It is our second full day of discovery in the Upper Amazon and today Delfin II is right next to the riverbank surrounded by massive trees; birds can be seen and heard, pink and grey river dolphins seem to be catching fish around the stern. From time to time you can see their dorsal fins surfacing. Our guests try their best to capture the moment with the tools of exploration, aka cameras. The Amazonian jungle is one of the most incredible places for photography but it can be challenging, so day by day our travelers are improving their skills in how to tell a story with photographs.
Early in the morning after breakfast, we boarded our skiffs for transportation to Amazon Natural Park. This is a private reserve where pristine primary forest is protected. At our landing we were met by parakeets flying above our heads. We walked for few minutes and then boarded small catamaran canoes to get across a mirror-like lagoon surrounded by a very green and tall forest. Once we made it to land, we were right in the forest, rich in sounds and colors. Our naturalist spotted a very well camouflaged tarantula at the foot of a tree; we got to see it from very close and got great photographs. Not too far away somebody found a very colorful frog near a little creek and then a three-toed sloth – no matter where we looked the place was teeming with life.
In the afternoon we visited Nauta Creek, a minor tributary of the Marañòn River. We went to look for wildlife via skiffs to the interior of the forest. The most obvious creatures were squirrel monkeys behaving as if they were trying to observe us and not the other way around. As we continued our journey along the river back we spotted amazon king fishers, terns, herons, flycatchers and hawks and as we prepared to come back, a few terns started to fish right next to our skiffs, pulling living fish out of the river so close that many of us got sprinkled by a few drops of water from the catch of the day.
What a fantastic day in Amazonia, the largest rainforest in the world.
