Rio Dorada & Atun Poza, Rio Ucayali
As we continue our voyage up the Rio Ucayali we arrived at the entrance of the Rio Dorada and took to the water by skiff and kayak. The familiar routine of exploration resulted in another fine set of wildlife sightings including brown capuchin monkeys and another chance to view the beautiful Victoria regia giant water lilies.
The rest of the morning was spent cruising upriver as the temperature increased. We took advantage of the time to learn more about the Amazon region, followed by an informal question and answer session with our guides.
A late afternoon outing at Atun Poza proved to an eventful time in the skiffs. The large cumulus clouds that had been building all day decided to deposit their contents upon us, and we experienced a downpour of amazing intensity coupled with lightning and thunder. Despite the less than ideal conditions we managed some good wildlife sightings including several groups of monkeys.
A couple of evenings ago we went ashore for a walk in the jungle at night. Tonight, we had the opportunity to venture out by skiff to explore the waterways and flooded forest by night. The same channels we had explored a couple of hours previously looked very different in the beam of a spotlight and before long we had found fireflies, glow-worms and spectacled caimans – the latter perhaps the main goal of the evening. We also found another large rain cloud, or it found us, the result was the same. The decision was made to retire to the Delfin II, but perseverance with the spotlight through the rain located a common opossum, looking something like a drowned rat in the deluge but a nice bonus sighting to finish the day.
