We left home at just after 4am on Friday morning, destination: Chapare. The Chapare is Cochabamba's jungle province and is notorious for things other than just being the source of the best fish and fruit available. We were headed to the family "farm" of a lady from church. Her husband works the place with his brother, raising bananas, yucca, cacao, noni, copoazu, lumber trees, and a few other varieties of exotic fruits/plants.
None of us were sure of what to expect when we got there. I think all of us were expecting to be "roughing it" more than we did. Some were relieved, some were disappointed. Turns out, we had a mostly-covered tile floor to set up tents on, a bathroom, and a kitchen.
Another disappointment was the fishing. The only fish biting on our stretch of the Rio Chapare were sardines and vagras (a small catfish). We chose to be thankful and enjoyed drowning some worms, and pulled in a few. I caught 10 the first night. The next night, we went swimming and scared most of the fish away, so I only caught one. My friend Hector pulled in this monster, though:
You'll notice that most of us were not using fishing poles, just line and a hook with a worm on it.
Because of the slowness of Saturday night, I decided to go by myself early (5:30) on Sunday. It's been a few years since I watched the sunrise over the peaceful noise of a river. It was nice, and I pulled in 7 more.
The hardest thing about the trip for me was our host. Although he was an enjoyable guy, he obviously viewed me as some city boy that was (in his words!) "dressed up for an African safari." Ironically, I was dressed as I do every day, other than the new fixed-blade knife I had purchased the day before. He spent the majority of the weekend treating me like a 10-year old kid that needed to learn how to live in the woods (ha!). He even baited my hook for me when we went down to the river. :P It was a good opportunity for me to intentionally set aside my pride and the security of my own experience and humbly accept his instruction.
The best thing about the trip for me was time with friends. I had a great time hanging out with the guys (I wish more had gone!). We fished together, swam together, played dice together, cooked together, and talked about God's Word together. I also had the first opportunity to really expound on something that I was thinking, biblically, in a group.
More photos of our adventures here: Jungle Fishing Adventure!
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