The sun rose to find us bobbing around on the main river on our pre-breakfast skiff ride. Early in the morning is as cool as it gets and the mosquitoes are not too bad. Evening is the mosquito happy hour when you really need to cover up. Except in some places, deep in the forest which appear to be thick with mosquitoes any time of the day. Our morning ritual, before breakfast, now included mosquito repellent and sunscreen. Out on the river, the trick is to keep moving. Stay in one place too long and the little biters will arrive. Keep moving, every few minutes and everything is fine.
We met a raft drifting down the river. Three guys on a home-made construction of logs tied together. They were on their way to Iquitos. Tied at the front of the raft was a large net full of catfish that they had caught. A small motor on the back was to stop them drifting into a bank. After several days drifting down the river with their catch, they would be able to sell the fish and sell the wood they built the raft from. Then they would take their net and other possessions, head back upriver on the ferry, and start again. For now, they were sitting on the raft watching the world drift by.
After breakfast, we were back in the skiffs and heading up a small creek. First thing we saw was an iguana. This was a green iguana, amazonian cousin to all the iguanas we saw in the Galapagos. Further on we spotted some tree houses. Apparently, these are available for rent. This looked wholesome fun. A room high in the treetops. For me, however, on balance, I’ll stick with the air-conditioned cabin. Next, we saw some brown titi monkeys. This is not what our guide called them. Unfortunately, I cannot recall what he said so I used Google. This is what Google calls them.
There was a group of Kiskadee nests hanging from a tree and a sloth doing some sort of slow, strange early morning sloth exercises. Our guide shouted to stop the boat and back up. There was an anteater. This surprised me on two counts. First, I never expected an anteater to be up a tree. Secondly, I could not see it. Eventually, I took several photos in the indicated direction and then zoomed into them on the camera screen. Sure enough, there was an anteater, up a tree, in a dark corner. It looked to be asleep. How our guide spotted it is beyond me. Amazing. On the way back we saw a classic green parakeet and some more proboscis bats. These look like so many little scabs on a tree trunk until you get really close to them.
In the afternoon, we went to visit a village. First, we went to a pond with giant lily pads on it. Victoria Amazonica can grow leaves up 3 m in diameter. This impressed me and also brought back a memory. I had seen this sort of lily before. After pondering where I might have encountered a bit of Amazonian jungle previously, I recalled looking at giant lilies with my mother. This was many years ago at Chatsworth House, a historic stately home in the Peak District. The lilies date back to Victorian times when people cared little about invasive species but were very keen on impressing their nobility friends with the exotic plants they could grow.
In the village came the inevitable presentation of craft goods which we looked at politely. We also looked at a partially built canoe, sugar cane press made from a tree trunk and some macaws. Very brightly coloured birds which, we were assured, were not pets but simply chose to hang out round the village. We also found an annatto tree. Locals use the bright red colour from the seeds of this tree to paint themselves so that they will look fierce. As well as a strong colour, the seeds also have a slightly nutty taste. This is why they are used, in the UK, as the colouring agent in Red Leicester cheese.
