October 11, 2021 • 37 mins
Wanna hear what it's like to hold a piranha in your hand? Ever wonder what it's like to swim in piranha infested waters? Listen to Part 2 of Jason's podcast from his adventure down into the Ecuadorian Amazon!
In this episode Jason talks about visiting the beautiful area of Cuyabeno that has stunning waters, sunsets, wildlife and more. He visits old abandoned camps and does photo shoots in trees surrounded by water. We hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening!
In this episode Jason talks about visiting the beautiful area of Cuyabeno that has stunning waters, sunsets, wildlife and more. He visits old abandoned camps and does photo shoots in trees surrounded by water. We hope you enjoy it and thank you for listening!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:13):
Hey, what is up, my friends? This is episode twenty
seven of Jason Lanier I'm Filtered. This is part two
of My Trip to the Amazon. I walked to you
guys through some really crazy stuff with the part one,
and I didn't want to make these too long, so
I have split this into a two parter and I
hope you enjoy it. So get ready for this, my friends.
You're gonna have a lot of fun and I'm gonna
(00:34):
be sharing some really cool stuff in here. So grab
your popcorn, listen in your car, whatever you're doing, let's
have some fun and get into a Part two of
My Trip to the Amazon. Brian shows up three hours later.
It starts raining again and we drive to an area
called Igo Agrio. We get a hotel for the night.
(00:55):
Now ill now, when I say a hotel, this was
a like a step above a hostel. But after you've
been bathing in the woods and so on and so
forth for days, a step above a hostel feels like
the freaking JW. Marriott. It was incredible just to stay
in a bed. All of us have our own separate places,
(01:17):
and be able to be there and take a shower.
Just the shower was sent from Santa Marie. It was incredible,
and so getting there was really cool. Getting in there
and just being able to relax was really fun. Well,
that kicked off the second half of our trip. We're
(01:39):
going to an area called Kuljaveno, which is where we
met our new guide, two of them, Pablo and Victor.
Pablo is really is really the one who set everything up,
and so Victor is the one who took us everywhere. Well,
what was the first impression of Pablo was very funny
because he laughs like this, And the first thing the
(02:03):
shot says to him, she says, you laugh like a dolphin,
which made him laugh even more, and so he starts laughing.
And then we take off the following morning to Kuyaveno.
That's another two and a half two and a half
hour drive. So getting into Koyabana was definitely different than
Yasuni Yasuni's in the extremes of roughing it. Kuyaven it
(02:26):
was definitely not, you know, not what we're used to
traveling like. But it was a step above, that's for sure.
That is for sure. And so we got into the canoes.
We took another canoe ride, and I gotta be honest,
with you. I love the canoe rides. I absolutely love
being on the canoes in the Amazon. It's so much fun.
(02:47):
And so we got we got down into our camp
area and as you know, you get into the camp
area and this is definitely different again than Yasuna. You
get down there, they have some they have walking trails
that you can take which are walking in the middle
of the jungle, make no mistake about it, and they
tell you to be very careful when you do it.
(03:07):
But also in the camp area there's wooden boards that
you can walk around on and those serve two purposes. A,
you know, you can have a pretty flat surface and
B when it does rain, you're not just walking in
complete mud or walking through water. So that's really nice.
(03:28):
Each of us had our own cabana, cabanya, you know,
whatever you want to call it. Oh, I'll say this much.
Sleeping in the tent in Yasuni was honestly tough. I'm
not gonna lie. It was honestly tough. And again I've
camped a lot in my life, but it was a
mixture of being very hot and cold at the same time.
(03:48):
At least it was for me and so by the
and with the bugs and everything else. It was. It
was hard. And so by the time we got into
Kuyabno and you get into these cavanyas, these cavannas are
it's like a little log cabin. It's not yeah, that's
probably the best way to put It's like a little
(04:08):
log cabin. And it has a has a bed in there,
which was really nice. And then it had a huge
mosquito net over it, like a princess bed, which is
really really cool, and so you know, you could sleep
in there. And so I had these candles that were
meant to repel mosquitoes that we started using down in
(04:29):
the Shtypuno lodge, the you know, the the lodge where
we stayed where this the Wadani's Lodge, And there's these
candles that you burned that you know, puts off a
scent to really you know, you know, get rid and
expel the mosquitos and other you know, flying creatures that
want to eat your face. And so we were using
(04:51):
these candles and they were really working to help us,
you know, alleviate the mosquito problem. And so we got
down there, we set all this up, we went and
did a shoot in the jungle. Within shot, which was
really cool. Shoot us up like a jaguar. Really cool shoot.
We went and did that, and following the shoot, we
were excited because these Kabanyas also had showers well, so
(05:14):
you you know, and they're all private and so you
had your own bed, your own shower, which is really cool.
So this would be a great area to bring a group.
So Yasunes would be definitely for people who want more
of an extreme version, and uh, you know, Kuya Beena
would be for more people who want a less extreme
And there's there's pluses and minuses to both experiences and
(05:35):
that's just the truth. So we get in here and
as soon as we finished that shoot, everybody was in
desperate need. We had we had in this one day.
We had gone five hours up the river from Yasuni.
No excuse me, we had driven from Lago Agrio because
we had already loved Yasuni. We had driven two hours,
(05:58):
then taken another canoe right down into the camp. Then
we went and shot everybody's hot, human, dirty, everything else.
And so then everybody wanted a shower. So we get
into our respective rooms ready to take showers, so on
and so forth, and it was really funny because you
can talk to each other. Even though the cabanas are
like ten feet apart fifteen feet feet apart from one another.
(06:22):
You have privacy because all the drapes can be closed,
but there's no windows. There's no glass, i should say,
because they need airflow, and so you can hear one another.
So if you're playing music, you hear the other person's music.
There's just screens up keeps the bugs out, but you know,
(06:43):
you can hear everything that everybody else is doing. So
it was really funny because I've called out to Christian.
I'm like, yo, do you have water in your showers?
Like it's like a trickle, and so none of us
could really get much water out of the showers, and
so then you know you don't want to come across
is that American dude who who's like, hey, I can't
believe this. This doesn't have any water. And so I
(07:05):
go out and I try to take a shower just
like the rest of them, and it really didn't work
well at all. And so then we go out and
we start talking to Pablo and he's like, you know,
the shower doesn't have a lot of water, doesn't And
I said nobody. He goes, you guys should go swim
in the river, and I said, wait a minute, you
want me to swim in the river that has piranhas.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
We do it all the time. Now. This is funny
because down in Yasuni, the Wawadani also told us one
of the guys that I named Pincha ouk Davio ok
Davio is hilarious. His name is Waimo, Mimo and Wawdani.
But regardless, he would say, the Piranhas are your friends.
And I said, how can freaking piranhas be your friends?
He goes, well, they won't bite you if you swim
(07:46):
or bathe in areas where the boats go a lot,
because they're scared of the boats. But if you go
in areas where there are no boats, they'll they'll eat
you alive. But if you swim in areas where there
are a lot of boats and canoes going through, they're
more more timid. And I said, I'm not so sure
if I believe that, and he says, well, at least
they won't like attack attack you. They may nibble on you.
