Casual & Yanayacu-Pucate Rivers
Despite some tired travellers arriving last night, I was thrilled to find almost everyone up and ready to hit the river in the skiffs—at 6:00 a.m.! What a fabulous start. All three skiffs left on the dot, and we cruised the riverbanks looking for action. What we found were hawks, both roadside and black-collared; tanagers, both silver-beaked and blue-gray; kingfishers, both Ringed and Amazon; vultures, turkey, lesser yellow-headed and greater yellow-headed, seedeaters, sparrows, oropendolas—and loads more. The early morning is key to enjoying the Amazon basin rivers and forest!
After breakfast we explored for the first time in the rain forest at a location called Casual by the inhabitants. Several of these folks from the community came with us, accompanying us on our ramble through their world of giant trees. Their eyes are phenomenal—they have the search image—and due to their efforts we were able to see creatures that would have been hidden from us, if left to wander on our own. Several frogs were found, an enormous bird-eating spider, bats, and a huge success for us—a red-tailed boa constrictor! In fact the same area that produced the boa also had the enormous kapok tree with bats and a great potoo! I wish I could send a picture of a potoo, but it was doing what it does best: sitting camouflaged high up in a fig tree, its colors blending into the wood of the stump it sat on, such that we almost missed it completely!
Unexpected chaos broke out in the dining room just as the introductions of the captain and crew were finishing up…in fact the last two crew members never got a full intro because pink dolphins showed up and everyone jumped to their feet! The huge picture windows of the ship allowed all of us space to watch the antics of the dolphins—and antics they were, because one dolphin had a stick it played with for quite some time. They can change their brightness factor within seconds, and they must have been having a fun time among themselves, because they were most of the time a bright pink—flushed pink—every time they came up for air. Just like us, blood flushes to the surface of their skin when they are excited, active, angry…well for all those reasons and probably more!
By the time mid-afternoon came around, siesta time was winding up and the rain cloud that had threatened us earlier had passed us by. Into the skiffs once more and off again, this time up the two rivers that make up the third largest drainage basin of the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve: the Yanayacu and Pucate Rivers, that drain into the Marañon River. The Marañon River makes up the northern border of the reserve, and the Ucayali River makes up the southern boundary, and during this week we will be spending time on both, using rivers both large and small to explore the reserve and the surrounding buffer zone.
What an afternoon! Sloth dangling from a tall tree, scratching; squirrel monkeys shaking branches as they foraged and jumped; blue and yellow macaws flying over, herons, hawks and a plum-throated cotinga.
Sunset was a collection of warm colors in the sky as we came home for showers, welcome cocktails and introductions.
