Cedro Caño, Flor de Castaña and Iricahua Caño
An early pre-breakfast outing along a small but beautiful calm-water black tributary gave us some wonderful rewards. Along this creek, locally known as “Cedro Caño,” our guests had two options to choose from, kayaking or a skiff ride.
Those kayaking marveled at the quietness, solitude, and silence of the area and the mirror-like high reflections of the black waters of the surroundings. Those guests who opted for exploring the creek by skiff had many highlights as well. We spotted a Dusky Titi monkey (Callicebus moloch cupreus) that was stranded on a tree for it seemed it had fallen in the water. This sighting of this monkey species has been the best and closest I have ever had in my entire life. I took dozens of photographs of this unusual and close encounter. The Dusky Titi Monkeys are diurnal, arboreal, feed on leaves and fruits and live in small groups of two to five individuals. Normally, when disturbed titi monkeys often vanish very quickly into dense tangle vegetation where they can remain silent and quiet for hours. We usually can see this monkey species sitting high up in trees quietly while they digest or when they are involved in early morning vocalization fights.
After breakfast we went to ¬“Flor de Castaña” community. This town has a privileged location, it is one of the few places along the river banks of the Ucayali River that is not flooded at this time of the year. We certainly had a great time for we observed how the locals live, visited some few houses and shared a smile with the many kids of the settlement. On our way back I had the joy to talk about one of my favorite subjects, photography. I had a talk on being creative using any kind of camera, especially small ones taking advantage of the many buttons, settings, and dials. I gave some tips for better photography as well. Many guests mentioned to me how useful and enlightening this talk was for them, for from here on they have lost that common fear of pushing the wrong button and they are more confident.
We had a beautiful shiny afternoon that made us forget that we are in one of the wettest ecosystems on Earth. Despite the heat we truly enjoyed this outing for little by little as the day progressed it became cooler. This narrow channel, locally known as “caño” is covered with a thick vegetation with many bromeliads and huge Ficus trees. The most remarkable sighting was a Tayra (Eira barbara). The latter is a kind of South American weasel that is considered rare to see in any given expedition in the Amazon rain forest. Tayras are wary and not often seen. The tayra is a rather dark, large, and muscular weasel, much like a long small dog with a long, slightly humped back and has a long tail. Tayras feed on small vertebrates, insects, fruit, eggs, and honey. Several species of colorful birds like Blue and Yellow macaws and toucans were seen as well as some few monkey troops.
Once onboard, refreshed with a shower and with drinks in hand we had our dinner. After it we had a stargazing session that was a golden finale for this marvelous day in the mighty Amazon.
