Amazon-Day VI.

2-8-13 RÍO UCAYALI, PERÚ: This morning we did an ox-bow lake at Atun Posa in the skiffs. We saw two kinds of monkeys, squirrel and monk saki, more birds, some dolphins. We breakfasted in the skiffs, served by the naturalists, and before we went back on the boat, we visited another village, this one is on pilings and the main street is awash. Everyone has a net cage in their front yard where they keep live fish that have been caught for a later dinner.


Ox-bow lake.

Another squirrel monkey.

Monk Saki monkeys have lush fur, note the tail.

Breakfast.

Main Street.

School/market.

Origami boot.

The afternoon skiff ride was into the Rio Pacaya, in the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. The river winds back and forth with many esses to negotiate. A brief rainstorm had all of us in ponchos from the crew. The Pacaya is black water, with many lakes and ox-bows, some so covered with vegetation they look like pastures with boats motoring through. On the way in we saw more squirrel monkeys, toucans, and macaws. We ended up at one huge lake where some of us swam. There were dolphins around, but we were assured that there were no piranhas or electric eels—everyone survived. On the way back to the boat we saw a tree full of howler monkeys.


Meadow/lake with hyacinths.

Chestnut-eared aracari*

Pink Dolphins?

Howler monkeys are red here, but black in Central America.*