Early morning we woke up after travelling a good part of the night, near the entrance to the river that leads to Atun Poza. Before breakfast we boarded the skiffs and departed from the Delfin II to explore, as usual during the best hours of the day, early in the morning when the activity in forest is higher and the temperatures are lower. Indeed the idea today was to explore early and while still deep in the forest stop and have breakfast inside the skiffs, in “The Rain Forest Café.” When we left we carried everything necessary, including extra staff members, and later the three skiffs were tied together in the shade of the forest and then we were served right in our seats by the boat drivers, naturalist guides, and extra staff. It worked out great; the setting couldn’t have been better!
After filling our stomachs and putting some caffeine in our bloodstream, we carried on with our explorations. Among some of the interesting animals observed this morning were the always-active squirrel monkeys, the very intelligent brown-capuchin monkeys, and the secretive and elusive monk saki monkeys. Birds, such as the horned screamers, yellow-billed terns, and black-fronted nunbirds.
The afternoon was spent comfortably back aboard the Delfin II, where we had a delicious lunch and maybe even a siesta after it, to prepare and recharge our energy for the early evening, outing to the Pacaya reserve. In the reserve, we had the opportunity to cool down by swimming with the pink dolphins. We had to cover a lot of distance traveling to the Pacaya lagoon, meandering through the narrow seasonal canals, stopping on the way for interesting things, like a group of the large and elegant looking jabiru storks, one of which had caught a very large fish and it repeatedly stabbed it with its massive pointed beak against the sandy beach, apparently to make sure that it was totally and completely dead before swallowing it, meanwhile all this activity had caught the attention of other nearby jabirus, probably watching with a mix of curiosity and envy for the good catch.
At Pacaya lagoon we swam in the dark tannin-rich waters, while very near around us pink dolphins surfaced regularly to breath, exhaling loudly as if to make their presence more evident.
On the way back we enjoyed the breathtaking beauty of the scenery. We had an almost limitless 180-degree view of the sky, which was shared by dark heavy rainclouds, distant rainstorms, blue-and-orange hues left behind by a sun that was already behind the horizon, reflected all on a black mirror-like water that contrasted with the whitish tree trunks of the leafless deciduous forest of this seasonal water world.
