Parinari, Peru

This morning we arose at 6am to a dazzling sun and crystal blue skies. It’s the first clear day we’ve had. We are off in the skiffs at 6:30am in search of Anaconda’s and Tarantula’s.
We leave the café au lait waters of the main river and head down into the black waters of the
Pacaya River to search for wildlife. At the mouth of the river, we immediately spot numerous legendary pink dolphins. There are many of them porpoising across the waters.
We are entering the Pacaya Samira National Reserve and have to stop at a ranger post on the water for checkin. We then begin traversing the flood plains surrounding the river. The river is about 2 feet below full high-water depth. We can see the markings on the trees from last season.

We spotted numerous birds– Snowy Egrets, Capped Herons, Cocoi Herons, Black Vultures, Lesser Yellow-headed Vultures, Black Caracara, Black Collared Hawks, Red-Throated & Black Caracara, Large Billed Tem, Yellow-billed Tem, Wattled Jacana, Blue & Yellow Macaw, Festive Parrots, Greater Ani, Amazon Kingfisher, Ringed Kingfisher, Russet-backed Oropendola, Horned Screamer, Ferruginous Pygmy Owl, Hoatzin, Black-tailed Trogon, Black-fronted Nunbird, Lettered Aracari, Fork-tailed Flycatcher, & Short-tailed Swift. My favorite bird of the week was the Yellow-rumped Cacique. They form colonies of long, hanging basket nests that are pure works of art. They are very vocal birds, producing a wide range of songs and calls that are quite explosive at times. We saw several of their colonies throughout our week on the water. When we saw the Russet-backed Oropendola bird, the guide told us that they call the male bird Bocho-Locho which means “lazy man that never works” because the male birds hang around in the nest all day. Must remember that term!

Laying upon the shallow flood waters, we found a large nest that housed one large Horned Screamer egg. We were surprised that the parents had left the nest unguarded from predators, but our boat may have scared them off.

Our skiff driver maneuvers us through dense jungle foliage to find the area where the Anacondas like to sun themselves. No sighting of a snake yet (thankfully!). We spotted Giant Amazon water Lily, the largest water Lily in the world.

Mid morning we stopped in the shade of the jungle trees to enjoy a breakfast picnic while listening to the jungle symphony along the black waters of the Pacaya River. The crew has prepared pancakes with papaya sauce, coddled eggs with avocado & toast, fresh fruit with yogurt sauce and grilled ham and fruit sandwiches. We savored every morsel of the tasty breakfast while seated in our skiffs watching the birds circling about.

On our adventures after breakfast, we saw several black vultures feeding on a carcass while others sat in the trees observing. We spotted more pink dolphins in the waters near the “rest stop.” There was a large tree near our stop that had several Cacique birds coming and going from their nests. The birds have the most stunning yellow markings and the colony of their nests was an amazing sight.

We were stopped alongside some foliage searching for Anaconda when a green snake fell out of the tree and into the river barely missing our boat (yikes!!). Our guide persistently tried to find him in the water to catch him, but thankfully (for me) his attempts were unsuccessful. If I get through this trip with no snake sighting, I’ll be happy! Christian and I spotted a miniature green frog but he hopped into the water before we could catch a photo of him.
Jim had a baby Tarantula drop on his hand as we were traversing the thick foliage in the swampy region. Unfortunately, he instinctively flicked him away before we caught a photo of him.

When we return to the Aria, the staff greet us with freshly squeezed papaya juice at the arrival platform. We have an hour of downtime to freshen up before lunch at 12:30pm. After lunch, I took a nap–getting up at 6am is exhausting!

Before our afternoon outing, we had a lecture about the fish species in Peru with emphasis on those specific to the Amazon. A light rain has started up again (after all it is the RAIN forest!).
We went out for another 2 hour expedition in the skiffs along the Ucayali River to search for more wildlife.

After dinner we journeyed outside to watch the lightening striking up against the skies–such a beautiful sight. It is pleasantly breezy and we can see a partial moon and some stars in the sky. As we’re preparing for bed, the rain starts again. There are literally sheets of rain pouring against our window.