Photos

The famous red-bellied piranha showing off his sizeable gnashers. Now I know where the inspiration for Jaws in the James Bond movies came from!

From Puerto Maldonado it's a 1 hour journey up the Rio Madre de Dios (Mother of God River) to reach the area of the Tambopata Nature Reserve where we caught this fish.

The Tambopata Nature Reserve is becoming increasingly popular for short eco-tourism trips from Cusco so tourists can get an introduction to life in the Amazon Rainforest.

On this particular excursion we were out on the river in a wooden raft and caught this piranha by simply dangling a small hook on a piece of string over the side of the boat. It took about 10 seconds to get the bite!

Incidentally, I've been told they taste very nice but we didn't eat this one, we plopped him back in the river again after he'd posed for a couple of photos!

The original image was cropped on either side in Photoshop and then a small frame added otherwise unchanged.