(08:07):
And I'm like, this is ridiculous anyway. So he's like
y'all should go swimming in the river and go bathe
what now, this is another thing for me. Now I've
been bathed bathing in the in the middle of the
freaking woods, butt naked, and I'm like, okay, I'm not
(08:27):
swimming butt naked with a group of people where there's piranhas.
I mean, guy's got to have some limits.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I don't know, you know, I don't want this thing
nibbling on me. You guys already tried to get me
to tie my thing up against my my stomach. Now
you want me to go, No, I'm not doing it.
I don't need to be using it as bait anyway.
Christians like, come on yet, dude, let's go let's go
swim in the in the river, and the shots like yeah,
let's go swim And I'm like, you guys want to
(08:55):
swim in the river for reals? Yeah? Yeah, what the hell?
Now I don't have a bathing suit, Okay, So I'm
just like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I just.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You talk about inhibitions, right, I just like, whatever, Now
now in front of other people, I'm not gonna get naked.
That's just that's not gonna happen. Okay, but I did
just get my nicest pair of underwear on. And I
laughed talking about it because if you've ever known me,
this is like so out out of my comfort zone.
(09:30):
But I'm like whatever, I'm in the Amazon. This is
this is ridiculous. And so we go so and I
we go down there, and I'm like, okay, let's go,
and they're like, all right, you get in first. Now.
This is what cracked him up. They're like they had
to kind of say, come on, Jason, just come down here.
And so I was like, right, fine, Christian's like, come on, Yet,
(09:50):
let's go. Let's go. Because Christians kind of, you know,
he's he's maybe fifteen ten fifteen years younger than I am,
but he's kind of like a little brother or even
like a son. I call him yet Tito. He's like
my little son. So he's like begging me like a
like a kid would do his dad. He's like, hey,
come or a little brother's like hey, come out and
swim with us. Come on, come on, we're going. You
got to come to And it's like fine. So I
(10:11):
go out there and they're standing there, They're like okay,
and they're just barely putting their toes in the water.
And then this is so symbolic of who I am.
I'm like, dude, if I'm doing this, i am doing it. Okay.
Once I make the decision that it's a go, it
is one hundred percent go with me. I'm not going
to pussy foot around on it. If I'm going in,
I go in. And so I go stand at the
edge of this of this, the boat, where the canoe,
(10:33):
where the canoe docks, and I just do a swan
dive straight up, a swan dive right into the river
where there's piranhas and everything else. I'm not kidding guys,
And I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I mean, come on, what else is going to happen?
If they say it? Say, if I got it, just
go with it. And I'm imagining, you know, these piranhas
are gonna eat me. Well. I start swimming, and I
back in my early days of my life, I swam
a lot, so I love swimming. Swimming is like second
nature to me. I was on swim teams, I did
a whole bunch of stuff. So swimming is. When I
was in boy scouts, I swam a mile. I mean
(11:10):
that's just I love swimming. So I start swimming, you know,
back and forth on the river, and they're like, yeah,
you're going too far, You're going too far. But it
was amazing. It was amazing. It's truly. It's like there's
so many moments on this trip that felt like they
were straight out of a movie and it was just
(11:30):
surreal to be sitting there. And I even recorded a
little bit of a video of us doing it out there,
of us swimming out there, and it was just it
was incredible. And for somebody who you know, I've struggled
with weight issues, I've struggled with those kind of issues
in my life. For me to just take these moments
on head on and go for it, it felt incredible,
(11:53):
it really did. And just to let go and I
don't I what I'm even more is I didn't let
go because of drinking or smoking some weird herb that
they were putting out at there, because I don't do
any of that. I let go because I found that
confidence in myself to let go. That was incredible. That
(12:13):
was truly incredible. What a moment. So swam with the Piranhas,
which was really cool. Had a few things nibble on us,
but but nothing, no, no injuries were occurred, which was great.
And then that night it was straight to bed. Everybody
was exhausted and we got some good sleep. Next day
(12:36):
we go out and go out on the canoes and
we're going through this one of the most beautiful places
I've ever seen on planet Earth, this absolutely gorgeous lagoon.
And if you if you go to my Instagram, guys,
you will see pictures of this lagoon that are just spectacular.
(12:58):
And in the shot earlier on in her I don't
know when it was, to be honest, but she went
there with her boyfriend and she said that when she
went there with her boyfriend that they that the whole
landscape was very different because when we went to Kleaveo,
(13:20):
the water level was much higher and so everything was
this crystal clear glass, just incredible. And she said, you know,
when I was here before, the water level was so
much lower that it didn't look anything like this, and
so it was just really it helped me to really
(13:41):
understand what an incredible time frame it was for us
to be there and for us to capture that. So
the really cool thing is we were there's these trees
because the water level does go down. There's these trees
that are in the middle of this lagoon. Is it's
really a surreal looking, almost unearthlike environment. And so I
picked a tree and we drove the canoe up to
(14:04):
this tree that's surrounded I mean surrounded surrounded by water,
and the shot goes to the front of the canoe,
gets out of the canoe, climbs up this tree, and
as soon as we put her in the tree and
I put the drone in the air, she starts getting
eaten the live by the bugs, just absolutely the live.
So we throw a bug repelling up to her. She
spraying herself down, spraying leaves that she put underneath her
(14:26):
just to keep the bugs off. And I have to
give her tons of tons of props because as she's
up there, you can see the bugs, you can see
the grimace on her face, and she just toffed it
out and did some amazing shots. We shot it with
flash Christians holding the flash. It's really I'm gonna be real,
it's really a very difficult area. I mean, you talk
(14:48):
about me increasing the difficulty level on doing a shoot.
You know, most photographers are just you know, putting a
girl up and shooting them and putting a fake background
on all this jazz. And here I am taking a
canoe out into in the middle of water where there's
piranhas and bugs and anacondas and everything else, putting her
up in trees. But that's what I love. I love
(15:10):
living for these moments where you create something that is
truly authentic and nobody else has ever done to me.
That's the making of legendary work. So Christian is standing
at the at the front of this canoe holding the
strobe with his arms above his head, and then we
(15:33):
with we would get Victor, our guide in Kuyabeno. He
would get paddles with the canoe instead of using the
engine and just paddle us to angle the canoe, so
Christian would be out of my shot and he'd almost
be at that forty five to ninety degree angle away
from the model strobing the light, and I would be
able to take some incredible shots. That was super super cool,
(15:57):
really really enjoyed that experience, and again and the shot
did an incredible job. Later that night, and there's a
video up on Instagram of this, we went and shot
one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever shot and
it was in the middle of this lagoon, and you
talk about these magical moments where you just are so
grateful for your life and so grateful for at least
(16:20):
I'm so grateful for my life and what I'm able
to do. And it's surreal, is the best way to
put it. Absolutely surreal to be in these moments and
to create work and to realize that what you're doing
is so special. At least it's special to you, and
that's really all it needs to be, is special to you.
(16:42):
And so just as incredible sunset, we're taking video, we're
taking pictures. Just I hope if you're listening to this
that you'll join me on a trip down there one day,
because this is one of the places on Earth that
I think a lot of people, at least photographers are
truly appreciate and love and just an incredible, incredible moment.
