Loreto Region, United States

We’re up early this morning to enjoy a Peruvian breakfast before heading out on our first excursion of the day. Neycer was our guide this morning.

Aboard the skiffs we set out from the Amazon River to the Yanallpa River to search for wildlife.
Throughout the morning we spotted several tropical songbirds, black collared hawks, monkeys, bats and a Wolff spider.

We returned to the Aria to attend a cooking class followed by a bartending class. Jim was one of the volunteer participants for the cooking class. They made Seviche. The bartender, Robertson, demonstrated how to make his special drink- a yellow tomato margarita.

We settled into the dining room for a delicious Luncheon buffet. We sat with Fred and Elsa-delightful lunch companions. Fred is one of the owners of Aqua Expeditions.

After lunch, we all went back to our suites for a nice siesta before the evening expedition.
There have been several episodes of rain downpours while we were waiting for the afternoon excursion–good sleeping weather.

At 4pm when we were ready to head out, another down pour started, so we have a 30 minute delay. George is our naturalist guide today. He is very animated and reminds me of Calvin Borel, the American Thoroughbred jockey. The rain has turned into a light drizzle as we set out on our dusk excursion in search of exotic nocturnal wild life.

We are traveling along the black waters of the Dorado river this evening. Blackwater rivers are considered some of the cleanest natural waters in the world as they are very low in dissolved minerals and are very acidic. They contain heavy tannins from decaying vegetation. The water chemistry inhibits the proliferation of insect larvae so they tend to be less “buggy” in terms of mosquitoes and the low tree diversity helps lower the insect population too.
Almost immediately, we spotted a 3 toed sloth and a giant green iguana in the high tree tops.
The 3 toed sloth resides high in the tree tops and only comes down for bathroom breaks!
Then we had the most amazing sighting- a giant Amazonian rat (Capibara Rodent) weighing about 60 pounds!

We were traveling near a tiny river village when we noticed two small children holding up their fish for us to see. It was a family of 5 along with a dog and several ducks (the animals reside on a small platform under their thatched hut). When we pulled over to visit we saw the mother preparing various fish for their dinner including the red bellied piranha that she was starting to gut. I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in a hut directly on the Amazonian waters with no walls and a thatch roof let alone raising children in that environment. Our guide treated the kids to bottles of Coca-Cola which brought a little smile to their faces.

Our skiff pulled into an area to watch a Troop of squirrel and capuchin monkeys and then began fishing. Christian caught the first fish. I caught a silver fish and then a red-bellied piranha. Jim caught a very scary looking catfish. The piranha mouth is not nearly as wicked looking as I expected. The chef will cook the Piranha for us for dinner tonight.

As we are heading back to the Aria, it has turned pitch black outside and the rainy drizzle continues. There is no moon or stars in the sky–definitely no light pollution in this part of the world! On our journey back to the big boat we are searching for Caimen which is an alligatorid crocodilian. We are motoring through wet lands and foliage and, lo and behold, one of our guides reaches down and scoops up a baby speckled Caimen which they estimate to be about 6 months old. A few of us took turns holding him. He had a very firm, almost turtle like feel to his body. After we finished photographing him, we released him back into the water and he gently swam back to the water foliage he’d been resting in.

Guides: Marco, George & Neycer

We had another delicious dinner. The chef presented the Piranha fish after our main course.
There is very little meat on a Piranha and it’s a challenge to eat! The kitchen staff are going to dissect out the Piranha mouth so I can take it home as a souvenir.