This is our first day in the Upper Amazon. It is a beautiful morning with plenty of sunshine and excellent views of the rainforest and the Marañón River. The Upper Amazon is one of the most diverse ecosystems in the world. All we have to do is to stop and look around, and the number of birds and insects in the forest is astonishing!

We are excited and ready to have our first outing in the jungle. Our early morning destination is Pahuachiro Creek, which is one of the many tributaries of the Marañón River. It contains black waters and it is one of the many. This site is really stunning, as the water in this creek is almost black, and its surrounding forest is home to a large diversity of creatures such as monkeys and birds of all kinds, some of which inhabit the swamps, while others are canopy dwellers.   

After breakfast we explored Casual Rainforest. This place is property of a community that has fought to protect the animals from being hunted and the trees from being cut down, and worked towards the preservation and restoration of the forest and its creatures. As we explored Casual Rainforest, our local guides ran ahead on the trails to look for animals, and they helped us to spot the coolest creatures of the forest! There were tarantulas, poisonous frogs, anacondas and sloths. We couldn´t believe the amount of animals that we found in just a few hours!

In the afternoon, we navigated along the Marañón River to another location. This time we would explore Yanayacu River. The bird life here is superb, and this place is home to at least four species of herons, plenty of fly catchers and the enigmatic and prehistoric-looking hoatzin bird. The most beautiful is the caped heron, and we were lucky enough to spot some of these birds as we explored the shore of the river. As we approached one of them, we realized that this was the most relaxed heron we had ever seen! It seemed completely unfazed by our presence, so we took the opportunity to get the cameras out and have fun photographing.

We certainly we had lots of fun on our first day in the Amazon!