(17:05):
I shot that with the the again with the A nine,
with the Canon eleven to twenty four lens, and one
of my favorite sunset pictures ever, because it's very rare
that you're going to be actually standing in water to
that extent, you're not like standing on the edge, but
standing in water and getting a shot of the tree
(17:26):
with the sunset behind it, with the ripples of the
water and the lagoon, and it's just crystal clear. It's
just it was truly beautiful. So the next day we
get up, we travel by canoe again with Victor to
get to a forest where we're supposed to find anaconda's
and cayman, which is their version of a crocodile or alligator.
(17:49):
And we get in there and Victor apparently hadn't been
in this area of the Amazon for and this is
like a little island inside of the Amazon. This is
all inside the really dense area of the Amazon, and
he hadn't been there since COVID so and he's he's
on the older side, so he forgot where he was going.
(18:11):
So he would take off and go away from us
and be gone for like an hour. And I remember
having conversations with the shot and Christian and we were
laughing like, Okay, what are we gonna do, Like we're
truly like in the middle of the Amazon, and there's
we have no guide, but I'm not gonna lie. I
(18:35):
loved it. I loved it. We actually would take the
time where he was off doing that stuff and do
photo shoots or whatever else, which was really a lot
of fun. Well, when Victor did join us again, we're
walking on on a we're walking, you know, in the jungle,
and he stops and he gets his knife and he
bends over and he starts to pick at the the
(18:58):
the dirt, and he's and picks and picks, and he
finally uncovers like a hollow area of the dirt and
he sticks his hand down there and picks up an ant.
This ant is about one and a half to two
inches long. It's huge. It's the biggest ant I've ever
(19:20):
seen in my life. He looks at me and says,
are you hungry? And I kind of laughed. And then
he got the ant and he chucked it in his mouth,
freaking bear girls style, and I'm like, did you really
just eat that? And he says yeah, it tastes like
chocolate cocoa. And I say, are you serious? And he goes, yeah,
(19:40):
do you want one? Now? The problem that I have
is I have these these conflicting ideas where at one
point I want to do it, but at another point
I really like, am I really about to eat this?
But then the other side, I mean, it's like again,
those two little fodors, one on the left and one
on the right shoulder. And I'm like, but I how
do I? I say no, I can't say no. I mean
(20:03):
I'm gonna regret it if I don't do it. So
I get my phone ready to record this. I get
the ant, I huck it in my mouth and I
just crunch it and eat it and go for it. Well,
guess what, my phone runs out of memory about one
(20:23):
second into this, and I'm so involved with having an
ant in my mouth and I don't notice that it's
not recording. Everyone's laughing. It's this really cool moment. And
then I go to watch it on my phone and
I'm like, You've got to be kidding me. Are you
serious right now? So I told Victor I need another
(20:47):
ant so here because I have to have it on
camera because I have to show it. I have to
eat ant number two. So he finds me another ant
and I chuck it in my mouth and I don't
know how to describe it. It did taste like coco.
I have no idea why. It's ridiculous. It was gross, okay,
(21:07):
And there is nothing like picking ant legs out of
your teeth. Because this is a big freaking ant. I
talked Christian into eating one and the shot wouldn't have
any of it. She's like, I'm not doing it. So
that that was quite an experience, quite an experience. Well,
(21:27):
Victor goes wandering around. We finally get out of this amazon,
this particular island that we were on, and we get
out of there and get back to the canoe about
honestly three four hours later. It was only supposed to
be about an hour, but it's three four hours later.
Then they take us to an abandoned camp. This was awesome.
This was an abandoned camp that used to be like
(21:49):
the other camps like we're staying at, but this one
was old and abandoned and half of it was burned down,
and just everything me about it just an incredible place.
There's an old boat ramp that leads up to it.
There's old the main house where in the past somebody
(22:11):
would have stayed or they would have cooked up in there.
We get there, start doing this beautiful shoot of a shot,
and just a massive rainstorm comes in. So Victor and
the canoe driver, Miguel, they get food and everything else,
and then they start a fire underneath this lodge area
(22:32):
I lodge. It's like it's just guys. Imagine an old,
burned out shack. That's what it was. But at least
we could get out of the rain. And then they
fed us lunch and we're eating under a fire under
a massive rainstorm. Just I don't know, I might describe
some of the stuff, and some people may think I'm
not I'm not ever I would, I might have no
(22:53):
attraction in doing that, But for me, it's life and
it's I just absolutely love it. After the rain left,
we went to an area and fished for piranhas. Got
in the canoe and went into the river and they
got sticks as rudimentary as you can get. They got sticks,
(23:16):
put a line on it and threw it in and
got some meat and threw it into the river. Well
they would catch. They were catching piranhas. It was like incredible.
And then you're like, we're swimming in this stuff. Oh yeah, okay,
We're like, this is what we swim in. Yeah, oh
my gosh. So they're pulling piranhas out and then they
(23:37):
pull out this pretty big piranha and Victor looks at us.
Now Victor again is in his mid sixties maybe early seventies,
and he had this looked like a growth on his lip.
Of course, I'm not going to ask him what it is.
That'd be rude. He you know when I first met him,
But you do notice it. It's very noticeable. And then
(23:59):
he goes on to Blaine as we're catching these piranhas
that he got that three years ago from doing exactly
what we're doing and holding a piranha too close to
his face and the pranha bit his lip and almost
ripped his lips off, Like why did you put it
that close to your face? Anyway, So then Miguel, he's
(24:23):
he's in the back the boat, the canoe driver. He's
in the back catching pranhas. Victor's catching pranhas. They give
me a fishing pole. I'm catching piranhas. And then Miguel.
Then we catch a big one. Miguel's everybody's catching them.
We catch a big one. And then then Miguel comes
up and says, hey, do you want to hold the piranha?
And I say, how do you freaking hold a piranha? Literally,
(24:45):
you put your your fingers? He showed me. Christian and
Nashat wouldn't do it. But of course I have to
do it. You put your fingers under the gills and
you're literally holding the piranha underneath its what in essence
would be its neck, and your fingers are inside of it.
(25:05):
It was crazy. And this thing had some freaking teeth
on it. Dude. It is something else to look at
a piranha and to take a stick and pull its
lips up and you see these teeth and you're like, wow, yeah,
now I can see why. It just about ripped Victor's
lips off. And this is the stuff you guys have
(25:26):
us swimming with. But you know, I guess we're friends, right,
So that was really cool. We got some really cool
shots of that. I did not put it close enough
to my lips. I actually liked my lips not ripped
off by a piranha, so I like to keep my
lips the way that God made them, so at any rate,
we did that, which was really fun. And then that
(25:48):
night we went home. And when you go home, and
when I say home, I mean the camp. But that night,
every night that you go home, you have the flashlights
running and you're looking for wildlife. And so as we're
going back to the camp, you see these eyes, and
these eyes, like I said earlier, they're blood shot red
demon eyes and it's the Cayman. And when the Cayman
(26:11):
look at you, their eyes are blood red, and it's
really creepy when they're in the water, which they almost
always are, because then you get a reflection of their
eyes in the water. So you're looking at four red
eyes looking at you. And that's if there's only one Cayman.
So we went caman not hunting. We didn't hunt them,
but we went caman searching and found some really cool stuff.
