Friday, May 18: Ceiba Tops on the Amazon:

 Breakfast at 7:30 - nice variety of fruits, cereal, eggs etc and the fun of watching the staff luring the macaw out of the rafters. and through the door. using pancakes as a lure. It obviously happens almost every day.

 Then 8:30 meeting with our guide, Cesar, and a couple from Portugal and Spain for a boat trip on the Amazon. It was an open 18ft boat with an outboard motor. Unlike the trip from Iquitos in the larger boat yesterday, we weren't asked to wear life jackets.

 At one point we pulled into an inlet, walked across a short distance to another flat-bottomed boat in a small lagoon.

There we saw hugh water lily pads with beautiful flowers.

 

 

 

 

On the way back to our boat we were met my a local family and their pets - a 3-toed sloth and a red-tailed boa constrictor. We had fun with the sloth - I swear it smiled at me - but the boa didn't seem too happy and we gave it wide birth.

 

 

 From there we went to another small inlet where we spent time fishing for piranhas. Among us we caught 11 - Larry, the other lady and I each got one, and the guide and boat driver got 8 between them. The Spanish man was unsuccessfu,l so is supposed to buy a round of pisco sours.

Much of this took place on a tributary of the Amazon, perhaps the Nanay. Its water is very black from the tannin in the leaves that fall into it at its swampy source compared to the brown Amazon. Where they meet we could see a marble effect of the 2 colours.

Along the way we saw many local people paddling boats, their houses along the shore, several very interesting kinds of birds, and some gorgeous flowers.

We returned wind-blown and hungry for the piranha catch that will be part of our lunch. The piranha were very good - cooked and delivered personally to our table.

At 2:30 we're off to an Yagua indian village. The first activity at the village was to paint our faces with a fruit that was like paint. We had stripes that were most attractive. Then we went inside a large thatch TP-like structure and danced a ceremonial dance with the villagers.

 

Finally the elders demonstrated the use of blow guns and we both got to try. I actually hit the target some 50 feet away!! Then we shopped for local handicrafts
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On the way home we stopped in the river to watch pink dolphins. We were lucky enough to see them several times as they surfaced for air.

The other people on our trip were a young couple who lived very near Laura & D'Arcy in Oakville, and a woman who is a medical secretary on a French Island [ Réunion ] just off Africa. Back at the cabin we had to spend some considerable time scrubbing the face paint off ourselves and our clothes. 

All Photos 18 May