AMAZON - DAY 3

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AMAZON - DAY 3
Saturday, August 21st

Today was to be an even longer day, so its a good thing we both slept well... in our mosquitoe netting. I should say here that so far we have not been bitten by any insects, inside or out, with or without insect repellent. Thats not to say there are never any mosquitoes, just that we apparently didn't encounter any. We woke up quite early again for a cruise down river to watch the clay licks that the macaws especially like to use every morning. They have a sort of blind set up across the river from the clay licks so we don't disturb them. The rules of the blind is that you have to arrive by 5:30am and depart no earlier than 7:30am. We sat there for a long time waiting for the birds to land and start "eating", but only saw a small flock at the farthest downriver lick. All the clay licks are actually quite a ways away, so you're not likely to get any good photos, but a decent pair of binoculars will let you see them just fine. If you can manage to get a camera set up right in front of a monocular, you can get an ok photo. When 7:30 arrived, the show was over, so we headed back up stream to another of Expediciones Vilca's locations to have some breakfast before heading into the jungle to look for monkeys. Even our breakfast "on the run" was very good, consisting of a tasty fruit oatmeal, hamburger patties, and french fries, and of course the ever-present hot coffee or hot tea. After breakfast we hiked quite a ways up into the jungle, but only spotted one like capuchin just before leaving the area. We returned to the lodge for some down time before lunch. After lunch, we were supposed to hike out from the lodge to try to find wooley monkeys, but Manoli was a bit tired and decided to stay in the cabin and spend some time looking for rocks along the riverbed... her favorite pasttime. Silly me went ahead and trekked with our guide two hours, up hill all the way, then ran back downhill to get close to the lodge before dark. Unfortunately, all the hard work going up and knee-wrenching running down and we never spotted a single monkey. I should have stayed with Manoli. When we returned at almost 6:30pm, The guide wanted to take us and the new couple from England that had arrive late that morning, to try to spot some caimans in the lagoon across the river. We all got in the boat and went across the river, then hiked for what seemed like hours, to get to the lagoon. After waiting 30 minutes or so and not spotting anything, we returned to the lodge for dinner and bed.

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