(26:34):
Not really that's more of an adventure kind of a thing,
not really a photographic kind of a thing, because it's
too dark. Number one and number two they run away
fast if the smaller ones. If you get a bigger
one then they'll they'll stay. But we got some really
just really really cool moments. And it's just some of
these things are just so unbelievable. The next morning is
(26:59):
our second last morning. There we go and I'm doing
my steps in the morning. Now this is a funny
story because again I'm trying to get my steps in
because I hate doing my steps at night. I hate
owing steps and getting them in before the clock hits,
so I like to hate them done in the morning.
So I'm trying to get as many as I can
done in the morning on these wooden walkways at the campground.
(27:20):
And so we're I'm walking around. I have my headphones on,
and I I come walking down the pathway and I
see the shots cabin doors open. It's a cabanya, so
that's what you would call it a cabin. I see
the shots cabin doors open, and then she's standing on
(27:42):
the porch. Now, mind you, I have my headphones on,
so I can't really hear her at all, and she
has this panic look on her face. So I put
my headphones down. I look at her and I said
in Spanish. She said, what's wrong? And then I look inside.
Now I'm about one hundred feet away at least. I
look inside through the door and there's a fire. There's
(28:02):
a fire in her cabin. And then I turned to
the left. I hear, you know, like when you hear
somebody running on a wood plank like a pier or
a dock or something like that. I look to my
left and I see Christian has two ten cups, which
would do nothing with water, and he's running towards us. Well,
(28:22):
apparently in the shot had told him that there was
a fire. So I didn't know any of that. But
I look inside and I see the fire, and I
said in the shot, I don't fuego. Is there a fire? Yes, yes,
I use that mat you they may help me, help me,
And I'm like, oh my gosh. So I run over there. Well,
apparently the candle that was used to repel mosquitos and
(28:46):
everything else she had lit inside of the cabin, which
normally be fine because the base of these cabin of
these candles had a metal frame to it. Well, the
problem was she tried to put it out. It didn't work,
and apparently she put water. She dumped water on it,
and when she dumped water, fire spread to the outside
of the candle, to the outside of the metal frame,
onto the floor. Well, I run in there and I
(29:09):
look at this, and I'm like, this is a nightmare.
This whole place could blow up so good, bad or otherwise.
I grab I didn't even think about it. I grabbed
the metal container that held the candle. I picked it
up while it I mean, this thing was flat out burning,
(29:32):
and went and threw it on the cabin outside and
then I went inside and stamped out the fire with
my feet, and I'm really glad that I did that
instead of Christian running in with the water, because if
you'd put more water on, it's only going to spread
that candle wax. That was the problem. It was spreading
candle wax with fire. And so yeah, that was something
(29:54):
we laughed about quite a bit. Laughed after it was
over and everybody was safe, nobody was hurt, everything was
fin no damage done because the candle wax was burning.
But had that gotten much longer, that could have been
much worse. So don't do that, guys. If you are
if you need to extinguish a fire or something, then
do it with your breath or something. Don't do it
with water, at least if you're using something like candlewas
(30:20):
it's like trying to put out fire, you know, with
Just don't do it. So that that day we went
out we went looking for some other abandoned stuff. Victor
and the crew told us there was another abandoned stuff
because they know they came to learn that I really
liked that kind of stuff. But but where we went
it had been wiped out by the time we got there,
(30:41):
so then I said, let's just go back to the
lagoon and I want to get another sunset shot. It's
going to be awesome. But we were up there a
little bit earlier, is about two o'clock, and by that
point it was an absolute deluge of rain, absolute down pour.
And if there's one thing I've learned, guys, when you're
out doing these things, if you're paying for the canoe
and everything else, and if you're painting, if it's your
(31:01):
if it's your tour, then you take the leadership role
and you you go with that leadership role and you
do it. And so we went out and did We
went out and we're driving and I mean, it's pouring, pouring,
and Victor wants to go drive us in the middle
list of this lagoon and wait for three hours for sunset.
(31:25):
And I said, Victor, if we stay out here, we're
gonna drown. This's boat's going to take on too much water,
I mean, and plus it's going to be absolutely miserable. Well,
what else do you want.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Us to do?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, there's a lot of things we could do. We could,
you know, like I don't know, go to one of
these offshoot islands. We could go under trees, and I said, well,
here's the best idea. How far away is that abandoned
camp you took us to, you know yesterday, Oh, it's
about forty five minutes away. Let's go. Well we should say, nope,
let's go. I'm not standing out here for three hours
(31:55):
of rain. The sunset's still three and a half hours away.
So we go. We go back to that camp. And
that was that was crazy. We took all the stuff
out of the canoe because it was it was a
torrential downpour. And I mentioned earlier how it had how
this abandoned camp had these walkways. Well, these walkways are
really elevated because when the water levels higher, they need to,
(32:18):
you know, have these elevated walkways. So the you know,
the elevated water when it is more elevated, you know,
it still gives people access to you know, to the bridge,
or not the bridge, but to that dock area. Well,
luckily the water level was low enough to where we
could sit underneath it and get some respite from the rain. Well,
(32:40):
what I did was I took that tarp that they
that they would use to protect gear and Christian and
I hopped up onto the top of this broken down
dock and we put the tarp above us. Then we
built a fire underneath and we sat there and waded
out the storm. Luckily, I had a couple of cliff
bars in my bag. I gave the cliff bar one
(33:00):
to then the shot, and then Christian and I split
one and we took pictures, just fun pictures, just fun times.
It's it was just really cool. And even though it
was our last day and it was a bummer that
you know, that it got rained out, we still found
something really worthwhile and fun to do even in the
(33:22):
middle of all of that. And yes, it would have
been amazing to get another sunset at the lagoon, but
that wasn't in the cards, and so just an incredible experience.
We went back to the lodge, excuse me, the camp
and that was it. That was it, That was the trip.
We woke up the next day. That was a long
(33:44):
trip home. Then we had to take three hours canoe
right back, and then we had another eight hours drive
up to Keto from from down in Kuiaveno. But it
was an incredible experience and I really want to thank
Christian for helping set it up and for being such
an incredible friend. I want to thank the shot for
for coming on this trip and really being a real
trooper and not complaining and really working hard to make
(34:07):
all of this happen. And I'm very grateful to all
of them. I'm grateful to the tribe, and I'm grateful
to have these life experiences. And if there's one thing
that I really took away from the trip more than anything,
and yes, I have some incredible pictures and videos to
share with all of you, and yes I want to
take groups down there. If there's one thing that I
have to share, it's live. Just live. Let go of
(34:27):
those inhibitions that are holding you back and live. And
that would be the word of advice that I would
like to leave with all of you with this podcast.
So thank you guys. I really really love you and
I'm very grateful to all of you, So thank you
so much for listening. Make sure to go Jason Lineer
dot com slash register if you guys want to hit
(34:47):
me up at a workshop. I'm going to be going
to Texas in San Antonio in about ten days. That'll
be really fun. And then make sure to go to
Patreon dot com, slash Jason and our photography if you
would like to get any if you'd like to do
some online learning with me, editing, critiquing your images, all
of those types of things, and I would love to
(35:08):
have you join me there. So I love you, guys.
I'm super grateful to all of you, and thank you
for listening. Make sure to give this this podcast the
thumbs up and a rating and review and and thanks guys.
