It is our sixth day traveling and exploring the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve in the Upper Amazon. Day in and day out, we find new species and landscapes that both puzzle and amaze us. In short, we can’t get enough of the Amazon!
Today has provided all of the above, as we have seen species as exotic as the hoatzin, a bird that looks like a mini-dinosaur with claw-like spurs in its babies’ wings, and the Camungo”or horned screamer. Although its name sounds like a bird taken from the Harry Potter book, it is not as strange, but its giant body mass and its single long horn-like feather at the top of its head, make us all turn our heads every time we see it.
Animal sightings are not the only highlight of this trip, as today even our breakfast added a new experience to this adventure.
While visiting the area of Atun Poza in the Ucayali River, we decided that breakfast will be served on board of our skiffs while we enjoy the view of the river and the forest. As if the view wasn’t enough, a monk saki monkey became the morning entertainment while we were having breakfast, as a female of this specie was perched atop a nearby tree preening, and occasionally making pirouettes that would make dizzy even the most expert professional acrobat! Not too far away, a whole family of at least five monkeys of the same species was attentively looking at us, as if questioning why we weren’t having breakfast on a tree, as it is supposed to be!
Once well fed, we continued to explore the rest of the nearby tributary, observing both squirrel and brown capuchin monkey swing from tree to tree while looking for food.
During our afternoon, we repositioned our ship, Delfin II, to the furthest area up the Ucayali River that we will reach during this voyage.
El Dorado River became our “highway” as we sped its waters via skiff, to reach a lagoon way into the reserve known as Yana-Yacu (black water in the indigenous language) lagoon. This is one of the few areas within the reserve that can be used for swimming, so we took advantage and jumped for a few minutes into its very refreshing waters. Soon after we jumped, we found ourselves observed by pink river dolphins, which were literally surrounding us!
Our way back from the lagoon was adorned with the silhouette of several troops of red howler monkey over the beautiful shapes of red and blue coming from a glorious sunset.
