31 October 2008

Friday Photo - Catfish and Anaconda on the Rio Bobonaza in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in the Friday Photo at Delicious Baby to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it.

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.

Our guide Ingaro with catfish, Rio Bobonaza

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.


Read more of this article on my new travel blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting photo, and story. I'm very very glad I live in a place where there are no snakes.

Amy @ The Q Family said...

Wow. What a story! I'm glad he survived to tell his story. I can't imagine seeing Anaconda myself. The movie did scare me. :)

-Amy @ The Q Family

Anonymous said...

That's some story! Thanks for sharing.
Huge catfish...so much larger than what I'm used to seeing here...which is usually on my plate, pan-fried with a little cornmeal coating :p

Anonymous said...

Ooh, what a whopper! Really neat fish too.

Your gorgeous post is up over at Galavanting's "A View From A Broad" blog by the way!

http://blog.gogalavanting.com/2008/10/31/family-fun-valencia-spain/

Anonymous said...

Creepy. I was raised with the belief that catfish eat garbage and don't eat them. Very handsome man holding the fish.

Anonymous said...

A great reminder that maybe my worries aren't such a big deal...

Thanks so much for sharing.

Nomadic Matt said...

for some reason i can't eat catfish. I find the thought of them repulsive, despite the fact I eat pretty much anything else that comes from the sea....