This morning we are in the farthest point of the Pacaya Samiria reserve at the upper amazon of Peru. We had travel few miles to get here, deep in the soul of the jungle. Pacaya River gets black water coming from the Andes Mountain range. Exploring by skiffs the little creeks along is just magical, because on this type water the vegetation reflects and the scenery is just astonishing. There is also her many black water lagoons with pink dolphins, piranhas and other kind of fish, and in one of them we are going to experience for first time on this week the “jungle plunge”.
We came at 8:00 am to explore the river, it takes 30 minutes to get there by skiff, but it is worth it! Once there, we spotted many kind of birds and creatures such as horn screamers, macaws, jacanas, eagles, kites etc. The forest is made by very tall trees, few of them are dead and are great shelter for wood peckers, the water is cover by sea grass, algae and water lettuce, while the trees are covered by bromeliads, epiphytes, mosses and other air-plants. There is couple of park ranger stations at the place to patrol and control the area; there is also many programs to help some animal that are in danger, such as turtles and manatees.
One of the highlights was the fact of inviting some of our guests to ride on local little canoes called peke pekes, and also to see a great potoo bird. Finally at the end of our great morning we jumped into the water to cool off and to drink some beers, to enjoy the scenery around us with some pink dolphins swimming by.
The afternoon started raining; we came around 4:00 pm to explore Zapote River, the starting seemed not good because of the rain birds are hiding, but suddenly it stopped and everything turned great, until the point of finding a mixed flock of tanagers, gray a blue, silver and paradise tanagers were feeding on a very short tree. It is so difficult to see paradise tanagers at very low altitude, but today it was the exception to the rule. Many other types of birds were seen, scarlet macaws, blue and yellow macaws, and the frosting on the cake was a plum-throated cotinga; it was sitting right at a young cecropia, its colors are metallic blue, very iridescent, a marvelous bird.
In the way back some of guests did some shopping of handy-crafts made by women of the Zapote community, as we moved back to our ship many flocks of macaws did their migration back home, sunset quickly and the moon appeared. Some nights the jungle is having a clear sky, stars are seen everywhere so clear, Milky Way is defined, and it is a gift to the end of an unforgettable day at the Upper Amazon.
