We are this morning exploring the Upper Amazon at Iquitos-Peru. It is our first full day and our guests are eager to experience the jungle. This week we are exploring a vast reserve that the government of Peru is protecting, it is the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve. Early in the morning we had breakfast and the we went to visit a great place called Casual, it is a forest where you get the feeling of what the jungle is; we walked for about two hours into the very dense vegetation, the trees are giant, every single step you make is covered by animals, from ants, insets and frogs until snakes, monkeys or birds. The jungle is a unique place like no-other in the world; here you feel the power of mother earth, there is thousands of sounds, it is mysterious, magical, inhospitable, but peaceful.
Along our exploration, we discovered many types of insects, and tiny frogs smaller than the thumb-nail, we found two types of snakes, first a juvenile boa at the foot of a big tree, it scared all of us when suddenly it reacted badly against us; its hissing sound was a clear fact it was not happy with our presence; and second, an anaconda close a water stream. So Lucky!
Later we returned to our ship, we got so refreshments to cool off and the lunch. In the afternoon, we motored to el dorado River; At the Upper Amazon, the best time to see birds is early in the morning and late in the afternoon; as soon as we started our skiff ride we saw many types of birds such as orioles, king fishers, terns, swallows, boulters and raptors, that usually as eagles and hawks, like to be close to the river banks in search of fish to eat; some birds are migratory like herons.
We spent about two hours exploring various creeks found along our way, and finally about six o’clock we came back on board to get pisco sour, a typical drink from Peru, and to enjoy the beautiful sunset that paints the sky with warm colors such as orange and yellow.
