Our expedition took us today to a private reserve found in the outside boundaries of the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve, the Amazon Natural Park. The large area that protects this reserve is so well managed by the owner of this place that the Peruvian Government recognized its conservation value declaring it a national private protected area as recently as in June 2011.
This reserve can be explored in many ways. We did in a circuit that included catamarans, walks and the crossing of a suspension bridge. We started rowing peacefully onboard three wooden catamarans in a quite lagoon then we continued walking in a forest that provided us some interesting findings. We encountered some huge Ficus and Rubber and Chiclet trees along the trail. We observed many lianas, vines and flowers as well. The trail leads to a very long suspension bridge, which is approximately one quarter of a mile in length. This infrastructure allowed us to have a thrilling and exciting walk in the middle strata of the rainforest. We were above the ground watching the rainforest from a completely different perspective and feeling in some way how some of the inhabitants of the rainforest see the world in a dimension that is completely new for us but is the one the know. After crossing the bridge we walked back to the catamarans to return to the place we disembarked in the early morning at the beginning of the circuit.
Once onboard after having a well-deserved shower and drinks we had a photography talk with our photo instructor Aura Banda.
A Peruvian themed lunch came next. In the afternoon we had a late exploration of Nauta Caño either by kayaking or skiff riding. It rained softly but steadily for a couple of hours before stopping, providing a refreshing atmosphere contrasting the hot and sunny morning we had earlier in the day. This narrow black water stream locally known in Spanish as “caño” (roughly translated to English as a creek), is covered with thick vegetation where our expert naturalists spotted many species of birds like toucans, tanagers, aracaris, herons, parrots, hawks and egrets. We were lucky enough to see a couple of three-toed sloths and a couple of monkey troops as well.
Finally, at around 6:00 p.m. we came back onboard with many new memories and experiences that will give us precious material to talk about the wonders of the Amazon region for many years to come.
