Sometimes it takes awhile to get to an out-of-the way place. We arrived yesterday to Nauta and started our navigation down the Río Marañon and up the Río Ucayali. The landscape (or jungle-scape) can be overwhelming, so we need to train our eyes, we need to figure out what is the aberration in the landscape, what looks like a leaf or a branch but is not. Maybe that vertical branch is the hanging tail of a green iguana basking in the early morning sun – and it was! Maybe that swirling, floating log is a swimming anteater – and it was! What a fortuitous way to start our expedition in the Amazon Basin. Luck tends to favor the vigilant, and we have learned that getting up early, and questioning the oddity in the landscape, has a wonderful payoff.
4/13/2024
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Delfin II
Iricahua Creek and Amazona Community
We began our day exploring Iricahua Creek just before breakfast. The clear skies of the morning allowed us to enjoy all the sightings that nature had to offer us. The flooded forest was covered with lush vegetation and our naturalists explained the capabilities many plants have to survive the six months of high waters. For our afternoon activity, we visited the Amazona Community. The friendly inhabitants had prepared an interesting presentation of their daily life for us. The extraction of sugar cane juice, their local cooking methods, and the preparation of the chambira palm fiber were some of the daily activities about which we learned. We all gathered in the main house, called maloca. Here a group of teenagers shared their experience on how the NGO Minga Peru had supported them in becoming young entrepreneurs. It was a life changing experience for all of us. What a lovely way to finish our expedition through the Upper Amazon.
