2-21-13 VERMONT: It’s snowing again, two-three inches predicted. We’re one month away from the Vernal Equinox. Here’s Day VIII of the Amazon adventure, but no pix until we’re back in the land of high speed Wi-Fi.
2-10-13 RÍO UCAYALI: We had a early start to the day skiffing up the río at the village of Puerto Miguel. There were a lot of birds close to the village, cowbirds, woodcreeper, parrots and parakeets, night hawks, orioles, and the rest of the usual suspects. We came to a research station at least partly run by Cornell that rehabs captive monkeys. That means monkeys that were domesticated, but are being re-introduced to the wild. The monkeys live on an island in the river across from the institute. Monkeys don’t like to swim so they stay on the island.
As we approached the downstream end of the island, monkeys appeared out of the woods, spider, night, howler, capuchin, squirrel, many of the ones we have been struggling all week to see and occasionally photo. There they were, all of them, posing for us. Perhaps the bananas tossed to them by the naturalists had something to do with their interest in us. I don’t see any monkeys leaving that island voluntarily.
Long-billed Woodcreeper.
spider monkey.
Capuchin monkeys.
Capuchin monkey, bananas.
Howler monkey.
After breakfast on the boat, we went back to the village for shopping. Judy got more trinkets. Back on the boat it was check out, settle the bar bills, tip the staff, etc. we motored on to Nauta, our starting point and destination, once more passing through the confluence of the Marañón and Ucayali rivers to form the Amazon river.
Puerto Miguel shopping mall.
Ultimately we got on the bus to Iquitos, with all the luggage, for the two-hour trip on the one paved road with the same traffic we had last Sunday. We stopped at a facility that takes care of manatees. The manatees had been kept as pets by local folks, and most of them were surrendered to the rehab center voluntarily. The center tries to return the manatees to the wild after rehab, and places them on the Rio Dorado.
Manatees surface at feeding time.
Iquitos-Nauta road with vehicle of choice.
Our LAN flight to Lima has, so far, been uneventful, even if late. We re-checked in to the airport Ramada del Sol Hotel in time for dinner.
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