Supay Caño & Yanallpa Caño
Our guests, after being in the Amazon rain forest for several days already, are getting deeply connected with the marvelous dynamics of this enchanting ecosystem.
After breakfast we went on a long skiff ride along a small but beautiful black tributary of the Ucayali River, the Supay, gave us some wonderful rewards, Woodpeckers, Orange-backed Troupials, Silver beaked Tanagers, Kiskadees, Canary-winged Parakeets and Mealy Parrots. The highlight of the morning was, for me and for many of the participants of this expedition, the chance to observe many local villagers harvesting “camu camu” fruits (Myrciria dubia) in the wild. The fruit, round in shape vaguely resembles a big grape and have a smooth, shiny and delicate surface that is purplish red. Camu camu’s contains an incredible amount of vitamin C, thirty times as much as in a citrus. That quality means this fruit holds the record of having more vitamin C than any other known plant. Camu camu is in the Myrtle family and is indigenous to the Amazon Basin where it is extraordinarily abundant and can be seen growing at the edges of oxbow lakes. Entire families were seen collecting these fruits to be sold in far away markets. December is the peak of collection of this exotic fruit. This sighting was just like a ring of a bell for later in the morning and just before lunch we had an amusing presentation on the richness of diversity of the Amazon fruits. One of our naturalists, Renny Coquinche, showed us an array of these exotic fruits. Our guests tried them all and share their impressions with him.
In the afternoon we visited the second location of the day, Yanallpa Caño. On this creek we had several interesting sightings as well. The highlights were a Roadside hawk (Buteo magnirostris) perching quietly on a river branch and a Brown- throated Three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) moving slowly on top a high tree. The behavior of this solitary mammal species is eminently curious in many ways. Sloths feed very high in the forest canopy, where they are very camouflaged and difficult to see. On the ground they are helpless, and virtually unable to walk due to its famous slowness. They have a peculiar ritual for an arboreal critter; they descend from time to time (approximately once a week) to the ground to defecate. While hanging down from a tree branch dig a hole with its tail, defecate in it and cover it over. While coming back onboard we had the company of a spectacular rainbow that guided us to our cozy home this week, the Delfin II.