I love you so until next time, keep shooting, never
give up on your dreams, find get it works for you,
and remember they have one chance to get it right.
(35:29):
I'll talk to you guys later.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Byettttutetute una don ass by start a bossard by still
(37:12):
a bass I start a bos
Hey, what is up, my friends? This is episode twenty
seven of Jason Lanier I'm Filtered. This is part two
of My Trip to the Amazon. I walked to you
guys through some really crazy stuff with the part one,
and I didn't want to make these too long, so
I have split this into a two parter and I
hope you enjoy it. So get ready for this, my friends.
You're gonna have a lot of fun and I'm gonna
(00:34):
be sharing some really cool stuff in here. So grab
your popcorn, listen in your car, whatever you're doing, let's
have some fun and get into a Part two of
My Trip to the Amazon. Brian shows up three hours later.
It starts raining again and we drive to an area
called Igo Agrio. We get a hotel for the night.
(00:55):
Now ill now, when I say a hotel, this was
a like a step above a hostel. But after you've
been bathing in the woods and so on and so
forth for days, a step above a hostel feels like
the freaking JW. Marriott. It was incredible just to stay
in a bed. All of us have our own separate places,
(01:17):
and be able to be there and take a shower.
Just the shower was sent from Santa Marie. It was incredible,
and so getting there was really cool. Getting in there
and just being able to relax was really fun. Well,
that kicked off the second half of our trip. We're
(01:39):
going to an area called Kuljaveno, which is where we
met our new guide, two of them, Pablo and Victor.
Pablo is really is really the one who set everything up,
and so Victor is the one who took us everywhere. Well,
what was the first impression of Pablo was very funny
because he laughs like this, And the first thing the
(02:03):
shot says to him, she says, you laugh like a dolphin,
which made him laugh even more, and so he starts laughing.
And then we take off the following morning to Kuyaveno.
That's another two and a half two and a half
hour drive. So getting into Koyabana was definitely different than
Yasuni Yasuni's in the extremes of roughing it. Kuyaven it
(02:26):
was definitely not, you know, not what we're used to
traveling like. But it was a step above, that's for sure.
That is for sure. And so we got into the canoes.
We took another canoe ride, and I gotta be honest,
with you. I love the canoe rides. I absolutely love
being on the canoes in the Amazon. It's so much fun.
(02:47):
And so we got we got down into our camp
area and as you know, you get into the camp
area and this is definitely different again than Yasuna. You
get down there, they have some they have walking trails
that you can take which are walking in the middle
of the jungle, make no mistake about it, and they
tell you to be very careful when you do it.
(03:07):
But also in the camp area there's wooden boards that
you can walk around on and those serve two purposes. A,
you know, you can have a pretty flat surface and
B when it does rain, you're not just walking in
complete mud or walking through water. So that's really nice.
(03:28):
Each of us had our own cabana, cabanya, you know,
whatever you want to call it. Oh, I'll say this much.
Sleeping in the tent in Yasuni was honestly tough. I'm
not gonna lie. It was honestly tough. And again I've
camped a lot in my life, but it was a
mixture of being very hot and cold at the same time.
(03:48):
At least it was for me and so by the
and with the bugs and everything else. It was. It
was hard. And so by the time we got into
Kuyabno and you get into these cavanyas, these cavannas are
it's like a little log cabin. It's not yeah, that's
probably the best way to put It's like a little
(04:08):
log cabin. And it has a has a bed in there,
which was really nice. And then it had a huge
mosquito net over it, like a princess bed, which is
really really cool, and so you know, you could sleep
in there. And so I had these candles that were
meant to repel mosquitoes that we started using down in
(04:29):
the Shtypuno lodge, the you know, the the lodge where
we stayed where this the Wadani's Lodge, And there's these
candles that you burned that you know, puts off a
scent to really you know, you know, get rid and
expel the mosquitos and other you know, flying creatures that
want to eat your face. And so we were using
(04:51):
these candles and they were really working to help us,
you know, alleviate the mosquito problem. And so we got
down there, we set all this up, we went and
did a shoot in the jungle. Within shot, which was
really cool. Shoot us up like a jaguar. Really cool shoot.
We went and did that, and following the shoot, we
were excited because these Kabanyas also had showers well, so
(05:14):
you you know, and they're all private and so you
had your own bed, your own shower, which is really cool.
So this would be a great area to bring a group.
So Yasunes would be definitely for people who want more
of an extreme version, and uh, you know, Kuya Beena
would be for more people who want a less extreme
And there's there's pluses and minuses to both experiences and
(05:35):
that's just the truth. So we get in here and
as soon as we finished that shoot, everybody was in
desperate need. We had we had in this one day.
We had gone five hours up the river from Yasuni.
No excuse me, we had driven from Lago Agrio because
we had already loved Yasuni. We had driven two hours,
(05:58):
then taken another canoe right down into the camp. Then
we went and shot everybody's hot, human, dirty, everything else.
And so then everybody wanted a shower. So we get
into our respective rooms ready to take showers, so on
and so forth, and it was really funny because you
can talk to each other. Even though the cabanas are
like ten feet apart fifteen feet feet apart from one another.
(06:22):
You have privacy because all the drapes can be closed,
but there's no windows. There's no glass, i should say,
because they need airflow, and so you can hear one another.
So if you're playing music, you hear the other person's music.
There's just screens up keeps the bugs out, but you know,
(06:43):
you can hear everything that everybody else is doing. So
it was really funny because I've called out to Christian.
I'm like, yo, do you have water in your showers?
Like it's like a trickle, and so none of us
could really get much water out of the showers, and
so then you know you don't want to come across
is that American dude who who's like, hey, I can't
believe this. This doesn't have any water. And so I
(07:05):
go out and I try to take a shower just
like the rest of them, and it really didn't work
well at all. And so then we go out and
we start talking to Pablo and he's like, you know,
the shower doesn't have a lot of water, doesn't And
I said nobody. He goes, you guys should go swim
in the river, and I said, wait a minute, you
want me to swim in the river that has piranhas.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
We do it all the time. Now. This is funny
because down in Yasuni, the Wawadani also told us one
of the guys that I named Pincha ouk Davio ok
Davio is hilarious. His name is Waimo, Mimo and Wawdani.
But regardless, he would say, the Piranhas are your friends.
And I said, how can freaking piranhas be your friends?
He goes, well, they won't bite you if you swim
(07:46):
or bathe in areas where the boats go a lot,
because they're scared of the boats. But if you go
in areas where there are no boats, they'll they'll eat
you alive. But if you swim in areas where there
are a lot of boats and canoes going through, they're
more more timid. And I said, I'm not so sure
if I believe that, and he says, well, at least
they won't like attack attack you. They may nibble on you.
(08:07):
And I'm like, this is ridiculous anyway. So he's like
y'all should go swimming in the river and go bathe
what now, this is another thing for me. Now I've
been bathed bathing in the in the middle of the
freaking woods, butt naked, and I'm like, okay, I'm not
(08:27):
swimming butt naked with a group of people where there's piranhas.
I mean, guy's got to have some limits.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
I don't know, you know, I don't want this thing
nibbling on me. You guys already tried to get me
to tie my thing up against my my stomach. Now
you want me to go, No, I'm not doing it.
