So I took a 14 day trip through the amazon jungle of Suriname a former dutch colony.
On my last tour, a 4 day trip to Palemeu I had the opportunity to stay at a lodge next to an Wajana Indian village. A big chief of the tribe was visiting the lodge to see how tourisme affects indians life and they were making a film to show the indians of his village. So everything we did on the trip, the chief and his captains went happely along and we all got filmed. I got very interested in this chief and his captains as well, all were very friendly and openminded people, they showed me a lot on the hikes we took, jungle survival is easy, these guys do this for a living....
I told them about my bow and they showed me how they shoot their bows and tought me how to shoot these long stick bows with 1,5m arrows.....
Anyhow, the last day the chief and us we took a boatride to some waterfalls to catch some aniomaras, a tasty fish we had for lunch afterwards.
Our cameraman was an american by birth but spent most of his life in Suriname and he was a real sports fisherman.
We were in two boats and we had indian guides and boatsmen.
On a wide part of the river with less current a guide spotted something crossing the river and all eyes were on that little brown spec in the water....all of a sudden the guides started yelling "tiger, tiger" !!!
we turned the boats and there it was, a big jaguar crossing the stream, swimming along, his big yellow eyes just looking at us with this "I'm king of the jungle here" expression on his face.....
I took a dozen pics and Ted the cameraman filmed everything, he later told me in 24 years this was the second time he saw a Surinam tiger ( that's what the locals call a jaguar..... )
The rest of the boatride everybody was quiet and we all were smiling......
I saw a jaguar in the wild and I have the pics to prove it.......
a little story
