Our last full day of exploration of the Pacaya-Samiria Reserve in Peru was filled with all the required ingredients that have made this expedition a memorable one with great animal sightings, cultural interchange experiences with the local inhabitants of the area, wonderful company, and excellent meals with regional flavors.
Today started with a long persistent rain that began in the night. Hours and hours of rain that reminded us that we are in one of the wettest ecosystems on Earth. We cancelled the outing planned for the morning for the rain was unstoppable. We navigated along the Ucayali River looking for the weather to get better and visit an alternative location. We could not do it for the rain continued. This time on board was very well appreciated by our guests. It served to slow down the rhythm of the expedition giving us time to chat, exchange emails, and download and order hundreds of pictures compiled during the week.
Before lunchtime, we had a “Pisco sour” elaboration demonstration conducted by Delfin II barman Christian Garcia. Our guests showed their skills shaking the drink behind the bar. It was a lot of fun!
We spent a very sunny afternoon exploring Supay Caño by kayaking and by skiff rides. Weather conditions change so much within a day in these realms. It was hard to imagine that we spent almost 15 hours with rain and the afternoon was so different being warm and sunny. Supay Caño is covered with a thick vegetation with many huge trees all around. Many fishermen are working in the area for the river has not reached yet the highest water levels therefore these hard working men and women are fishing as much as they can to salt their catch and preserve it for the next months when fishing will be extremely difficult.
Several species of colorful birds like macaws and toucans were seen as well as a couple of monkey troops. We even had some more pink river dolphins that caught our attention late in the evening when coming back to the ship. Sunset trapped us outdoors in the middle of a remote lake.
Once aboard we watched the slideshow of the pictures of the week and had a great barbeque farewell dinner with lively music played by some crew members that was a golden finale for a spectacular and memorable expedition. One that marked the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014.
