We started our first morning with a 6:00 a.m. skiff ride on the Maranon River, one of the two major headwater rivers of the Amazon. The sky was cloudy and the temperature was perfect for motoring up a beautiful little side creek. All around us we were greeted by a dawn chorus of the birds. Kingfishers flew up the creek next to us. Overhead large flocks of Great Egrets headed out for a day of fishing. A Yellow-headed caracara was eating its breakfast of fish on an overhanging branch. What a peaceful beautiful way to wake up.
After breakfast we headed out for a walk on terra firme, an area of forest that does not flood and consequently has bigger trees and more biodiversity. Some local villagers scavenged the forest to show us different things. Soon they had found very cute tarantula with pink toes, a gorgeous blue-lipped Olive tree lizard, a couple of different colorful poison arrow frogs and a female anaconda wrapped around a small cecropia tree. If seeing all that wasn’t incredible enough, our guide found us a two-toed sloth very low and close up for photographs!
Upon returning to the ship, I gave a talk giving an overview of the Amazon. During it we sailed up the Maranon until we reached a side tributary, the Yanayacu River. Where this black-water river merges with the white-water Maranon, it stirs up a lot of nutrients for the fish and is therefore a good place to watch the pink and gray dolphins swimming around feeding. All during lunch we were treated to a wonderful show by both species of dolphins. The climax was viewing the mating of a pair of pink river dolphins which I had never gotten to see before. It was incredible to watch these dolphins roll around together, lounge on their backs at the water’s surface and exhibit other unusual behaviors. What a gift to get to observe all this!
Our late afternoon excursion was a skiff ride was up the Yanayacu black-water river. We headed up the Yanayacu passing a local village and several fisherman in their small dugout canoes. We tucked into a small lake where many great egrets were filling the trees getting ready to roost for the night. Wattled jacanas with their amazing long toes were walking around on floating meadows. A pink dolphin was fishing around us and an almost full moon hung in the sky. We could not have had a more perfect ending to our first day!
