Tuesday Update

Today is Tuesday and we are at Siesta time right now. We had a great morning. After breakfast, we got in our skiff and headed more upstream to see what we could see. After awhile we stopped at a family run sugar cane factory and had demonstrations and all. The best part to me was that there were beautiful flowers around which meant we could see birds closer up. I stood outside and watched the hibiscus and sure enough, in a couple of minutes, the black throated hummingbird came along and sent from blossom to blossom. Then we saw a number of other birds that we had not seen.
After we got back on our skiff, we headed to the opposite shore to visit a tiny village to see how locals live along the riverbank. They always say that no one has ever visited this village before….ok I take that with a grain of salt. But it is a good way to see how the local people live. As we were pulling into the bank, a pod of dolphins did a show for us out in the river. I am amazed at how wide the Amazon is. It is hard to see things because it is so big and we are far enough from the shore. It is not rainy today and is beautiful and not as hot as I expected except when we are in long sleeves, long pants, hats, etc walking. Then it is hot, hot , hot.
On our afternoon excursion, we went out in the skiffs and were going to the place that they have the giant lily pads. But after the walk with the mosquitoes, we found out that water blocked the path and we did not get to see them. He said there were other places we would try along the way. But first we saw a family who was on a raft boat with 7 children and they had been traveling for 3 days down the river. They were going to Iquitos to sell the fish they were catching along the way. They had about 1500 today. When they get to Iquitos, they will sell everything, including the wood for the raft and take a ferry back to their home. Then we went to a family’s home where we saw several different birds and iguanas-at least 3 and were all different sizes. These are the big green iguanas. We saw parakeets and parrots as well. Then one of the men went into the woods and came back with a 3 toed sloth. He broke off the limbs that he was on and we got a great up close and personal encounter! Then he put him back on a tree and we got to see him go up a bit and then he came down -we moved on at that point so not sure where he went after that. It was great though. So much you need binoculars to see and it is nice to see something up close where we can really see it well. The children all along the way wave at us and love to have their photos made. The life here is even more simple than the Tsachilas by far. The often live along the riverbanks in groups of anywhere from 3-4 families to up to 10-12. There are bigger communities as well but this is the way of life. The air conditioning feels so good when we get back.