It is late at night and my mind is spinning with all the wonderful memories of today’s encounters with wildlife. We have completed five days traveling the Upper Amazon aboard the Delfin II, visiting places of unimaginable beauty.
Our adventure in the Amazon took us this morning to the exploration of both the Ucayali River and Belluda Caño, the latter a creek known for both its beauty and abundance of wildlife. As we motored our way along the Ucayali, we encountered what is called locally as “Aguajales,” which are nothing more than a type of palm tree, a favorite location for the blue-and-yellow macaws. As we searched the sky with our binoculars, their unmistakable call gave them away, and in no time we had four of them perching on a nearby tree. Satisfied with our encounter—and our pictures—we moved on to keep looking for more! The pre-breakfast outing turned out to be a total success, but it was time to energize our bodies and we headed back to the ship for a delicious breakfast.
Here in the Amazon the wildlife is very active during the early hours of the morning. Taking advantage of this, we departed shortly after breakfast, this time to visit Belluda Caño. Once in the creek, we observed several species of birds, some very colorful and some not so much, but they were all flying or perching on tree branches observing attentively our actions while passing their territory.
Cotingas, trogons, parrots, and monkeys were observed along the riverbank, and as the water levels of the river keep going down, more land is exposed and with that, our chances to see more land-based species. This morning we had the chance to see a rare squirrel called dwarf squirrel as it was exploring the new land exposed and looking for new sources of food.
For our afternoon exploration we headed to Rio Dorado and it was here were finally the rainforest revealed its true colors. An intense rain –although brief– fell upon us during the first part of the skiff ride, but we were all with ponchos, so we kept our exploration of this intricate ecosystem with no problem at all.
The rain left us behind and a beautiful afternoon appeared. Birds and all sorts of animals began to emerge from the tree canopies, and we got to identify new species for our wildlife list. The famous hoatzin and the elusive curassow were some of the highlights for the afternoon, but the real treat was to linger long enough for night to arrive. It was great to hear the nocturnal animals wake up, as a symphony of new sounds emerged from the forests. Our return to the ship was in total darkness, and this gave us the opportunity to search for caimans along the riverbank. The bright spotlights and the skills of the naturalists and the skiff drivers made possible the close encounters to both species of caiman, spectacled and black.
Although both species are big, the black caiman can reach twelve feet long. We did not get to see one of such dimensions, but we had an encounter with one respectable six-foot black caiman. It stayed just below the surface long enough for everyone to take great pictures and for me to, foolishly enough, get a good shot of it with my underwater camera. Once I realized that I got the picture, and that my hand was still attached to me, we headed back to the ship content to know that there are still a couple more days full of adventures in the mighty Amazon!
