Today we arrived at the heart of the Pacaya-Samiria Natural Preserve. To maximize our time in this magnificent place, we left Delfin II by skiff at 5:30 in the morning. We were very lucky to have a completely overcast sky, which made our outing very pleasant. Not only was the temperature very nice, but also the light for photography was soft and perfect.
We traveled fast, stopping only for wildlife that was new for us, which we had not seen elsewhere on this expedition. Our first stop was for a small troop of red howler monkeys. These beautiful primates occasionally filled up the atmosphere with their amazingly loud calls. Some other very interesting stops were thanks to findings like jabiru storks, a family of giant river otters, several small flocks of blue and yellow macaws, and several large black cayman.
We had breakfast way out in the middle of the wilderness. An old house which was once used by an Ex-President of Peru for his fishing expeditions now belongs to the preserve. This is where we used the outside porch to enjoy the food and beverages that our galley crew prepared on the ship, and brought it all here for us!
After a marvelous morning of rich wildlife viewing, we came back to Delfin II for lunch. After some time to rest and enjoy the navigation through the Ucayali River, we had a wonderful presentation about jaguars by Carlos Navarro.
We ended the day with a walk that we have done very few times. We explored an old road that is located about five hours downriver from the mouth of the Pacaya. The place may or may not have a name, but it seems to lead to some distant community deep in the jungle. We started out late in the day, to have an introduction to the Varzea environment during the day, and a night walk for the latter half of our walk.
We had an amazing night walk! Some our sightings included at least four kinkajous running around up in the trees, a medium size Amazon tree boa, an arboreal pit viper, several species of bats, tarantulas, scorpions, and several different tree frogs. We saw all of this while surrounded by majestic old trees and nocturnal jungle sounds.
