Last night, when I presented today’s program to our guests, the level of excitement for what it was coming was obvious. We have had a very good time exploring the marvelous and pristine ecosystem of Pacaya and Samiria Reserve, but it was time to get to know its people, the Rivereños.
Just to give the proper balance to the morning, we had an early, pre-breakfast outing oriented to finding wildlife, so we visited a creek known as Marayali. This small tributary is found very close to both the Marañon and Ucayali Rivers, hence its name, which comes from the merging of both rivers’ names.
This creek has a large concentration of marshland bird species, so it was heaven for all of us who love birds. And who doesn’t, right?
After a successful outing, we returned to the ship for breakfast and to get ready for our main morning activity, which was to visit the community of San Francisco. This medium-sized river village is located very close to the area where the Amazon River is formed by the conjunction of the Marañon and the Ucayali Rivers. Strategically, it is well positioned, so many of the inhabitants have the chance to commerce with the larger cities further down the Amazon, selling some of their fish and agricultural products.
As we walked through the village, we couldn’t help but to notice the friendliness of their people. It was great to see their genuine smiles welcoming us to their community and some of the families even invited us to enter their homes to see their way of life.
As with any river village, the usual day to day is spent between working in their chacras (working farms), fishing, attending to the children and creating elaborate handicrafts made out of natural components, such as seeds and fibers which come from palm trees. The women are very good at their crafts, so at the end of our visit we found a large array of good quality, small-scale forest animals for sale in their community hall.
It was a very good morning that answered many of our questions regarding the lives of people from the villages, and no doubt it also filled the empty spaces of our bags with handicrafts from the village!
As for our afternoon, we finally had a proper navigation on the mighty Amazon River, with pisco-sour cocktails (Peruvian National Drink) to properly celebrate our navigation on the largest river in the world.
We left behind the Marañon River to start what we like to call the second portion of our expedition, which will take place entirely in the Ucayali River section of the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve.
The afternoon activity was a nice skiff ride at Clavero lake, which brought us back into expedition mode. Monkeys, birds and nature once again welcomed us back, as well as a beautiful sunset, which have become the norm at the end of our days in this magical part of the planet!
