We headed downstream for an hour or so to a nice gentle bend on the river — our guide's secret fishing spot. 

We were all given handlines and raw beef for bait with lots of blood for attracting the piranhas. I noticed the hooks were all fastened with a generous length of metal wire to keep sharp little teeth away from the bait, but we still managed to lose a hook or two.

Piranha fishing is perfect for kids because as soon as the bait's in the river you're getting bites. The only trick is to yank at the right time to seal the catch and not have the hook stripped in seconds.

Mateo was the first to catch one — a very nice sized red-bellied piranha. He went on to catch about 5 more of various species including small catfish. The rest of us caught one or two also and with the guide included we had a nice haul for dinner and they tasted amazing. 

We came across the squirrel monkeys in a section of the river we hadn't been to about an hour and a half upstream. I think they saw the kids snacking on something in the boat so came streaming out of the trees and straight towards us. You're not supposed to feed the wildlife but these monkeys were not at all shy so they've probably been feed before. 

We spent about 20 minutes with the monkeys and after they'd searched our boat (and the kids) they stuck around but reverted to their natural activities of foraging for insects and drinking from the river. They were another big highlight of the trip and it was hard to say goodbye, especially for Cata who wanted to take one home.

On the way back to the lodge we were very lucky to come across some amazing birdlife including pink spoonbills and blue and yellow macaws. We also saw a couple of active river dolphins which were splashing around and appeared to be fishing. They weren't supposed to be this far upstream where the river was much lower so we got a pretty good look at them. Check out the videos below... 

So long and thanks for all the fish, monkeys, birds, caiman, turtles...

This was our last morning at the ecolodge and after lunch we boarded our little riverboat for the last time and headed back to Rurrenabaque.

A huge thank you to Mashaquipe and especially our amazing guide Abelardo!

Highly recommended