Rio Marañon: San Isidro & Rio Yanayacu
Cool and lovely, that is our first impression of morning in Amazonia. It rained off and on last night, but by morning only a few drops were coming down, and not many were deterred by such a light sprinkling. We headed out on the skiffs to explore a bit of the Marañon River. The Marañon is a major tributary of the Amazon, and it originates in the heights of the Andes well to our north. We can see evidence of that long voyage in all that the river carries: trees, sediment, and vast quantities of water. The volume is staggering.
Each skiff followed its own course this morning, some people heading to a still lake where pink river dolphins cruised along the edge of floating vegetation, others traveling a narrow creek to a secluded lake where the iconic hoatzin chuffed in the trees. One huge surprise was the presence of a young laughing gull picking insects from the floating vegetation in the Marañon. What was this marine gull doing here? Was it alone? How did it get here and how long would it stay? For our guides, this was the first time seeing such a bird on their river, although it is familiar to those of us from coastal North America. It seems we aren’t the only visitors in town.
After breakfast, we set out again. This time, to walk in the varzea, or seasonally flooded forest at San Isidro. It’s a green, green world when you step in from the riverbank. At eyelevel, wide, dark leaves reach for the dappled light; huge trunks lift trees up further to form the canopy. Vines. Everywhere vines connecting to each other, winding up trunks, dangling down. We learned traditional uses of many plants from our guides, crouched to see leafcutter ants trek in with their bright leaf-bits, and listened to water drum on the vegetation around us.
A safety drill and orientation to the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve came next: both essential exercises before continuing any further on our voyage. And after lunch we headed out once again, this time to officially enter the Pacaya-Samiria via the ranger station at the mouth of the Yanayacu River. Before we did so, however, dolphins completely captured our attention. Groups of two and three animals were regularly surging through the water off our stern. We supposed that they were herding fish, although of course we can’t be sure. The sediment-free water of the Yanayacu even allowed us to see a bit of their shapes through the water surface. Although one might intellectually know that Amazonian pink river dolphins are a healthy population, it still feels like a sign that we’ve entered another world to encounter them.
The Yanayacu offered us wide streams, narrow creeks, green shade, and fantastic views of wading birds, not to mention the special and unexpected treat of seeing a cute rodent. A yellow-crowned brush-tailed tree rat was at home in his usual tree-hollow. Being won over by a rat is one of the unexpected pleasures of traveling to new, strange lands.
