Animals, like birds, could be hard to spot in the Amazon. Still, over the course of our five days in the Amazon, we did get to see plenty of animals. They ranged from the Amazon pink river dolphins to fer-de-lance snakes. Monkeys were probably what we saw in the greatest abundance. But I would say that the Amazon is not so much of an animal trip as it is an animal-avoidance trip, such as avoiding the poisonous snakes and biting and stinging insects.

One photo that we did not get was from our night hike. Our guide, Basilio, spotted a great big spider with very red eyes. But that’s the Amazon.

This was a capybara which is the largest rodent in the world. This one was about four feet long and over 100 pounds, so a big rat. It might not look that big in my photo but it was that big. It would have been a much better picture with something to reference its size, but Vicky flatly refused to go and stand next to it. I even offered her that she only needed to put her foot next to it, but Nooooooooo. I’m telling you, it’s so hard to be a true photographical artiste when you don’t get any cooperation.

This three-toed sloth speaks for itself. At least it was not hard to get close and get a decent photo. He was going nowhere fast.

The ants were mighty big in the Amazon, but this deer wasn’t much bigger than my cat. In fact, my cat would send this deer running.

We found this frog on a night hike. A night hike in the Amazon means a pitch-black canoe ride. We spot-lighted the trees and bushes from our canoe with dolphins splashing water all around us. But this was a mighty nice looking frog.

This is a tapir. A tapir is a relative of the rhinoceros. It’s a large herbivore that swims and dives and can get up to 600 pounds. I had to be quick to get photos like this one.