Amazon-Day IV.

2-6-13 RIO MARAÑÓN, PERÚ: The village of San Francisco sits on a hillside next to the river. We climbed up their hill surrounded by the villagers showing us their town. They have a primary and secondary school, lots of houses, typically with partially open sides and with either thatched roofs or corrugated tin. There’s a big missionary church at the top of the hill. The kids are on summer vacation, but we all went into a schoolroom where they sang us a song, and we gave them ‘Old MacDonald’ back. The boat naturalists donated school supplies and a soccer ball, partly from us.

After school, we all went back to the riverside where they had a market for local crafts and a Carnival celebration. Judy and I both made purchases. The hobbled Gardener was led in a slow dance around the May pole like-creation in the center of the market to the accompaniment of a local quartet and by a lovely young villager. After the dancing, the pole was chopped down for all the goodies hanging from the top, sort of a piñata moment.


Curious about us.

Group sing. The furniture is put away for the summer.

Dancing in the market place. That's the boat in back.

Goin' for the goodies.

Back on the boat, we continued down the Marañón to the point where it conjoins with the Río Ucayali to form the Amazon. At this point, it’s origin, the Amazon is huge, brown, turbulent and roaring and at least a mile across—massive. The moment was celebrated with Pisco Sours.


As we started up the Ucayali, one of the naturalists, all of whom were excellent, gave us a talk on the fruits of the region, the ones we had never heard of.


Recognize anything?

Some blue, a rarity.

Later in the afternoon, we went skiffing in a tributary, Cedro Caño, with the sun out, jungle heat and lots of SPF. There were monkeys, lizards, termite, ant and wasp nests, and a profusion of birds. The side river current was flowing upstream with the brown water for a mile or so before it changed to out flow with the black water.


Blue-and-yellow macaw.*

Yellow-hooded blackbird.

White-faced marsh tyrant.



After dinner the naturalists all talked about their bios and backgrounds. Three of them are local guys who still live in Iquitos. There was a movie about the Amazon basin seasonal flooding and about two of the biggest predators, otters and a huge lungfish, neither of which we ever saw.