Thursday on the Amazon

Today we were supposed to get up early to go on an early morning boat ride with a picnic breakfast in the skiff. But it began raining during the night and was raining hard enough at 6AM that they decided to postpone and see what happened a little later. So we slept in and had breakfast and 8 and all agreed we’d don ponchos and let’s go anyway to see what we could see. It was a great adventure! We wound our way through small canals that were more like what we pictured the Amazon to be like. We were in the Pacaya Samiria Reserve. We had to sign in and sign out that we were visitors there. We saw a red howler monkey, and wonderful pink dolphin who played with us in the small waters. They were jumping all around us and we never knew where they would show up next. They were so close and it was really spectacular. They are so much larger than the grey dolphins we had seen earlier. We then spotted a hoatzin, the bird that has two stomachs like the cow. And it looks like a pre-historic bird. There was a pair of them and our guides chopped (with machete) our way so the boat could get a clear view of them and they stayed in the same spot and we all got great views of them. So we were excited about those. We had to chop down limbs and all sorts of things to get to these newly flooded areas. It did rain but it was a very slight rain and it was cooler and we didn’t mind. It was amazing how they go places that look impassable with the help of machetes. The water lilies are everywhere-the water hyacinths have filled the flooded water. We saw sloths in the trees and parrots and parakeets flew overhead. You can hear them all around but at a distance and they blend so well, that photos are impossible. On our way back to the Arapaima, we stopped in a small village to see the carvings they do out of the ivory palm nut. We bought several and had fun looking. These villages are in the preserve but were there when it was formed so they are grandfathered in.
After lunch it was Siesta time but we “docked” about 30 minutes after lunch-we simply picked a place (though I am sure there was some logic) and went in sideways and the guys used a machete to knock down all the branches and small trees that lapped over the boat. Ants came running onto the boat from these trees so that was an experience as well. When siesta time was over, there was a demonstration of some cooking things which you know I was most definitely not interested in. ha. After that we left on our excursion to a small village where they had arranged for each of us to go in a dugout canoe with a “driver”. Mine was Dondo and he spoke a little English but not much. I am not good at paddling so I let him have all the honors and he took me through the most beautiful area of the rainforest. There were birds all around and flowers and children were swimming at one place. It was a very nice experience and very peaceful and a glimpse of life in the jungle. We came back and had dinner and there was a video for those interested in the flooding of the Amazon. We skipped that as we needed to get our laundry ready to go out tomorrow. We are all laughing that they told us they would do laundry one day during the trip so we all assumed that it would be midweek as they were encouraging us not to bring many clothes. But no, it is going out on Friday and will be back by Saturday morning which is our last day here. We have been doing the laundry in the sink as there is no way any of us can stand to not shower when we come back after a morning or afternoon of sweating and bug spray and sunscreen and the high humidity. Most days it is a two hair wash day! So needless to say, the clothes don’t last all day even. I think they need to rethink when they do the laundry as the clothes do not dry when we do them. With the humidity, we have things hanging all over the bathroom (and our bathroom is bigger than any of the others) and all over our room. We have run experiments-do clothes dry faster in the bathroom without air conditioning or in the air conditioned bedroom. So far, neither is winning any prizes. One pair of my socks is going on 3 days of drying… It all makes for an interesting experience and part of the Learning and Discovery, I suppose! Let’s just say I could give good advice to those taking this trip-and it would not be what came in our packet about clothes! But we have managed fine and for sure, none of us have cared about what we looked like so that was good. It has been very relaxed and actually very different than what I expected. We have had little down time and our bird watching has been farther away than I expected, for the most part. But it has all been fun and a wonderful experience. The staff is wonderful and the guides are fantastic. They are amazing how they can spot a howler monkey a half a mile away or more up in the top of a tree that looks just like a spot to the rest of us. The saddle back tamorine(sp) monkey we saw several times along our hike to the swinging bridges. The one in the photo was at one of the markets set up by a few families as we finished our walk one day. He is only slightly larger than the pigmy marmoset monkey.