of them being much larger.
The fishing experience lasted about an hour and a half or a little more. I think they just wanted to provide me with a unique experience which I appreciated. Most of the time it was time in the boat with maybe only 30 minutes of fishing.
The fishing was easy. I assume these fish are abundant in the river. There was little wait between each catch.
Here is the haul.
So, what do you do with Piranha fish? Well, you eat them before they eat you! That's what we did. We brought them back to the village and they fried them up for me. How cool!
And yes I did eat them.
The obvious question now is what did they taste like? Well, since they were fried they tasted like any other fried fish with the lard they used to cook it in dominating the taste. But I could tell it was a nice white flaky type fish that I assume would taste good even baked.
I really enjoyed this experience and appreciated the impromptu invitation to take me out there. Especially since they obvious did this for only my benefit.
Another lifetime experience under my belt. Now, what's next?
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