A full day of our exploration of the Pacaya Samiria Reserve in the Upper Amazon of Peru took us to two remote locations, Belluda Caño in the morning and El Dorado River in the afternoon.
A beautiful calm and relatively cool and misty morning opened our expedition today. Very early, at around 0600 we were out already. The early hours of the day are the best to spot wildlife and we were fortunate, for we saw a lot! Many bird species including blue and macaws, red-bellied macaws, herons and birds of prey were seen. We were lucky to find the noisy owl monkeys and saddle-backed tamarins, as well. After breakfast, we had a talk about the primates of the reserve – one of my favorite subjects – and an Amazon medicinal plants presentation as well.
In the afternoon, after kayaking, we explored the El Dorado River, a tributary of the main river Ucayali. We explored the area using the ship’s skiffs, a great way to search for wildlife since our skillful drivers can get into very narrow coves and creeks we couldn’t otherwise access.
We had plenty of time to go far into this beautiful river. The late hours are prime time to observe the extraordinary biodiversity that inhabits the rainforests. During this expedition, we had a lot of amazing sightings, including views of some spectacled and black caimans on the way back to the ship as night was falling in the rainforest.
