This morning was sunny and the warm sunrise was spectacular. At 7:45 a.m. we took our skiffs to explore the Iricagua Creek, a minor branch of the Ucayali. The morning was full of surprises; the early bird gets the worm and indeed, we did it! Birds were very active and we spotted macaws, parakeets, and the black throated toucan, which is one of the biggest in the Amazon forest. A red squirrel came down along a thick tree and behind it, some monkeys were crawling very fast looking for fruit. To complete our excellent journey, we saw a few woodpeckers knocking the trees and drilling holes in search of some food. We also spotted roadside hawks, laughing hawks, and couple of beautiful black-capped herons on the branches close to the black water. Really, we didn’t move much. Instead, we kept the skiff in a very small area and stayed quiet, then all the wildlife came out in front of our eyes.
After the astonishing morning we had, we took time to relax and enjoy activities on board such as talks and lectures given by our local experts.
In the afternoon, we went to explore one of my favorite places in the Pacaya - Samiria Reserve, Belluda Creek. This spot is famous for macaws perching on the branches of dead trees. These trees are hollow and give a perfect refuge for these birds. As soon as we got there we saw many of the blue and yellow macaws preening themselves and warming up. Red shoulder macaws were also there, a couple of them were mating, giving us a unique experience.
Along the creek we saw many types of birds, more hawks, oropendulas, caciques, flycatchers, it was awesome to see couple of monk saki monkeys, they stayed very curious on the top of a branch looking to us.
The jungle is a very complex ecological spot, we have learned about the adaptation of these creatures to different scenarios and changes, and each of them are always looking for an ecological niche to establish and survive. The dusk and the dark of the night came at the end of our journey, time to get back to our vessel! The stars appeared in the sky and on our way back our crew was waiting for us to say, “Welcome back on board! Hope you enjoyed another day in this paradise.” Well…we did!
