Rio Marañon: Nauta Caño & San Francisco
What a sunrise—full glorious pink to celebrate this holiday of reddish, love note hues. A love note to and from Amazonia. Early risers set out before breakfast to enjoy the windings of Nauta Caño. The main attraction was probably a tall tree that was festooned with the nests of russet-backed oropendolas. We drifted below them, listening to their water/metal calls, watching their bodies torque with the sound. Nesting material arrived and was taken into the pendulous nests. Conversations rang from and between the branches. We thought we began to understand some of the dynamics of these vocal, visible, wonderful birds.
After breakfast, we took our skiffs deeper into Nauta Caño. There was not a cloud in the sky, and it was hot, but even so we were richly rewarded with wildlife sightings. Sloths, monk saki monkeys, and more. Each skiff returned with different stories and sightings, and conversations and comparisons echoed in the halls of the Delfin II when we returned.
We’re heading downriver now. We’ve passed Nauta, where we boarded the Delfin II, and in the night we will take a hairpin turn and begin making our way up the Ucayali, brushing against the start of the Amazon River itself when we do so.
This afternoon, though, we spent on terra firme, land that the river doesn’t overrun in the high water season. We walked on the trails near the community of San Francisco. The subtle differences between terra firme and varzea are difficult to distinguish to the untrained eye, but our guides helped us begin to get a sense of the details.
Another aspect of the Amazon was revealed to us after dinner: the rain forest at night. A few of us ventured forth, flashlights in hand, to see what we could find. Spiders, katydids, apple snails, and even some mammals! A baboo rat scuttled under a fallen tree. A fruit bat hung from a branch, gnawing a ficus fruit. A crash and a series of high whistles led us to a young squirrel monkey that fell from its nighttime roost with its clan; the broken branch revealed the story of this young creature’s panic and separation. We turned our flashlights away and hoped that it would regain the company of its family after we passed.
