Requena Oxbow Lake and Rio Dorado
We had planned to get up to see the sun rise, but the rain started at 0500 so instead we slept in. Weather permitting we will try to visit the Caño we were rained out of on the way back down the Ucayali on Saturday. The chef hurried along with his buffet breakfast and the captain, naturalist Luis and I decided we would move on upriver to see if we could outrun the rain; in the end, as we saw later, we could not. As the guests all wisely agreed, “after all this is the rain forest.”
At 0830, with our bellies happy and full, we went out to explore Requena Oxbow Lake. Right away we found a mixed troop of saddle-backed tamarins and squirrel monkeys high in the cecropia trees. Other good sightings this morning – despite the fact that the rain caught up with us again, and drenched us even with our ponchos on – were the black-capped donacobious (a large wren that sounds like a car alarm when it whistles!) oriole black birds, more of the loud and large horned screamsers, many black-hooded cowbirds and in Adonai’s boat we disturbed the slumber of a common paraque which is a species closely related to the night hawks and whip-poor-wills. Rudy and Luis both found a second troop of squirrel monkeys, a black-throated mango (a tiny hummingbird) and hooked-billed kite and when Luis noticed that his “kid’s team” was looking a bit gloomy with the rain dripping down their backs, he suggested a swim with the piranhas and that was, of course, an immediate success and lots of fun!
We returned – wet through and through but still happy – to the Delfin II and Captain Remigio had the crew untie us from the convenient tree that had been holding us to navigate a couple hours further upriver. We are hoping this time to truly leave the rains behind!
Naturalist Luis and assistant chef Renzo gave us an Amazon cooking class and we learned to make juanes; later at lunch we enjoyed eating them! Naturalist Adonai then entertained and educated us with his discussion of what it was like growing up in the Amazon rain forest. Skiff driver Miguel dressed in the traditional grass skirt of the Yaguas aboriginal tribe and several of us tested out the quality of our own “hot air” and shot the authentic blow gun that Adonai had with him. Lunch followed and the ship was tied up at the mouth of the Dorado before we slipped off for our siestas.
The kayakers went out at 1500 and skiff-ride explorers a half hour later. We all went up the Dorado River where we enjoyed the tranquility and the wildlife on this cool and overcast afternoon. The paddlers ducked along the vegetation and floated along without too much effort along with the current.
From the skiffs this afternoon – and what a beautiful, calm, cool and clear afternoon it was! – we saw some of our best wildlife yet! All three boats saw a good half-dozen sloths (the boat I was in saw at least 15, at one point there were three in one tree and we saw two females with babies!) and all three species of the big macaws were seen again: blue-and-yellow, red-and-green, and scarlet. We all found squirrel monkeys and got close to them this time – could have practically handed them a banana! Some of them had babies on their backs and we watched them scurry up tree trunks and vines and leap acrobatically from branch to branch.
We also observed the elusive and harder to find capuchin monkeys; one boat saw brown capuchins and another saw white-fronted capuchins. As night fell the bats and night jars came out to feed on insects and the naturalists turned on spot lights and searched for the orange eye-shine of caiman. We all found one or several and had good looks at them. Our highlight was a common potoo that sang a duet with Rudy and Primo and landed on a bare stub right next to us.
Those who skipped the skiff ride and stayed on board this afternoon had their own unique experience. A young sloth had swum across the river and was hanging in a small tree a few meters from the bow of Delfin II. He entertained us climbing up and down the tree and trying to figure out where he wanted to go. Many pictures were taken of this cute youngster.
