Pacaya River
We awoke to a cloudy morning at the mouth of the Puinahua Canal, a natural feature, and its confluence with the Pacaya River. The confluence was a beautiful swirl of chocolate brown water mixing with very black water. The Puinahua Canal is a brown or “whitewater river” because of the sediment it carries all the way from the Andes. The Pacaya River, on the other hand, is a blackwater river because it drains the surrounding nutrient poor Amazonian lowlands and is loaded with tannins from the forest plants. Where the waters mix, they bring up nutrients which attract fish. Therefore, as we found it is a great place to watch pink river dolphins encircling us and fishing. These very primitive dolphins are quite pink and with long beaks and a gentle hump for a dorsal fin. As we watched them feed, we also saw large flocks of parquets and neotropic cormorants passing over head on their way from their roosting areas to their feeding grounds. Everywhere the dawn chorus of the birds was in full song as the rainf orest was waking up with us. This is my favorite time to be on the river.
As we entered the Pacaya Samira National Park or Reserve, we passed Ranger Station #1, we where we greeted by the distinctive squeaky calls of a troop of around 20 squirrel monkeys swinging and jumping through the trees. A few mothers had babies on their backs and everyone seemed in a big hurry as they scampered through the forest. No one fell and we were amazed by their agility and the length of their jumps.
Our special treat this morning was to have breakfast on the river on the skiffs! Complete with ceramic plates, cloth napkins, and white gloves we were served native fresh squeezed juices, coffee and a sumptuous meal of many courses by our drivers and dining staff. Quite an impressive undertaking! And we were even served under a tree in which a female sloth was also breakfasting!
Our goal this morning was to see the Giant Victorian Water Lilly and so we took a shortcut slashed through the flooded forest by the park rangers. Finally we emerged into a lake filled with floating meadows, or large grass and plant mats that are not rooted and float around only during the high water season carrying a wide variety of plants and animals. To our great delight we found nest of a wattled jacana with babies! The males raise the young while the females go off to mate with other males. There were also numerous horned screamers, a large goose like bird who honks like a donkey, basking green iguanas trying to warm up, and several kinds of hawks in the trees. Quite a productive morning.
Finally, we reached the giant lilly pads. Many were up to 4 feet across and several had beautiful white flowers. Besides being exceptionally large and stunning beautiful, they are also pollinated by beetles! These water lilies are one of the many unique treasures of the Amazon.
The clouds cleared and it became quite hot so we returned to the boat where I gave a talk on the Role of Animals in the rainforest. It is amazing how over hundreds of millions of years so many special relationships have evolved between the plants and the animals. Sitting on the deck, after lunch watching river dolphins fish, it became apparent we were actually seeing the river start to drop! In about an hour a sand bar started to appear next the boat which soon became a favorite fishing spot for Great Egrets. Are we starting to really see the change from high to low water season? The water lines on the trees showed that the water dropped a foot today!
After boating sometime through flooded forest and floating meadows, we ended up in a black water oxbow lake called Yanayacu Lake. By now the temperature was quite hot so we donned our bathing attire (some in suits and some fully dressed) and went in for refreshing swim. All around us in the water were pink river dolphins fishing and carrying on with their lives. How special to float among them and be in their environment.
Finally it was time to go as the sun was starting to set and dusk was coming on. The transition from day to night is also amazing time in the Amazon. As we motored along the river’s edge were able to see our first Red Howler monkey as it was getting ready to roost for the night. Later in different area, we turned our boats off and sat for quite a while watching the sun set and listening to all the birds calling as they came settling into roost for the night. Then the night creatures like frogs start to call. Other nocturnal birds such as nightjars, called pauraques, come out to feed on insects and fishing bats appeared echo locating over the river ripples to hunt fish. As I returned to the ship, I felt so happy to have seen the full spectrum of life that inhabits a day in the Amazon.
