Early in the morning we woke up on Marañón River. The rain poured down last night from 1 till 6 in the morning. We were lucky though, as soon as we finished with our breakfast the rain was gone and we started our next expedition: this time we visited a village where we proudly sponsor a local program, Minga Perú. It is a social program that involves educating residents through radio broadcasts and working to regain some of the nearly lost native language—plus many more projects that we believe create a better society for us all.
Walking among the locals in their village and being invited into their houses has allowed us to see life from a different perspective, for life here along the river is far beyond our expectations. Things many of us take from granted are a luxury here: electricity, running water, medicine, and even housing is limited or non-existent and yet, it seems they live a fun, simple, and happy life for they have the abundance of the Amazon and their families.
We returned to the ship to learn more about local exotic fruits and seeds from our naturalist Reni as we navigated to our next destination.
Lunch was served and today we had the opportunity to meet our crew while we ventured down the Marañón River into the Amazon and then back up to the Ucayali River for our afternoon visit.
Our first activity on the Ucayali River was a fun skiff ride searching for wildlife, and some of us also took the next option, kayaking.
Fun times were had kayaking among big trees while the sun was gently setting on our backs. The breeze, bird sounds, and fish. Today we saw some fish jumping, and I think my highlight was a red piranha jumping in front of us. Very exiting, but that was not all. We also spotted monkeys hopping from one tree to the next, and to our surprise big leaps were preformed from our cousins the primates. I sometimes wish I had a prehensile tail to safely jump freely on the treetops!
Back on the Delfin II we had a demonstration from our bartender Martín. Today was “how to” prepare your own local Pisco sour. We had to shake the drink (and ourselves) to the rhythm, and soon after we got to enjoy our handiwork.
Dinner is now being served and we are relocating further upstream for our next adventure.
