Sun is rising above the horizon, the weather conditions look good, we have been lucky this week, no rain at all at the rainforest. Today we are going to visit a very small village called Amazonas where about 500 people live, they have no electricity, as always, they come in the darkness to welcome our ship, the guests’ visit is a very important event for the community. We explore the little town to learn about them, how they live day to day. The base of their economy is agriculture and fishing, some of them raise chickens and rabbits. The adults never went to school, nevertheless there is now one for the children. We walked along a little paved trail, and then they showed to us how they create some hand-made handicrafts, they use a very resistant fiber-material from one of the local palm-trees called “chambira” that it is colored in boiling water with different seeds and fruits that are natural inks. Also, we enjoyed a dancing show offered by the young girls and boys, they danced some of the Amazon rhythms.
In the afternoon we moved on to Clavero Lake, this is a great place to see wildlife. We found several species of animals. We saw green iguanas basking on the branches of trees, pink dolphins feeding at the lagoon, many great egrets feeding on small fish; we found two three-toe sloths hanging on cecropia trees and many types of parrots and parakeets. We were lucky when a white-eared jacamar posed for us so close, usually this bird is very elusive. At the end of our exploration we spotted two pygmy Marmosets, a type of monkey that locals call it “mono de bolsillo” which means “pocket monkey” referring to its small size, it is one of the smallest monkeys, so tiny that can get into a trouser pocket.
On our way back to our ship we spotted several fishermen working in their small canoes, at the coast we saw a big village called Bagazan. It is very interesting to see families traveling by river, because here there are not any roads that connect each other between the several communities living along the Amazon. Again, we had a wonderful time out here, exploring, learning, bird watching, and just enjoying the fact of being in one of the most spectacular places on our planet. A place where millions of plants provide oxygen to our planet and purify the air we breathe and a wide variety of animals make of this place the most mega-diverse of earth.