I don't need to be using it as bait anyway.
Christians like, come on yet, dude, let's go let's go
swim in the in the river, and the shots like yeah,
let's go swim And I'm like, you guys want to
(08:55):
swim in the river for reals? Yeah? Yeah, what the hell?
Now I don't have a bathing suit, Okay, So I'm
just like, okay, whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
I just.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You talk about inhibitions, right, I just like, whatever, Now
now in front of other people, I'm not gonna get naked.
That's just that's not gonna happen. Okay, but I did
just get my nicest pair of underwear on. And I
laughed talking about it because if you've ever known me,
this is like so out out of my comfort zone.
(09:30):
But I'm like whatever, I'm in the Amazon. This is
this is ridiculous. And so we go so and I
we go down there, and I'm like, okay, let's go,
and they're like, all right, you get in first. Now.
This is what cracked him up. They're like they had
to kind of say, come on, Jason, just come down here.
And so I was like, right, fine, Christian's like, come on, Yet,
(09:50):
let's go. Let's go. Because Christians kind of, you know,
he's he's maybe fifteen ten fifteen years younger than I am,
but he's kind of like a little brother or even
like a son. I call him yet Tito. He's like
my little son. So he's like begging me like a
like a kid would do his dad. He's like, hey,
come or a little brother's like hey, come out and
swim with us. Come on, come on, we're going. You
got to come to And it's like fine. So I
(10:11):
go out there and they're standing there, They're like okay,
and they're just barely putting their toes in the water.
And then this is so symbolic of who I am.
I'm like, dude, if I'm doing this, i am doing it. Okay.
Once I make the decision that it's a go, it
is one hundred percent go with me. I'm not going
to pussy foot around on it. If I'm going in,
I go in. And so I go stand at the
edge of this of this, the boat, where the canoe,
(10:33):
where the canoe docks, and I just do a swan
dive straight up, a swan dive right into the river
where there's piranhas and everything else. I'm not kidding guys,
And I'm like, what the hell?
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Why not?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
I mean, come on, what else is going to happen?
If they say it? Say, if I got it, just
go with it. And I'm imagining, you know, these piranhas
are gonna eat me. Well. I start swimming, and I
back in my early days of my life, I swam
a lot, so I love swimming. Swimming is like second
nature to me. I was on swim teams, I did
a whole bunch of stuff. So swimming is. When I
was in boy scouts, I swam a mile. I mean
(11:10):
that's just I love swimming. So I start swimming, you know,
back and forth on the river, and they're like, yeah,
you're going too far, You're going too far. But it
was amazing. It was amazing. It's truly. It's like there's
so many moments on this trip that felt like they
were straight out of a movie and it was just
(11:30):
surreal to be sitting there. And I even recorded a
little bit of a video of us doing it out there,
of us swimming out there, and it was just it
was incredible. And for somebody who you know, I've struggled
with weight issues, I've struggled with those kind of issues
in my life. For me to just take these moments
on head on and go for it, it felt incredible,
(11:53):
it really did. And just to let go and I
don't I what I'm even more is I didn't let
go because of drinking or smoking some weird herb that
they were putting out at there, because I don't do
any of that. I let go because I found that
confidence in myself to let go. That was incredible. That
(12:13):
was truly incredible. What a moment. So swam with the Piranhas,
which was really cool. Had a few things nibble on us,
but but nothing, no, no injuries were occurred, which was great.
And then that night it was straight to bed. Everybody
was exhausted and we got some good sleep. Next day
(12:36):
we go out and go out on the canoes and
we're going through this one of the most beautiful places
I've ever seen on planet Earth, this absolutely gorgeous lagoon.
And if you if you go to my Instagram, guys,
you will see pictures of this lagoon that are just spectacular.
(12:58):
And in the shot earlier on in her I don't
know when it was, to be honest, but she went
there with her boyfriend and she said that when she
went there with her boyfriend that they that the whole
landscape was very different because when we went to Kleaveo,
(13:20):
the water level was much higher and so everything was
this crystal clear glass, just incredible. And she said, you know,
when I was here before, the water level was so
much lower that it didn't look anything like this, and
so it was just really it helped me to really
(13:41):
understand what an incredible time frame it was for us
to be there and for us to capture that. So
the really cool thing is we were there's these trees
because the water level does go down. There's these trees
that are in the middle of this lagoon. Is it's
really a surreal looking, almost unearthlike environment. And so I
picked a tree and we drove the canoe up to
(14:04):
this tree that's surrounded I mean surrounded surrounded by water,
and the shot goes to the front of the canoe,
gets out of the canoe, climbs up this tree, and
as soon as we put her in the tree and
I put the drone in the air, she starts getting
eaten the live by the bugs, just absolutely the live.
So we throw a bug repelling up to her. She
spraying herself down, spraying leaves that she put underneath her
(14:26):
just to keep the bugs off. And I have to
give her tons of tons of props because as she's
up there, you can see the bugs, you can see
the grimace on her face, and she just toffed it
out and did some amazing shots. We shot it with
flash Christians holding the flash. It's really I'm gonna be real,
it's really a very difficult area. I mean, you talk
(14:48):
about me increasing the difficulty level on doing a shoot.
You know, most photographers are just you know, putting a
girl up and shooting them and putting a fake background
on all this jazz. And here I am taking a
canoe out into in the middle of water where there's
piranhas and bugs and anacondas and everything else, putting her
up in trees. But that's what I love. I love
(15:10):
living for these moments where you create something that is
truly authentic and nobody else has ever done to me.
That's the making of legendary work. So Christian is standing
at the at the front of this canoe holding the
strobe with his arms above his head, and then we
(15:33):
with we would get Victor, our guide in Kuyabeno. He
would get paddles with the canoe instead of using the
engine and just paddle us to angle the canoe, so
Christian would be out of my shot and he'd almost
be at that forty five to ninety degree angle away
from the model strobing the light, and I would be
able to take some incredible shots. That was super super cool,
(15:57):
really really enjoyed that experience, and again and the shot
did an incredible job. Later that night, and there's a
video up on Instagram of this, we went and shot
one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever shot and
it was in the middle of this lagoon, and you
talk about these magical moments where you just are so
grateful for your life and so grateful for at least
(16:20):
I'm so grateful for my life and what I'm able
to do. And it's surreal, is the best way to
put it. Absolutely surreal to be in these moments and
to create work and to realize that what you're doing
is so special. At least it's special to you, and
that's really all it needs to be, is special to you.
(16:42):
And so just as incredible sunset, we're taking video, we're
taking pictures. Just I hope if you're listening to this
that you'll join me on a trip down there one day,
because this is one of the places on Earth that
I think a lot of people, at least photographers are
truly appreciate and love and just an incredible, incredible moment.
(17:05):
I shot that with the the again with the A nine,
with the Canon eleven to twenty four lens, and one
of my favorite sunset pictures ever, because it's very rare
that you're going to be actually standing in water to
that extent, you're not like standing on the edge, but
standing in water and getting a shot of the tree
(17:26):
with the sunset behind it, with the ripples of the
water and the lagoon, and it's just crystal clear. It's
just it was truly beautiful. So the next day we
get up, we travel by canoe again with Victor to
get to a forest where we're supposed to find anaconda's
and cayman, which is their version of a crocodile or alligator.
