We had another early wake up call. This time to go out and search for morning
wildlife which apparently less than half the tour decided to do. We saw a real lot of birds almost immediately
after we left at about 6am. The birds were right past the ranger station we had
to check into. There were herons,
cormorants and all sorts of other creatures.
We sailed through a less used branch on the river and we found more
different types of birds too numerous for me to name including hawks and
buzzards and other more attractive creatures.
They brought us to a location where we were able to see some monkeys in
a tree. They apparently were owl monkeys and I got some really good video of
them if you don’t mind the shaky camera.
I think the videos came out a little bit better than the pictures. From the monkeys we turned around and headed
back to the boat where we had a breakfast immediately. They were cleaning our
room so we didn’t have a chance to do much else.
At breakfast I had pancakes, 2 kinds of sausages and bacon.
I had toast with peanut butter, pineapple juice and coffee too. They had
something called maple syrup for the pancakes but I am sure it was not real
maple syrup. The food was good though
the pancakes were a touch dry but that is probably from sitting in a buffet
warming tray. After breakfast we had a
chance to get to the room and relax for about an hour until it was time for the
next excursion.
We left for a morning of piranha fishing after the brief
siesta. They brought us out close to where we already did the nature search
earlier in the morning but in a different branch instead. We found a shady spot
and they gave us small fishing poles which were switches that had line and hook
attached to them. We used small bits of beef for bait though apparently the
locals typically use fruit. The trick is
to slap the water a little first to get their interest then lower the bait in
and try to hook them with a quick snap of the pole. I started a bit slow but I
managed to catch 8 fish in total though one was a river sardine instead of a
piranha. There was a Canadian guy on the boat who caught 10. He was a lot closer to the bait and to the
guides to have his fish removed from the hook. Anyway we were more successful than
the other boat. The captain tossed some
of the fish to have the fisher hawks get them and we watched them snatch a
couple from the water. We fished until
the bait was almost all gone and even the Polish woman caught a fish finally
then we did a half hour further of sightseeing up the river before heading
back. On the way back we saw a tree that
was filled with monkeys but it was far off. I hope video shows some evidence of
them because pictures wouldn’t.
After the return to the ship we got cleaned up quickly and
had lunch. This time I had rice, beans, a little bit of salad and chicken
stuffed with cheese and ham baked. I
didn’t want fish for lunch which the fish they had was done in a passion fruit
sauce. I was ok without that. They had a fruit jello or pudding dessert
that was quite good too. After lunch I
packed into the room to try to catch an hour of sleep before showering. I
didn’t do so good unfortunately at sleeping.
After the brief siesta it was time for a lecture about where
we went during the trip then a bit more about the Amazon with our guide Juan
Carlos. From there it was get dressed
and we moved the skiff about 5 feet to get off onto the shore to the village of
Santa Cruz where we brought school supplies bought from passenger donations to
the children there. They had to answer questions or do things to get the
supplies. It was cute of course with all the kids trying to answer. I loved
Juan Carlos’ military drills for the children.
We spent about an hour doing that then we got back into the skiff and
headed to the confluence of 3 rivers the third being the actual Amazon. We had been on the source of the Amazon all
this time and this ride took us to what is officially the Amazon if only for a
few minutes. The sun started to set as we were out there and Juan Carlos told
us to bless ourselves with the water. We
had a small stall while trying to get back to the ship but we made it. We got a few minutes to get cleaned up then
it was on to music time again.
The pictures from day 7 are located here.
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