Sometimes it takes awhile to get to an out-of-the way place. We arrived yesterday to Nauta and started our navigation down the Río Marañon and up the Río Ucayali. The landscape (or jungle-scape) can be overwhelming, so we need to train our eyes, we need to figure out what is the aberration in the landscape, what looks like a leaf or a branch but is not. Maybe that vertical branch is the hanging tail of a green iguana basking in the early morning sun – and it was! Maybe that swirling, floating log is a swimming anteater – and it was! What a fortuitous way to start our expedition in the Amazon Basin. Luck tends to favor the vigilant, and we have learned that getting up early, and questioning the oddity in the landscape, has a wonderful payoff.
5/24/2025
Read
Delfin II
Yarapa River, Amazonas Village, Peru
Leaving Delfin II at 06:00 for our morning skiff ride, we explored the Yarapa River and monkeys were everywhere! We saw common wooly monkeys, monk saki monkeys, and common squirrel monkeys. We weren’t monkeying around! In addition to the monkeys there were woodpeckers galore! We photographed crimson-crested, yellow-tufted, and cream-colored woodpeckers as they were busily hammering away at trees and termite nests. Our afternoon was spent at Amazonas Village getting an introduction to life along the river. We enjoyed demonstrations of food preparation, basketmaking with palm fibers, and hand-dying with local plants to give the baskets vibrant colors. We also had an introduction to Minga Peru, a group serving 40 different communities in this area. Our evening was topped off with a toast to the beginning of the actual Amazon River, where the Marañon and Ucayali Rivers converge. Salud!
