Day One on the Amazon

Sunday, February 14, 2010
We arose early to a buggy humid hot morning just before a hazy sunrise and left at 6 am on a skiff on the brown silt laden Amazon River, where we saw many bird species and a three toed sloth. The Amazon is thick with mats of vegetation including water lettuce, water hyacinths and grasses and the trees bear the marks indicating the high water point. The trees are studded with bromeliads and air plants and vines run between the trees. We ran into 8 year old Jefferson, in his dug out canoe doing some early morning fishing. He proudly showed off his catch, which included a barracuda, piranha and catfish. We set off again on a second boat trip after breakfast and headed to the back waters of the Amazon, which are stained black like tea from the rotting tree and plant material. When this floodwater recedes, it provides nutrients to the soil. We saw iguanas and another sloth as well as some hawks. Under the shade of a strangler fig, we tried our hand at piranha fishing. It is over 100 degrees here with near 100 percent humidity. Sunscreen is a must! After lunch and a siesta, we set off in the evening, where we unfortunately got caught in a downpour. We saw a tree boa and more birds before our engine got clogged and we had to be towed back to the Aqua by another skiff.

Interesting Fact: There are both fruit eating and flesh eating piranha species. The flesh eating species can grow to approximately two pounds and the fruit eating type can get much larger.