Ever eat a stinging ant? Neither have I

 Our last day in hot hot hot. It is so tropical. The humidity is what makes this place so difficult. Right now we are in Spring. They say in February it is unliveable as the humidity soars to 80%. Unliveable that is unless you are a crocodile or a lizard or a snake or a stinging ant or a big fruit bat. Today we went on an 8 hour tour of the Daintree Rain Forest with an indigenous guide. His focus was on how the indigenous people coexisted with the Forest. He talked about the unique plants and how they were used as cures for our ails. At one point he located a stinging ant nest hanging from a tree. It looked like a wasps nest. He advised us to backup then he shoved his arm into the nest. The ants started pouring from it. There must have been thousands and they ran up his arms. As they did this he scraped them off and crushed them in his hands. He then let us smell his hands. It was like a hot pepper sprayed in your nose, meanwhile the ants started attacking us. I was wearing full coverage shoes so my feet were protected. It cleared our sinuses. :) We then went on a hike in the Rain Forest along a narrow ridge with a straight drop off on the side into a deep ravine. A perfect hike for a ten year old. We also had spears and attempted to throw the spears to learn how to catch fish. The guide had been 15 years a police officer in the community. He said whenever the force needed someone to do a difficult job he was called. He was called in 4 times in his career when people had been killed by crocs. We went looking for some of the crocs he had had to confront in his years. The crocs all had names. He explained that the crocs kill you but then keep your body hidden waiting for it to disintegrate to make it easier to eat. In the end we couldn’t locate them. We watched as he took a poisonous toad and smashed it against a rock. (He had a good reason). We saw hundreds of bats hanging from trees. These are not little bats. They have wing span of 1 meter. Every two minutes he pulled the tour van to locate something new to show us. Often it was different types of fruits. In the end we hiked into a beautiful waterfall with rushing rapids. We went for a swim downstream from the rapids. The swim was very refreshing. The tour was largely comprised of people over 30. There were 10 of us. I found it hard to keep up.