This is Chris Naka, you know me from the credits of this podcast.

But one thing you might not know about me is that I do not like bugs.

I'm talking about spiders, centipedes, animals with more than four legs, animals that

squirm, and especially animals with sharp stingers and powerful neurotoxins.

I'm scared of them all.

I recorded the audio you're hearing three years ago on the first night of an Atlas

Obscura trip into the Amazon rainforest in Peru.

And I was doing something that I never thought I'd do, heading out into the jungle with

a small group of people at night and intentionally trying to encounter bugs.

The reaction you just heard was people in the group coming across a spider about the

size of my palm, and it was carrying a dead insect in its fang-tip jaws.

I'm Chris Naka, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible,

and wondrous places.

Today, we're going down the Tampa potter river into the jungle and heading out on a series

of headlamplets nighttime hikes.

Along the way we'll meet bullet ants, wandering spiders, and you'll find out how this trip

cured me of my bug phobia once and for all.

Yeah, this is a huntsman spider.

I'm not sure what he has.

I can't get a good look at it.

All that and more after this.

It's not a good way to go, it's all I'm worried about.

...