Yarapa River, Yucuruchi & EL Clavero
At 6:00 a.m. once more the skiffs set out to explore a new area. Yarapa River has changed its course dramatically in the last two years, joining with the Ucayali rather than the Amazon. However this means we can now access its wonderful quiet waterway, and so we did. One group chose to enjoy the silence that comes with kayaking with the flow, enjoying the sounds of the forest, looking for movement that might mean monkeys or birds; others chose to stay in the skiffs and travelled much further up-river.
During breakfast the Delfin II sailed once more against the current, this time making headway up the Ucayali. But not far, as we soon reached our destination of “Yucuruchi” and a walk in the rain forest…our first walk in forest that floods seasonally and will be under water in a month or so.
Flat, muddy, different from what we had already explored on “terra firme”; the understory is more open, and because of this someone saw some movement while we stood talking of something else, and realized it was a sloth! A three-toed sloth on the ground! We speculate it had descended for its weekly deposit of feces at the base of a tree, and decided to use the trip to change trees. They must do this periodically, for they can over-consume if they stay in one tree for too long. They can also build up too many of the toxins produced by that species of tree, so variation in the diet is important and they are known to eat almost 40 different plant species.
This individual seemed surprisingly blasé about our presence (we tried to keep our excitement and voices under control, but it was hard). It paralleled the trail for almost 30 feet just a couple yards away, then decided it wanted to cross over! Its movement along the ground was amazingly fast, all things considered, and it was the first time I have really gotten a good look at the beetles and moths that live in their fur, feeding on algae that grows down the ridges of each hair. This gives them a greenish hue at times, and excellent camouflage when up high in the tree tops. This was an adult male three-toed sloth, and his noticeable orange back patch was visible like never before, just six feet away from us!
Two more sightings during the walk got our attention: a sunbittern who stayed on the branch until everyone got a good look, and a rufescent tiger-heron on the other side of a lagoon filled with Amazonian water lilies. Phew!
During our sail upriver to our next destination, Reny Coquinche, one of our local experts on board, gave a complete talk about Amazonian fruits—including the chopping open of several, and the eating of others! Cacao, tumbo, giant passion fruit, Brasilnut, aguaje palm nut, camu camu, poma rosa, and many more were smelled tasted and photographed.
By mid-afternoon we were ready for another adventure and hopped into the skiffs to explore a lagoon that has only recently opened up because of the rising river levels. The community nearby is known as El Clavero, and so the lagoon as well.
We went far, far back across the lagoon and found ourselves in a wonderland of reflections in the late afternoon light.
An amazing day ended with pink dolphins and scarlet macaws in a rose sunset in the Amazon rain forest.
