Greetings TC Familia!
It's great to be back safe and sound from our trip to Peru. I've been looking at all the posts I need to catch-up on reading and am feeling slightly overwhelmed.
Thought I'd post a few photos from our vacation.
Tikibelle and I stayed at my Uncle's house on a lake in the Amazon, near Pucallpa, Peru. He's a missionary who runs a technical school in the jungle and also has a cattle farm, among other interests. I've been visiting and helping out every couple of years since I was a teenager. This year my cousin and her kids were there as well. It was also Tikibelle's, (my wife's) first trip to the Amazon.
Here's the local taxi service around my uncle's place.
Tikibelle's pet Capuchin Monkey, Stitch. We bought him for about $9 at the local market. He was unbelievably cute and full of personality. If we could have brought him legally to the States we would have. If we would have stayed longer in Peru, we would have had one of the local seamstresses sew him a fez. Being just a baby, Stitch immediately adopted Tikibelle as his momma and travelled everywhere on her shoulder.
Some kool kitsch architecture at the local zoo.
A Margay
Shaking hands with the giant otters.
The zoos in the jungle do not necessarily worry about the safety of their patrons. Here I've climbed into the crocodile enclosure and am playing with a 3-foot White Caiman. This was not discouraged. Imagine trying to do this in America.
Encouraged by my success, I pull a larger, 5-foot caiman from the tank by his tail. A few seconds after this photo was taken, he twisted free of my grip and laid my finger open to the bone with his teeth. Now I have a scar to rival the chisel-scars of some of you carvers.
Tikibelle with an old Shipibo Indian pot. This is closest thing to a tiki we could find.
Buying dinner at the local fish market.
A morning of my own fishing produces a medium-size piranha and a large peacock bass.
Tikibelle with a Wooley Monkey.
Sabu with a 3-toed Sloth found wandering across my uncle's property.
Having fun with my uncle's Brahman Cattle and sheep.
Sabu