(17:49):
And we get in there and Victor apparently hadn't been
in this area of the Amazon for and this is
like a little island inside of the Amazon. This is
all inside the really dense area of the Amazon, and
he hadn't been there since COVID so and he's he's
on the older side, so he forgot where he was going.
(18:11):
So he would take off and go away from us
and be gone for like an hour. And I remember
having conversations with the shot and Christian and we were
laughing like, Okay, what are we gonna do, Like we're
truly like in the middle of the Amazon, and there's
we have no guide, but I'm not gonna lie. I
(18:35):
loved it. I loved it. We actually would take the
time where he was off doing that stuff and do
photo shoots or whatever else, which was really a lot
of fun. Well, when Victor did join us again, we're
walking on on a we're walking, you know, in the jungle,
and he stops and he gets his knife and he
bends over and he starts to pick at the the
(18:58):
the dirt, and he's and picks and picks, and he
finally uncovers like a hollow area of the dirt and
he sticks his hand down there and picks up an ant.
This ant is about one and a half to two
inches long. It's huge. It's the biggest ant I've ever
(19:20):
seen in my life. He looks at me and says,
are you hungry? And I kind of laughed. And then
he got the ant and he chucked it in his mouth,
freaking bear girls style, and I'm like, did you really
just eat that? And he says yeah, it tastes like
chocolate cocoa. And I say, are you serious? And he goes, yeah,
(19:40):
do you want one? Now? The problem that I have
is I have these these conflicting ideas where at one
point I want to do it, but at another point
I really like, am I really about to eat this?
But then the other side, I mean, it's like again,
those two little fodors, one on the left and one
on the right shoulder. And I'm like, but I how
do I? I say no, I can't say no. I mean
(20:03):
I'm gonna regret it if I don't do it. So
I get my phone ready to record this. I get
the ant, I huck it in my mouth and I
just crunch it and eat it and go for it. Well,
guess what, my phone runs out of memory about one
(20:23):
second into this, and I'm so involved with having an
ant in my mouth and I don't notice that it's
not recording. Everyone's laughing. It's this really cool moment. And
then I go to watch it on my phone and
I'm like, You've got to be kidding me. Are you
serious right now? So I told Victor I need another
(20:47):
ant so here because I have to have it on
camera because I have to show it. I have to
eat ant number two. So he finds me another ant
and I chuck it in my mouth and I don't
know how to describe it. It did taste like coco.
I have no idea why. It's ridiculous. It was gross, okay,
(21:07):
And there is nothing like picking ant legs out of
your teeth. Because this is a big freaking ant. I
talked Christian into eating one and the shot wouldn't have
any of it. She's like, I'm not doing it. So
that that was quite an experience, quite an experience. Well,
(21:27):
Victor goes wandering around. We finally get out of this amazon,
this particular island that we were on, and we get
out of there and get back to the canoe about
honestly three four hours later. It was only supposed to
be about an hour, but it's three four hours later.
Then they take us to an abandoned camp. This was awesome.
This was an abandoned camp that used to be like
(21:49):
the other camps like we're staying at, but this one
was old and abandoned and half of it was burned down,
and just everything me about it just an incredible place.
There's an old boat ramp that leads up to it.
There's old the main house where in the past somebody
(22:11):
would have stayed or they would have cooked up in there.
We get there, start doing this beautiful shoot of a shot,
and just a massive rainstorm comes in. So Victor and
the canoe driver, Miguel, they get food and everything else,
and then they start a fire underneath this lodge area
(22:32):
I lodge. It's like it's just guys. Imagine an old,
burned out shack. That's what it was. But at least
we could get out of the rain. And then they
fed us lunch and we're eating under a fire under
a massive rainstorm. Just I don't know, I might describe
some of the stuff, and some people may think I'm
not I'm not ever I would, I might have no
(22:53):
attraction in doing that, But for me, it's life and
it's I just absolutely love it. After the rain left,
we went to an area and fished for piranhas. Got
in the canoe and went into the river and they
got sticks as rudimentary as you can get. They got sticks,
(23:16):
put a line on it and threw it in and
got some meat and threw it into the river. Well
they would catch. They were catching piranhas. It was like incredible.
And then you're like, we're swimming in this stuff. Oh yeah, okay,
We're like, this is what we swim in. Yeah, oh
my gosh. So they're pulling piranhas out and then they
(23:37):
pull out this pretty big piranha and Victor looks at us.
Now Victor again is in his mid sixties maybe early seventies,
and he had this looked like a growth on his lip.
Of course, I'm not going to ask him what it is.
That'd be rude. He you know when I first met him,
But you do notice it. It's very noticeable. And then
(23:59):
he goes on to Blaine as we're catching these piranhas
that he got that three years ago from doing exactly
what we're doing and holding a piranha too close to
his face and the pranha bit his lip and almost
ripped his lips off, Like why did you put it
that close to your face? Anyway, So then Miguel, he's
(24:23):
he's in the back the boat, the canoe driver. He's
in the back catching pranhas. Victor's catching pranhas. They give
me a fishing pole. I'm catching piranhas. And then Miguel.
Then we catch a big one. Miguel's everybody's catching them.
We catch a big one. And then then Miguel comes
up and says, hey, do you want to hold the piranha?
And I say, how do you freaking hold a piranha? Literally,
(24:45):
you put your your fingers? He showed me. Christian and
Nashat wouldn't do it. But of course I have to
do it. You put your fingers under the gills and
you're literally holding the piranha underneath its what in essence
would be its neck, and your fingers are inside of it.
(25:05):
It was crazy. And this thing had some freaking teeth
on it. Dude. It is something else to look at
a piranha and to take a stick and pull its
lips up and you see these teeth and you're like, wow, yeah,
now I can see why. It just about ripped Victor's
lips off. And this is the stuff you guys have
(25:26):
us swimming with. But you know, I guess we're friends, right,
So that was really cool. We got some really cool
shots of that. I did not put it close enough
to my lips. I actually liked my lips not ripped
off by a piranha, so I like to keep my
lips the way that God made them, so at any rate,
we did that, which was really fun. And then that
(25:48):
night we went home. And when you go home, and
when I say home, I mean the camp. But that night,
every night that you go home, you have the flashlights
running and you're looking for wildlife. And so as we're
going back to the camp, you see these eyes, and
these eyes, like I said earlier, they're blood shot red
demon eyes and it's the Cayman. And when the Cayman
(26:11):
look at you, their eyes are blood red, and it's
really creepy when they're in the water, which they almost
always are, because then you get a reflection of their
eyes in the water. So you're looking at four red
eyes looking at you. And that's if there's only one Cayman.
So we went caman not hunting. We didn't hunt them,
but we went caman searching and found some really cool stuff.
(26:34):
Not really that's more of an adventure kind of a thing,
not really a photographic kind of a thing, because it's
too dark. Number one and number two they run away
fast if the smaller ones. If you get a bigger
one then they'll they'll stay. But we got some really
just really really cool moments. And it's just some of
these things are just so unbelievable. The next morning is
(26:59):
our second last morning. There we go and I'm doing
my steps in the morning. Now this is a funny
story because again I'm trying to get my steps in
because I hate doing my steps at night. I hate
owing steps and getting them in before the clock hits,
so I like to hate them done in the morning.
