Amazon Private Reserve and Nauta Cano
Daybreak comes around 5:30a.m. at this time of year. Outside our magnificently large windows, the Marañon River appears gunmetal gray. Topside, with coffee in hand, the distant sounds of parakeets in treetops has been going on for a while. The day has begun.
It looks like rush hour on the river, as we sit tied up to the bank. Dugout canoes with an inch of freeboard are charging up river. They first look like small tree snags a few yards from shore, then slowly become larger as they approach. The paddles dip smoothly, not rushed, and they make good headway against the current; experts catching the eddies along the bank. There seems to be some car-pooling/canoe-pooling going on, but many are single canoes.
By 6:00 a.m. a group of intrepid wildlife-watchers set off by skiff to see what they could see along the edges. Early morning is the best time to spot wildlife; it is fresh outside and the movement of foraging individuals make them easier to spot.
The entire morning after breakfast was spent visiting a private reserve formed many years ago on the north bank of the Marañon River, across from the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, in what is known as the “buffer zone.” This section of “terra firme,” non-flooded forest, has been protected for several decades now from logging and hunting. As a consequence, there are still stands of large, very large, rain forest species such as rubber and mahogany that otherwise would have been harvested for their valuable resources. Even better, after a mile along a delightful trail, we started along a hanging bridge network! It wanders for some 400 yards just mid-canopy and allows us a look at the rain forest from a perspective we never otherwise would ever see.
The afternoon (after siesta, of course), offered a presentation on the Amazon from yours truly. My intention is to give an overall, big picture view of the Amazon as a river and origin. That brought us to a timely point in the late afternoon when the temperature was once again comfortable, so we zipped out in our skiffs and explored “Nauta Cano,” meaning the canal of Nauta (the town across the way where we started the trip). This was a narrow stream, and once inside, we slowed down and listened, watched, and were rewarded. Saddle-backed tamarins, a type of very primitive primate were seen jumping and bounding in the trees, and birds of all kinds, including exotic pied lapwings and a bathing, nonchalant grey-necked wood rail below a tree full of limpkins.
By sunset we were home, ready to talk over the day and prepare for the next!
