There's a bird up there!
The afternoon’s activities involved looking for pink river dolphins and swimming. I ended up not swimming, but I did get amply wet from the spray thrown up by the skiff as the river was more choppy than earlier with a bit of a breeze. Although we spotted no pink dolphins on this trip, the grey variety put in an appearance.
Returning to the Delfin, the bathers got a chance to change out of their wet togs before another skiff expedition up one of the side channels. [These skiff rides usually lasted about 90 minutes.]
The sheer inundation of the land by the river is hard to imagine and photos don’t do it justice. The river is several hundred yards wide, but the water extends deep back into the vegetation. The water level is 25-30 feet higher than low-water season and villages are awash with the residents using dug-out canoes to navigate their streets.
After heading up the Ucayali River, we headed up a side channel used by locals to shorten their navigation of the river. We (or more accurately, Chino, our naturalist on this skiff) spotted a number of forest denizens, mostly birds, including to my pleasure a hoatzin.
We got back to the Delfin – now “beached” close-by – at sunset, and it was a spectacular sunset as the photos and video attest. I commented to Jonathan in the skiff that one thing I hadn’t expected was to impressed with the Amazonian skies. They are so varied.
Now nursing a Pisco Sour, we are scrambling to update our travel diaries before dinner and an early 0600 wake-up call tomorrow morning for a 0630 skiff excursion.
There's a bird up there!
Mike takes a dip in the river.
Melissa dives right in.
And Jonathan jumps.
The Delfin II nosed into the riverbank.
The village on the other side. The water level was high this year; it tends to run in a seven-year cycle.
Off on the second skiff exploration of the afternoon.
The flooded channel to be explored. In low water season, this would be either a trickle or dry.
A yellow-crowned brush tailed tree rat (Isothrix bistriata) - a long name for a small critter (Isothrix bistriata).
A fuzzy shot of a ringed kingfisher (Megaceryle torquata).
Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin) - also known as the stinkbird.
Hoatzin.
Hoatzin.
Probably great egrets (Ardea alba).
A bromeliad in flower.
Afternoon reflections in the lagoon.
Turns out there were two of them.
I kept trying these shots into the vegetation to try to provide some sense of the magnitude of the flooding.
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It was a spectacular sunset as the next several shots reflect.
Sunset.
Sunset.
Just about done now.
More towel origami awaited us in our cabin.
Another creative colorful table presentation.
I suspect the spiders were in honor of our finding the tarantulas during the jungle walk.
Evidence, entreé: breast of chicken served with rice and curry over copoazu sauce.
Evidence, dessert: sugar cane ice cream with tropical fruit.
