Wake up! Thurs, 3/9/23

 

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK -- ohhh, that 5:30am wake-up rap-on-the-door woke us right out of sound sleep!  Time to get up, dress, grab our life vests, binocs, and a water, and head down for a quick cuppa before boarding the canoes at 6am.  The dawn awaited.  Believe it or not, everyone was on the canoe boarding deck by 6, and primed for our first early morning outing.

With a naturalist-guide in the front of each canoe and a motor boat "driver"/spotter in the rear, and our "whispers" in our ear, we intrepid explorers set out.

The two canoes veered off in different directions, though not truly far away from each other, their purring motors leading us through small tributaries and tinier back sloughs.  Guides and both sharp-eyed spotters were amazing -- they could spot a wee tree frog on a tree a thousand feet away ... in the dark!  Today we weren't disappointed.  Three different kinds of monkeys were seen, an anteater high in a treetop, and a small caiman resting on the riverbank.  Our guide was stoked to see the Dusky Titi Monkey with its bushy tail, as apparently it's a rarity.  Hard to photo monkeys -- they're like kids, they don't hold still!

This ol wreck was chugging loudly, disturbing the peace!

We saw a group of Hoatzin birds flying through the lower trees, very strange-looking dudes, but silent today.  When we saw them in Ecuador, we could usually hear them first.

I can hardly believe what I'm seeing with this water level thing.  Dark tree trunks vs white trunks means the water level reaches as high as where the white begins.  Blows my mind that where we're boating today and what we're seeing will be (or very likely can be) under water.  That tree line has to be ten or 15 feet higher.  Maybe more?

Everyone was ready for breakfast when we returned to the boat about 8am.

The next day's goings-on was always posted at dinner the night before.  Hmmmm, we're going piranha fishing?  Oh boy!

But first we'd pay a visit to a river family.  Pedro's the 75-yr-old patriarch, a wiry native who makes a living by farming (of sorts), along with members of his family.  Water access is the only way into and out of his place.  Our group got pretty good at climbing in and out of the canoes.  Our leader, "Wolf" is in the red shirt.

These hanging nests were the first thing I saw, homes to the Yellow-rumped Cacique, a somewhat noisy, striking and entertaining fella. We saw lots of them during our jungle forays. (our guides called them yellow rump-ed caciques)

It was hot standing in the sun, so we sought shade trees whenever we could.  We examined many trees foreign to us, ones with uses we know about and ones we don't.  In the above pics, we're standing around a huge Brazil nut tree.  With his ever-present machete, Pedro opened a shell and spilled out the hard nuts.  Again, with the machete, he whacked open the shells and he and his barefoot (!) grandson cleaned off the nuts for us to eat/sample.  They were delicious.

Cupuacu -- Brazilian "white chocolate."

Pedro and his grandson, far right, were passing around segments of a type of orange.  None of us had ever seen or heard of it.  Kinda tasty.  Our native naturalist-guide, "Al," is in the dark blue shirt directly in front of Pedro.  I called him Al because I never could understand how to say his name!  Others did, too.

Pedro, his son and grandson gave a demonstration of grinding manioc root.  It was quite a procedure.  Manioc is a staple of the Amazon people.  Otherwise, we didn't go into the house or other grounds.  Chickens roamed about and a puppy wandered from person to person.  I started itching, but didn't see any insects.  Back into the canoes!

After lunch we always had siesta time, to read or rest or gaze into the landscape.  And then, a return to the canoes for:  Piranha fishing!

Woohoo, here we are!

Yeehaw!  I caught one!  Jimmy caught three (and one silly-looking small catfish).  Look at those teeth!  For a small fish, they gave a pretty good fight.  In the bottom right pic is our take.  Our canoe.  The other canoe got skunked!  Bit of rivalry going on. 😄

Heading back to the "mother ship,"

we kept an eye on yonder rain shower.

Water World

And these skies!  Dramatic!

One of the spots aboard ship where we gathered.

And watched the sky.

And sunsets.

But we weren't done yet!  Nope.  One more time we hopped into the canoes for a nighttime look-see.  Tonight we had a big moon, as you see above, reflecting on the water.  I always put on long pants and a long-sleeved shirt for evening cruises so I wouldn't get bit.  And I didn't.

I decided I wouldn't show a lot of bird pics on each post -- I'll make a separate bird post someday, but this guy demanded its own front-n-center pic.  Nocturnal, like owls, yet shy and solitary, this strange dude eats insects and small vertebrates.  It posed for the canoe group, probably wishing the light would go away.  Cool, huh?

So that was our first full day, and what a day it was!  We retired early and slept to the sound of our humming air conditioner, like white noise, till tomorrow's 5:30am knock-knock-knock on our cabin door.