So I'm trying to get as many as I can
done in the morning on these wooden walkways at the campground.
(27:20):
And so we're I'm walking around. I have my headphones on,
and I I come walking down the pathway and I
see the shots cabin doors open. It's a cabanya, so
that's what you would call it a cabin. I see
the shots cabin doors open, and then she's standing on
(27:42):
the porch. Now, mind you, I have my headphones on,
so I can't really hear her at all, and she
has this panic look on her face. So I put
my headphones down. I look at her and I said
in Spanish. She said, what's wrong? And then I look inside.
Now I'm about one hundred feet away at least. I
look inside through the door and there's a fire. There's
(28:02):
a fire in her cabin. And then I turned to
the left. I hear, you know, like when you hear
somebody running on a wood plank like a pier or
a dock or something like that. I look to my
left and I see Christian has two ten cups, which
would do nothing with water, and he's running towards us. Well,
(28:22):
apparently in the shot had told him that there was
a fire. So I didn't know any of that. But
I look inside and I see the fire, and I
said in the shot, I don't fuego. Is there a fire? Yes, yes,
I use that mat you they may help me, help me,
And I'm like, oh my gosh. So I run over there. Well,
apparently the candle that was used to repel mosquitos and
(28:46):
everything else she had lit inside of the cabin, which
normally be fine because the base of these cabin of
these candles had a metal frame to it. Well, the
problem was she tried to put it out. It didn't work,
and apparently she put water. She dumped water on it,
and when she dumped water, fire spread to the outside
of the candle, to the outside of the metal frame,
onto the floor. Well, I run in there and I
(29:09):
look at this, and I'm like, this is a nightmare.
This whole place could blow up so good, bad or otherwise.
I grab I didn't even think about it. I grabbed
the metal container that held the candle. I picked it
up while it I mean, this thing was flat out burning,
(29:32):
and went and threw it on the cabin outside and
then I went inside and stamped out the fire with
my feet, and I'm really glad that I did that
instead of Christian running in with the water, because if
you'd put more water on, it's only going to spread
that candle wax. That was the problem. It was spreading
candle wax with fire. And so yeah, that was something
(29:54):
we laughed about quite a bit. Laughed after it was
over and everybody was safe, nobody was hurt, everything was
fin no damage done because the candle wax was burning.
But had that gotten much longer, that could have been
much worse. So don't do that, guys. If you are
if you need to extinguish a fire or something, then
do it with your breath or something. Don't do it
with water, at least if you're using something like candlewas
(30:20):
it's like trying to put out fire, you know, with
Just don't do it. So that that day we went
out we went looking for some other abandoned stuff. Victor
and the crew told us there was another abandoned stuff
because they know they came to learn that I really
liked that kind of stuff. But but where we went
it had been wiped out by the time we got there,
(30:41):
so then I said, let's just go back to the
lagoon and I want to get another sunset shot. It's
going to be awesome. But we were up there a
little bit earlier, is about two o'clock, and by that
point it was an absolute deluge of rain, absolute down pour.
And if there's one thing I've learned, guys, when you're
out doing these things, if you're paying for the canoe
and everything else, and if you're painting, if it's your
(31:01):
if it's your tour, then you take the leadership role
and you you go with that leadership role and you
do it. And so we went out and did We
went out and we're driving and I mean, it's pouring, pouring,
and Victor wants to go drive us in the middle
list of this lagoon and wait for three hours for sunset.
(31:25):
And I said, Victor, if we stay out here, we're
gonna drown. This's boat's going to take on too much water,
I mean, and plus it's going to be absolutely miserable. Well,
what else do you want.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Us to do?
Speaker 1 (31:33):
Well, there's a lot of things we could do. We could,
you know, like I don't know, go to one of
these offshoot islands. We could go under trees, and I said, well,
here's the best idea. How far away is that abandoned
camp you took us to, you know yesterday, Oh, it's
about forty five minutes away. Let's go. Well we should say, nope,
let's go. I'm not standing out here for three hours
(31:55):
of rain. The sunset's still three and a half hours away.
So we go. We go back to that camp. And
that was that was crazy. We took all the stuff
out of the canoe because it was it was a
torrential downpour. And I mentioned earlier how it had how
this abandoned camp had these walkways. Well, these walkways are
really elevated because when the water levels higher, they need to,
(32:18):
you know, have these elevated walkways. So the you know,
the elevated water when it is more elevated, you know,
it still gives people access to you know, to the bridge,
or not the bridge, but to that dock area. Well,
luckily the water level was low enough to where we
could sit underneath it and get some respite from the rain. Well,
(32:40):
what I did was I took that tarp that they
that they would use to protect gear and Christian and
I hopped up onto the top of this broken down
dock and we put the tarp above us. Then we
built a fire underneath and we sat there and waded
out the storm. Luckily, I had a couple of cliff
bars in my bag. I gave the cliff bar one
(33:00):
to then the shot, and then Christian and I split
one and we took pictures, just fun pictures, just fun times.
It's it was just really cool. And even though it
was our last day and it was a bummer that
you know, that it got rained out, we still found
something really worthwhile and fun to do even in the
(33:22):
middle of all of that. And yes, it would have
been amazing to get another sunset at the lagoon, but
that wasn't in the cards, and so just an incredible experience.
We went back to the lodge, excuse me, the camp
and that was it. That was it, That was the trip.
We woke up the next day. That was a long
(33:44):
trip home. Then we had to take three hours canoe
right back, and then we had another eight hours drive
up to Keto from from down in Kuiaveno. But it
was an incredible experience and I really want to thank
Christian for helping set it up and for being such
an incredible friend. I want to thank the shot for
for coming on this trip and really being a real
trooper and not complaining and really working hard to make
(34:07):
all of this happen. And I'm very grateful to all
of them. I'm grateful to the tribe, and I'm grateful
to have these life experiences. And if there's one thing
that I really took away from the trip more than anything,
and yes, I have some incredible pictures and videos to
share with all of you, and yes I want to
take groups down there. If there's one thing that I
have to share, it's live. Just live. Let go of
(34:27):
those inhibitions that are holding you back and live. And
that would be the word of advice that I would
like to leave with all of you with this podcast.
So thank you guys. I really really love you and
I'm very grateful to all of you, So thank you
so much for listening. Make sure to go Jason Lineer
dot com slash register if you guys want to hit
(34:47):
me up at a workshop. I'm going to be going
to Texas in San Antonio in about ten days. That'll
be really fun. And then make sure to go to
Patreon dot com, slash Jason and our photography if you
would like to get any if you'd like to do
some online learning with me, editing, critiquing your images, all
of those types of things, and I would love to
(35:08):
have you join me there. So I love you, guys.
I'm super grateful to all of you, and thank you
for listening. Make sure to give this this podcast the
thumbs up and a rating and review and and thanks guys.
I love you so until next time, keep shooting, never
give up on your dreams, find get it works for you,
and remember they have one chance to get it right.
(35:29):
I'll talk to you guys later.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Byettttutetute una don ass by start a bossard by still
(37:12):
a bass I start a bos
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