Today is Wednesday and it started out with an early wake up call. We got on the skiff and went bird watching down one of the smaller inlets. It is still very difficult to see the birds and sighting them is still disappointing to me as even with binoculars, they are not up close so that you can see the markings well, for the most part. The Jacana bird here is also known as the butterfly bird as it is so colorful when it flies. We saw tons of that one and it is one of my favorites. We’ve seen parakeets who are noisy and fly in big flocks. We saw several eagles that were pretty and easier for me to spot. We found an eagle who looked like it had been caught in a vine so our guides were going to free him by using the machete on the vines. He did this and got the bird but it appeared the bird’s leg was broken so I doubt he was going to live long. We took him and the guide placed him on a wooden long where maybe he could get some food if he was able to feed. It was interesting to see up close but sad to see one maimed like that.
We came back to our boat for breakfast and got ready for our hike in the upper hills today. I don’t think I have ever been any hotter. They are not doing our one time laundry until Friday and it will get back on Saturday and we fly home on Sunday….hmmm. Something is wrong with that picture! We have been washing things in the sink but it is so humid that they don’t dry, especially socks. They did not tell us to bring high socks until we were already in Fla and I had two pair in. We tuck our pants into our socks to keep the mosquitoes away. They wash our shoes each time we come back from a hike-we leave them on the deck -it is better than having mud tracked all over the boat, I am sure.
We went on a hike mid morning after breakfast. It was an uphill and downhill walk and we saw a lot of interesting things-my favorite was the poison dart frog. It is red and only about one inch long and boy, are the guides good to find them! Our naturalist was the one Jacques Costeau’s grandson used on his trip here and they did a documentary. I am anxious to go back and see if we can see any of those programs. We saw a blue morpho butterfly flitting around as we walked and we saw bats in a huge tree. We saw lots of kinds of mushrooms and he kept looking for snakes, and I was so glad he did not find any. The walking sticks they have on the boat are invaluable. Today was not as muddy as yesterday, but the mud was slippery in places and several of the handrails fell down when someone tried to hold onto them. When we got back to the skiff, there was a little market set up and one lady had a tiny monkey. It is just barely bigger than the pigmy marmoset. It was a saddle tailed tamorine and he was so cute and not real happy about us all taking his photo. I have been disappointed because so far, the baskets are not nearly as intricate and beautiful as the ones in Africa and I had thought they would be. We got back on the boat and were all drenched in sweat and so our showers felt so good. We had a nice siesta after lunch and then we sent several members with Eric to invite some local families along the river to come on the ship. I thought I had seen people before who were isolated, but the people here truly live in their own little world. The lady and her 18 yr old daughter that came would only come if her neighbor, his daughter and grandson would come too. So there were 5 all together. We had popcorn and banana snacks and juice and talked for about an hour an half. They had never seen gringos before. They said they would not have come if Eric had not been the one talking to them. But they seemed to enjoy it and we really found out a lot about their lives and they asked questions of us and Eric translated. They had seen the boat go up and down the river but never been on board a boat. They did not know that airplanes could hold more than 5 or 6 people. They did not have tv, radio, internet, phones, nothing we take so for granted so knew very little about the outside world. The fartherest any of them had ever been was Iquitos and only one had been there. Most had been to the nearest “city”. Afterwards, we went to their homes-it was a group of about a dozen families maybe and they have a one room school house. It is their summer break now and school is not in session but we took our school supplies and the kids heard about us and Eric had them singing for us and us to them. We saw short tailed parrots closer than we have before-still not close but you could at least see them in the trees. They are green so blend so much with the trees. We got back and after dinner we are taking a night boat ride to see what we can see at night.
Update after the night boat ride. This was one of the best things we have done as far as I am concerned. We got in the skiff about 8:30 and Eric and Singja had big flood lights. We went in one of the smaller inlets to see what we could see. They caught 2 different kind of frogs and we saw a really big yellow frog up on a big tree leaf. They spotted a caymen but he got away before they could get him. We saw a capybara, which is the biggest rodent in the world. We saw him eating grass and then he got in the water and swam and we could see him swimming for quite a distance. We turned off all the lights and the boat motor and listened for several minutes to the night sounds of the Amazon. Mostly we heard all kinds of frogs. We watched one of the frogs practically walk on water before he started swimming to get to a leaf-he would have been good fish food. We saw glow worms, which reminded us of the ones we saw in New Zealand at Rotorua. We saw big bats called fish bats which flew all around us at times. We heard the bamboo rat but did not see him. It was threatening rain so we timed it exactly right and hurried back to the boat before the rains hit. There were lightning flashes all during the drives but never any close to us. It was a lot of fun and cool at night so it was just so pleasant
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