Sometimes it takes awhile to get to an out-of-the way place. We arrived yesterday to Nauta and started our navigation down the Río Marañon and up the Río Ucayali. The landscape (or jungle-scape) can be overwhelming, so we need to train our eyes, we need to figure out what is the aberration in the landscape, what looks like a leaf or a branch but is not. Maybe that vertical branch is the hanging tail of a green iguana basking in the early morning sun – and it was! Maybe that swirling, floating log is a swimming anteater – and it was! What a fortuitous way to start our expedition in the Amazon Basin. Luck tends to favor the vigilant, and we have learned that getting up early, and questioning the oddity in the landscape, has a wonderful payoff.