When I went to the jungle I
wanted to eat some larvae so I asked our guide Chumpi. He found
some for me when we went on a walk in the forest. The Achuar
people cut down palm trees and the beetles lay their eggs in the
rotting wood. Later, they harvest the beetle larvae and eat them.
They usually cook them, but some people eat them raw! We ate the
cooked ones... |

© Jeff Waugh
Delicious and crunchy larvae |
At night we went out to see
caiman. We saw three of them. One was a white dwarf caiman. I have
seen them only one other time in the Amazon. |

© Jeff Waugh
Black Caiman of Kapawi |
When we went on a night walk
we saw some cool lizards. We also saw a snake. It was black with
white stripes. We did not know if it was poisonous or not.
Everyone kept their distance just to be sure. We also saw a BIG
gecko on one of the signs. |

© Jeff Waugh
One of the night
lizards... |
We saw a leaf insect. It
looked like a leaf! There were stick insects - walking sticks and
jumping sticks and flying sticks. The flying sticks were
poisonous! I couldn't believe all the insects we saw at night! And
the sounds... |

© Jeff Waugh
and one of the many leaf insects |