It is 5:30 in the morning and I am way too excited to keep sleeping. Although our outing today won’t start until 7:30, I decided to experience one of the things I like best when I travel…the sunrises.
However, when you are in a place like the Amazon, you have to compromise with the fact that your chances of getting a sunrise versus a “rainyrise” will be always fifty-fifty! Today I did not get either of those, as the day started with a low-fogbank that burned off quite fast during the early part of the morning.
Even with no visible sunrise, I still got to see the pretty amazing view of the varzea forest (flooded forest) with its gigantic trees, and the fog making its way through them.
As I mentioned, the fog did not take too long to lift, and pretty soon we were all enjoying what promised to be a spectacular day.
Our morning destination was what is known as the Amazon Natural Reserve or the canopy walk. This is a private land covered with primary forest, which I considered to be an extra bonus. Patches of healthy primary forest are, unfortunately, scarce on the planet, and the few still remaining fairly inaccessible. Being able to visit one in such good conditions made my day. But in order to reach to this ecosystem, we had to experience first a ride on the local catamarans, which are nothing but two canoes tied together, no motor, just a calm-paced paddling across a manmade lake to end up in the promised land.
After a very pleasant walk in the forest, we ended up in the canopy area, where a system of nine hanging bridges took us through part of the forest, admiring it from a totally different perspective, from above!
As time flies when you are having fun, we quickly found ourselves traveling back to our ship, the Delfin II.
We all had time to digest what we saw and learned during the morning, so when the time was right, we got ready and headed out again for our afternoon activities.
A skiff ride inside de Nauta Caño gave us multiple opportunities to observe and identify several species of birds and exotic plants.
For some of us, the experience exploring this caño was done in a different way, via kayaks! This watersport is one of the best ways to enjoy an ecosystem like this, as the opportunity to navigate is almost effortless (we were going with the current) along the riverside, and gave us the ultimate experience of quietness and tranquility.
It is only the second day of our trip and it feels, knowledge-wise, like a whole week of information has been acquired, and we are all so looking forward to many more days like this!
