6/10/2014

6/10/2014

We started out again at 6 am taking the skiff up the Maranon to the confluence with the Samiria. The Maranon is called a “rio blanco”, white river, since it carries in suspension sediment from the Andes giving the river a light brownish hue. At the confluence, the tea colored water of the Samiria mixes with the Maranon much as the Rio Negro of Brazil mixes with the brown Amazon near Manaus. The river is tea color from the tannin, also in suspension, from rotting vegetation from along this river’s course.

Here in the Amazon Basin, the word “profusion” is the operative word. On our way up river, we were surrounded by a profusion of pink dolphins breaking the surface with their delta shaped dorsal fin and grunting as they expel air out of the blow hole on their heads. Further up the Samiria just past the guard house for the park rangers, we saw a profusion of snowy egrets.  There were hundreds of them in the trees, on the river’s edge or in the air.

At about 7:15 am it began to rain hard so we put on our wet-weather gear and headed back down river to the Clavero for breakfast. After breakfast the weather cleared up as we steamed into the Samira River in the Clavero. From the observation deck on the top of the boat we viewed the passing jungle. Before lunch, we counted 7 sloths plus innumerable yellow-bellied macaws plus other egrets, hawks etc.

After lunch and a siesta, we set out in the skiff up the narrow Atuna tributary towards the Atuna Cocha lake. On the way up stream, we spotted 2 more sloths one of whom had a baby clinging to her belly. Our guide and spotter really demonstrated their worth by pointing out howler monkeys, various birds, a jungle rat living in a hole in a rotting tree, as well as a grey night monkey in another hole in another tree,.

The river narrowed as we approached the lake and to continue in, we had to squeeze around what is called “a floating meadow” consisting of what looked like a grassy island about 15 yards by 10 yards. Once beyond the meadow and the school of pink dolphins playing around it, the lake opened up into a glassy two mile by one mile oxbow lake formed by old meanders of the Atuna River.  The water’s edge was rimmed by a wide variety of huge jungle trees including palms, kapoks, huge ficus, etc. We saw a number of birds including the horned screamer of which David made a great photo.

Later in the afternoon on the return to the ship, we were dismayed to find that the floating meadow had plugged up a narrow part of the river.  We really had to struggle to get past it. With machete in hand, our spotter hacked a passage around one side of the meadow and, with a lot of pulling on branches, pushing with poles and sticks and revving the outboard, we got through and returned to the Clavero. A half an hour later, by this time in the pitch dark, we set out again with our flashlights to look for caimans. We spotted several, their eyes reflecting back in red, but they were too deep in the underbrush to get at, so we edged into some water hyacinth and saw some tiny frogs and then we headed back toward the Clavero.   Just before we arrived, our spotter was able to snag a one-foot long baby caiman which we were able to photo close-up in the skiff before he released it.

Tomorrow we steam 4 hours deeper into the Reserve to the Huiche Lake where for the first time we will walk some jungle trails, if the water is low enough.