Marayali Creek, Casual & Pucate-Yanuyacu
It is time to wake up, the light is filtering underneath my curtain, and I hear people walking around, probably enjoying their sunrise coffees with the forest right beneath.
We are tied up to a tree. It keeps the Delfin II in position while gray and pink dolphins pass by, elusive.
We board the skiffs. There is no time to lose. We have great light and temperature, and birds are singing. My favorite birds of Marayali Creek, our pre-breakfast outing: Silver-beaked, Crimson-headed, and Blue-gray tanagers. There was a sloth, the only one who did not seem to be awake, and there was a green iguana, almost as still. They are not related, but share their preference for leaves. Leaves that they take their time to eat, to digest, and as we can see—they are not very effective as energy providers.
After breakfast we land at Casual and head into a terra firme forest, land above the flood plain.
At the beginning it looks all the same, a monotonous array of greens and browns. Then our eyes start to see, and to marvel: trees with flying buttresses, hanging plants, climbing plants, plants with fruits clustered right in the air, or plants in which the fruit grows directly out of the tree trunk. Our feet are shuffling through leaves of various sizes and shapes, innumerable kinds of fungus; we gaze up and it looks as crowded as on the understory, complexity exists at all levels.
Here in the tropical rain forest, everything is either in a state of birth or death, growth or decay, attack or defense. It is a system that wastes nothing. And it must be self-sufficient because its ancient soils have long been bleached clear of minerals and nutrients. Anything that dies is quickly dismantled and reabsorbed, that’s how the Amazon survives.
But it’s time to come back on board, as we follow the rhythm of the creatures of the forest. We eat, we have siesta, and off we go, when the temperature has cooled down, to explore Pucate-Yanuyacu Rivers. This is a black water system; it is quiet and it’s getting cloudy. Maybe a storm, maybe just the fantastic array of cumulus clouds for our amusement. Sloths show up again, dozens of nighthawks fly in great circles above the skiff, we help the local park service and release yellow-spotted river turtles into the wild. There is red to the west, the sun is setting; dolphins pass by, mysterious and intangible pink dolphins.
