Nate Buchanan explores the Amazon with guide Hosias, paddling into flooded forest to hike Fossil Creek. They eat grilled armored catfish, drink traditional yucca beer made by chewing and fermenting yuca, spot poison dart frogs, and find fossilized turtle shells.
This is an armored centipede that I've been promised is not poisonous.
That feels so weird. Oh, there it goes.
Our first night sleeping in the Amazon was a success. All the animals and bugs were so loud, it sounded like a noisemaker. It was so, so awesome. Today is our first day of adventures. Every group at the OT Odoranga, every group at the Odoronga Lodge has their own guide. And so today it's just us and our guide and we are going to a reserve called Fossil Creek.
Hi, welcome.
Let's adventure begin.
We just turned off the Amazon river and we are now in the flooded forest. This forest is dry during the dry season and we're about to drive a boat who knows how far back into it.
So crazy. Ocius has been standing up and whacking off branches with a machete.
He's doing it right now. Yep.
Dodged it so that they don't hit us. It just shows how, like, not touristy this is. Like we're on a boat with locals exploring the Amazon.
We're not going to a national park with like hiking trails. We are like going into the middle of the Amazon.
He's like casually talking about all this crazy wildlife we're going to see. We brought spears, we brought lunch and dinner. It's going to be a long, awesome day.
So crazy. I love it so much.
Oh, it is super hard. Looks like the local fisherman caught him some armored catfish. These are such Amazon y looking fish. They're super hard on the back. That is nuts.
Yep.
Wet landing. Water just ended and now we're getting out and going to land.
Good thing they gave us these boots.
So this is the reserve that the Odoronga Lodge is developing. And so the people who are working on bridges and stuff live in this little house and it's where we're going to start our hike today.
You can just pick from here and pull this up.
They have grilled some of the catfish that we saw on the boat down there.
Oh, it smells nice.
That's great.
Yeah, super fresh.
Good job.
She is so cute. So is this one.
So the people that work here are in the process of making jungle beer. They've dug up these yuca roots and they are like peeling the yuca roots and they're putting them in this pot. They'll be boiled in the pot. They'll smash up the yuca and then the lady that was just here will chew it up and spit it back in the pot because apparently that helps the fermentation process and that's how they make the jungle beer. Also this man's 5 year old daughter is much better with a knife than I am. I'm a little embarrassed right now.
This is so amazing.
And these people here, so they get used to the human system. It's been used to this area to the water. So sometimes that either boils the water. We have some creeks that is kind of clean. So they go collect the water from that and just directly add water.
Wow.
And I used to drink this one since I was born, so I have no problem. So I can drink, I can drink water from, from the creek as well.
Wow.
And then.
So it doesn't bother you?
Doesn't bother me. He's just gonna put it in the water in the.
Jungle. Milk.
Gracias. This is yucca beer that has been dug out of the ground, chopped up, boiled in a pot, chewed up in the mom's mouth and then cooked some more and then mushed up with some water. Salud.
Ooh. That's weird.
It's really weird.
I feel like you're overreacting if you don't think about it. It's really nice.
Now that we've tried armored catfish and jungle beer, it's time to start our walk.
This area is very thick and muddy. And then so we made this to help the tourists to walk nice and. Oh, look at the butterfly. The blue mussel butterfly.
So where did you learn how to build with that?
Well, like I said, growing up in this type of area, in the villages, the main thing you have to learn is how to make your own house to survive in. Otherwise you can survive yourself. You gotta first learn how to make your house, make your canoe, you paddle, how to use machete axe. That's the first thing to learn to survive in the jungle.
All the plants here are so crazy. Everything has like spikes on it. Like it's out to get you. Go out.
Whoa.
Never.
This is awesome. Hosias has spotted a frog that he has never seen before. And he was born here. So this is a really big deal. It is so camouflaged. It's like flat on its back.
I probably seen, but not that camouflage.
Whoa.
It seriously, I never would have seen that.
It's a poison dart frog or just a poisonous frog.
It's just poison dart frog.
Do they get bigger?
No, that's a full size. Our guide, Hosias, is spotting all of these crazy tiny poisonous frogs. Apparently he used to work with scientists who studied these frogs. So he's really good at identifying them just by their, their call or their chirp. He can tell what species it is I would have never seen him. I'd been like, oh, I'm surprised the Amazon jungle doesn't have more animals in it.
Look how big this tree.
We just got to Fossil Creek and we've already found two fossilized turtle shells. When I say we, I mean hoseas. I don't know if I'll be finding any on my own. I'm gonna try.
This is the craziest looking rock I've ever seen. It looks like a turtle shell on both sides.
I'm hoping there's no anacondas in this creek.
So this is cut clothes. This is the most beautiful water that you could find in. In the. In the jungle. You know if you will run out of water. We just look for this vine and this is a good side. There is another branch that I wouldn't cut the vine if it's like only single vi.
The most clean.
It's really good.
Yeah.
It has like a little bit of a taste. Like almost like a really weak tea.
Yeah.
It's delicious.
It is. It's beautiful water.
So we're walking along this ledge and I brushed up against this very normal looking green leaf and it felt like my arm was stinging and now it's all poofy wherever it touched me. So all here. Here. I think I'm gonna be okay. But it is my first Amazon battle scar. Which is pretty.
It.
Sat taking pictures.
I bet you can't guess what this tree's nickname is.
This is. Quit doing that. Quit. Quit. It's looking like it wants to bite me.
I don't think so.
Yeah, you need to hold it. You need to hold it. No, hold it.
There's too many ways.
Hold it. Sl it crawling.
I'm scared. Do I need to flip it over?
Yeah, you gotta let it.
I don't want to.
Yeah, it's gotta crawl and you gotta feel it.
It's like he quit living.
Oh gosh.
That's the weirdest feeling.
I'm so proud of you. I'm so proud of you.
Thank you.
Cut.
