Last night we spent a quiet and peaceful night while asleep on board the Delfin II, as we usually do, just tied-up to a large tree at the Amazon River’s edge. During the night it is actually easy to forget that we are living in a moving boat, the ship’s bow sits so firmly on top of a sand bank while tide up to the tree that it hardly moves at all. After a delicious breakfast we all gathered by the doors on each side of the ship to board our skiffs for the morning exploration of the Zapote River.
The morning today was beautiful; slightly overcast which made for great photography light and a cooler temperature. Very soon we started running into things to observe and photograph, the first sighting was the caiman lizard, that even though its name might kind of infer a certain danger to it, is totally non-aggressive and indeed quite a pretty large lizard, with its bright green and red coloration. They’re were quite a lot of different things to observe during the exploration of the Zapote River but, to be honest, the show was stolen by the monk saki monkeys this morning. It was spectacular! So spectacular that we didn’t just see one troop of these usually elusive monkeys really well, we saw three troops. The Monk Saki monkeys took over the show so totally, that we should rename the Zapote River for the Monk Saki River in their honor.
After the morning monk saki show, we happily returned to the Delfin II to rest and have lunch.
For the afternoon and after repositioning the ship to a different area of the river, we departed again at 4:00 p.m. to explore the Iricahua River. Our afternoon outing was blessed also with cooler temperatures and nice sightings of distant colorful scarlet macaws, with their unmistakable bright red color, almost always flying in pairs.
Upon returning to the ship we had a great evening in the lounge enjoying drinks as the slideshow of the photos of the trip rolled on the screen. Lots of great photos! And great sightings during this week that is incredibly almost over.
