After the rain of last night, the day dawned with nearly clear skies. The air felt refreshed—a little cooler and very pleasant. Knowing that the day would warm up anyway, we did not waste any of the morning onboard, and headed out right after an early breakfast.
Today we went for another exploration by land into this amazing Amazon rainforest. Our hike today took us further into the forest and gave us another chance to see and photograph large beautiful trees with tall buttresses for supports. The exciting part of the walk was the series of suspension bridges that we crossed. These six swinging bridges took us from platform to platform up in the trees themselves. We were from 30 – 60 feet off the ground, and could really wee well into the canopy above us. This was a wonderful new perspective.
Once back aboard, Alberto Montaudon gave a presentation on photography basics. This got us thinking about new and creative ways to take photos and gave us good tips for the challenging photographic conditions here in the Amazon.
In the late afternoon we boarded the skiffs and had a chance to put our wildlife spotting skills to good use once again. Finally we found a sloth that we all agreed looked like a sloth (rather than a dark shape in the leaves). We had a glimpse of a monk saki, the furriest of the monkeys we see here. Later we watched a wonderful group of squirrel monkeys making unbelievable and very entertaining leaps from a high branch on one side of an opening to a lower one on the other, in follow-the-leader fashion.
All afternoon we had heard thunder in the distance and watched the dark clouds building. Just as we were heading to the Delfin II the rain finally caught us. This author found the ride in the pouring rain to be as enjoyable as any other part of the day. With the warmth of the afternoon still in the air, and ponchos flapping in the wind, it was enlivening to have the heavy rain showering our faces as we motored toward “home.” How better to get to know the rain part of the rainforest than to be out in it in, especially when the comfort of the Delfin II (and our next pisco sour) was only 15 minutes away!
