Belluda Caño & Rio Dorado
When I was a kid, a box of crayons usually contained less than 20 crayons. Then, came 64 or even 128. I was always amazed by the many shades of the same color, and all the funny names. Our voyage here in the Amazon is filled with colors. In order to paint a picture of today, we would need a box with hundreds, if not thousands of colors in order to do it justice.
Shades of green would be the first colors to use. The forest is so many different hues of green, it would be a challenge to have enough. Deep and dark in places, or bright and vibrant in others. On our skiffs today, while we were walking, and cruising in the Delfin II, we all experienced the many tones of the forest and green.
The rivers here are mainly two colors, black and a creamy white. Our destination for the afternoon, the confluence of the Ucayali and Dorado Rivers was a mixing of the two. But instead of two colors, it was a continually changing mosaic varying from nearly white to pure black, with lots of browns. This cauldron was interrupted by gray and pink. Dolphins! Both species of dolphins here in the Amazon love feeding in the mixing of the rivers. From the back deck, we watched both dolphins feeding for nearly an hour, with a few pink dolphins putting on quite a show.
The diversity of the animal colors was another essential part of our day. Brilliant blue and yellow for a macaw. Vibrant greens for parrots. Orange for the chest of the night monkeys we found sleeping in a hollow tree. Black of the monk saki monkeys flying between the trees. Incredible scarlet of the flock of the Masked Crimson Tanagers that were feeding on a different shade of red berry. And to end our night, the red reflecting eyes of the caimans we spotted on our night skiff ride.
It certainly was a colorful day!
