Atun Poza & Caño Carocurahuayte
We awoke again to a cloudy morning which is a blessing here in the Amazon. All night we had been heading slowly back down to Iquitos on the Ucayali River. Our goal today was cut through flooded forest to Atun Poza, a black water oxbow lake, to look for wildlife. We weren’t disappointed as we soon saw and heard troops of squirrel monkeys and watched ringed kingfishers, the largest in North America, and smaller green and rufous kingfishers flying back and forth across the river. Some were successful at catching fish and then beating them to death on the branch.
This morning we saw many beautiful flowers, and so we spent a lot of time photographing them. High water season is the time for the trees to flower and fruit and so there are a lot of flowers to enjoy and a lot of food for the animals. Since figs are keystone food species is the Amazon, we stopped and cut open one of the fruits to look at its unusual flowering strategy. Instead of the flowers being on the outside of the fruit, the flowers were small, inconspicuous white flowers clustered inside the fruit. Pollination occurs within each fig by it is own specific fig wasp! These key specie fruit all year and so support 85% of the animals during seasons of low food. Pretty amazing!
On our skiff ride home we stopped at a local village that was flooded. We wanted to understand how the people adjust and live in a village during high water. The houses are all on stilts to accommodate the rising water. This year the water rose 33’ (normally 2-29’). Everyone lives on the house platform built on stilts and this platform must sometimes be raised as the water rises. Villagers get from house to house by paddling their dugouts as there is no exposed land. These particular families had sold their chickens and animals, although in past years I have visited houses during high water that have the chickens and geese living with them. This village had a number of dogs who were left swimming around from tree to trees to try and get out of the water. Many families were cooking breakfast or relaxing in hammocks. Soon we saw a flotilla of boats had surrounded us with women and kids hoping to sell us necklaces made from rain forest seeds. School is closed for the 4-8 months during high water but will reopen in the low water season again. How amazing to see how your environment controls everything about your daily life.
Dusk was descending so we once again turned our skiffs back to Delfin II. This was last night so we relished the night noises and birds returning to their roosts as we passed by. Once on the ship, we had a scrumptious farewell dinner followed by fantastic music played on local instruments by our ship staff. What a wonderful way to end a perfect day and trip to the incredible Amazon.
