I Was Attacked by a Caiman — And Survived!

… well, long story. We went on a jungle tour to Chalalán ecolodge in Parque Nacional Madidi in the Bolivian Amazon. This is an area that boasts one of the world’s highest levels of biodiversity and is pristine rainforest. Maybe more importantly, since Conservation International helped the local community set up the excellent Chalalán lodge, it is fervently protected by the local indígenas. They are also excellent guides to this very special place and the professionalism with which they run the lodge (which is now exclusively in the hands of the community) is amazing.

Now, with that excellent guide of ours, we set out to look for caimans — specifically the endangered Black Caiman — at night, on the nearby lake. Since the caimans’ eyes reflect light, this is quite easy: you grab a strong flashlight, get on the lake, shine it around and see where glowing eyes appear near the surface. However, you do not really see them — just their eyes — and considering that there are dozens of them, it is quite easy to miss one. We then got really close to the shore of the lake, looking for the caimans — and obviously hit one with the canoe. Immediately, it jumped away from its position, shaking the boat, waking me up from my bored half-sleep (I was thinking “Where the hell are the darn things??”), passing literally within centimeters and getting away from it all.

I mean, not that we were in any real danger (you can even swim in the lake — caimans prefer smaller animals to humans as food) but this is still a moment that isn’t easy to forget.

March 6, 2007 at 04:55
Filed under Bolivia

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