Yesterday, after the two Yura took their canoe and went down river, Jose and I drifted down the Mishagua with the motor turned off, trying to conserve gas. We came to a stretch that had stone sides and round pools where the water hit a side, and then swirled around, the water the color of milk-green in these spots. Quite beautiful. Jose got a heavy piece of fish line, which he wrapped around his the palm of his left hand, put a big chunk of meat on a hook, swung the hook around and around in the air, and let it sail. The hook pulled the line from his hand and landed "plop" in the river. Sure enough, after a few tries (with myself in the rear of the boat with a paddle, keeping the boat straight), something took the bait and within a few minutes Jose had three or four, five-pound pacos (a vegetarian relative of the piranha that takes meat bait, as well as fruit) flapping in the boat. Wanting to try one more, Jose prepared another chunk of bait while I steered the boat to an upcoming pool. Swinging the bait around in the air, Jose let it fly and again and it went "plop!" and landed perfectly in the middle of the pool. Then, suddenly, all hell broke loose. Something gigantic hit the bait, then gave a great yank on the line, and the next thing I knew, Jose was over the side of the boat, and something was smashing the surface of the water with loud crashes, and the river -- which had been so quiet only minutes before -- suddenly turned into a cauldron of thrashing water.

Jose finally shouted, "Wacawa!" and then got pulled underwater again, then emerged and struggled to pull the wacawa towards him. A wacawa is a giant Amazonian catfish that can reach four or five feet in length and weigh well over 100 pounds, and Jose had one pulling him below the water. I was paddling furiously to keep the boat would alongside all of this mess.

Finally, Jose somehow pulled himself back into the boat, his hand blue with the circulation cut off. But he refused to cut the line or let the fish go. Instead, he shouted for me to grab the machete and attack the fish. He finally brought it alongside, heaving on the line with all his might, and shouted for me to whack this monster with the sharp edge of the machete. This I did, only to discover that the wacawa has a huge bony plate that protects its head. The machete bounced off, so Jose shouted to hit it further behind the head, and afterwhat seemed like half an hour, we were finally able to subdue the great beast, and hauled it onto the beach.

The fish was gigantic -- around five feet long -- with a huge, bony head, big whiskers, and rather white-green in color. You could see where I had whacked it behind the head, eventually stunning it.

Tomorrow, we decided, we will stay here and salt the meat, there is so much of it.