The river’s waters brought us to our first visit of this expedition: Casual. This place is always a box of surprises. Local native scouts from San Jose Community helped us find animals along the trail we hiked! How amazingly skilled they are! They found everything from tiny poison frogs to anacondas! They can see it all! This kind of forest is known as “terra firme,” which means the area is high enough that it’s never flooded with the rising waters of the river.
Dense vegetation is home for thousands of creatures! And today the forest gave us a gift, deeply asleep on a branch we found the smallest anteater of the world: The silky anteater! What a cute little fellow! Very seldom seen, we were fortunate to see it very close to the ground, maybe the day came too soon for this nocturnal feeder so it had to find its sleeping area fast enough for him and in a great location for us! What a highlight! We encounter frogs and insects and even a shedding magnificent anaconda. We came back to our home Delfin II and start moving to our next visit.
Pucate River is a black water branch of the Marañon River. One of my favorite things about nature-focused travel is that you always learn and understand more our own dynamics. Along the Reserve we found several species of birds and a sloth, but the highlight for me was a very weird bird, which is the living proof of evolution and history! The Hoatzin. These prehistoric birds feeds on leaves and the chicks develop claws in their elbows—just like dinosaurs! We returned to the ship with a pink sky and beautiful reflections of the forest on the black waters of the river. On the way back, I still had the pictures of what we saw in my head, there are so many wonderful gifts that nature has for us!
