The unfamiliar sounds of many birds woke us up this morning. While asleep, deep in our dreams, these distant sounds little by little brought with them consciousness and the realization of place, of where we are now…we are finally in the Amazon! On board of the beautiful Delfin II, in the upper Amazon of Peru!
Just yesterday we were in the city of Lima. We stared early and had a full day of activities, traveling and learning a lot about Peru and Lima. We visited some of the most iconic places of this large city, then flew down to the gateway of the Peruvian Amazon, the remote city of Iquitos which is not accessible by land. From Iquitos we drove brand new air-conditioned mini-buses down to the town of Nauta, right on the water’s edge, and from there finally on board the Delfin II, our home for the next week.
Before breakfast we eagerly carried down all of our gear to board on the skiffs for a short one-hour, introductory “teaser” skiff ride on the Pahuachiro caño.
The morning weather was great; the scenery was gorgeous, dense green vegetation, partially cloudy sky, and comfortable temperature. Soon our naturalists and boat drives started finding interesting and beautiful things to observe and learn about. Wattled jacanas, yellow-hooded blackbirds, parrots and parakeets noisily flying everywhere, slate-colored hawks, large white-throated toucans, and a troop of very agile saddle-backed tamarin monkeys, easily moving through the vegetation. It was hard to turn back for breakfast.
After breakfast the Delfin II repositioned and we disembarked to explore the tropical rain forest by foot. Scouts were sent ahead to find and bring us back some of the interesting creatures that make the forest floor their home, like several species of insects and frogs. Also reptiles like several lizard species, a good size anaconda, and one of the very important animals of the forest, a bat, to be precise a short-tailed fruit bat. Bats are sadly one of the most misunderstood animals; they are very important pollinators, seed dispersers, and insect eaters. Bats are one of the main reasons that people coming to tropics for the first time do not find as many mosquitos as they think they would.
It is hard to believe that this is only the morning. For the afternoon and after a great, well-earned lunch, we departed to explore by skiff the Pucate and Yanayacu Rivers, where we found some more of the iconic animals of the Amazon, like the gray and pink river dolphins, that have evolved and specialized in this particular habitat, toucans, and had great views of the beautiful capped herons at the water’s edge.
Great day, great weather, lots of fun, and great things to see! And we are only on our first day in the Amazon.
