The rain forest is made up of some higher ground areas that never get flooded, but on the other hand, most of this region is a vast fresh water lake for a large part of the year. In this ecosystem, the diversity of life forms is astonishing, including tall trees, a variety of palms and a diversity of heliconias, just to mention a few. Walking among these giant trees is quite an experience. It allows us to understand the complexity of this forest, and its relationship with the local people.
This morning, we explored the Amazon Natural Park. This is a private reserve that still has all of the varieties of large trees and plants in this region. We went for a long exploratory walk with our naturalists. These massive trees keep the forest floor quite dark, with very few beams of light reaching the ground. Everything is remarkably green down here at ground level, and there are some colorful flowers here as well.
The second part of the trail allows us to explore the forest from a canopy bridge! In this part of our journey, we reached a point high above most trees, but still far from the top of the tallest trees that make up the structure of the primary forest. This walk was also an opportunity to learn from our local naturalists about the value of the forest for the local people, and for everyone.
For the second part of our daily activities, we visited Nauta Caño. Life is abundant along this creek. There are vast areas covered by secropia trees and a number of bird species and monkeys can be found here. The best way to explore these small tributaries is on board skiffs. This is the high water season, and most of the forest is entirely flooded. We were lucky today regarding sightings. We saw birds from up in the canopy and also from mid forest, and plenty of fish-eating birds, such as king fishers, egrets and terns. While exploring Nauta Caño, we also encountered a troop of squirrel monkeys!
It was an terrific day in the rain forest!
