Pto. Miguel & Nauta
Our brief excursion into the Peruvian Amazon was coming to an end, but there were a few delights still ahead of us before we would have to disembark in Nauta and continue onto Iquitos and the airport.
As usual there were the hard-core early risers who left at dawn to cruise a nearby river for wildlife. We succeeded with numerous beautiful bird species, some at this point quite familiar such as the black-collared hawk.
We returned to the ship for breakfast and then disembarked yet one more time to visit the small village of Puerto Miguel. These people have become very adept at woven handicrafts, and so we finally got to meet the folks who had made the decorations for each and every table setting. Using the seeds from the calla lily and other tropical flora, the fiber from palms and the dyes from a variety of plants, they produce unusual and beautiful designs.
By chance, one of the naturalists found out a family had found a young three-toed sloth in the woods nearby, too young to survive on its own, and so brought it back to the village. Found at two weeks, it was now three months old and seemingly doing well. Around a year old it will be returned to the forest, hopefully to disappear quickly into the treetops and live a normal sloth life for the next 15 years.
Too quickly all has come to an end with this abbreviated expedition up the Ucayali, Maranon and Amazon Rivers. Come August we have our first week-long expedition...and I can barely wait!
