Wednesday, May 29, 2024
We feel a little bit like we are at adult camp here because while the days’ activities are all different, the daily structure is the same.
Breakfast is served at 6:30 every day, so we got up about 5:45 or 6. Nathan opted to take a shower, but since the water’s solar heated, I decided to wait until midday before lunch. That turned out to be a smart decision.
Breakfast was again coffee, tea, juice, eggs or omlettes, with bread, jam, fruit, yogurt, cereal, ham, and cheese. I had the scrambled eggs with ham and cheese, and Nathan had everything which also included tomatoes and green onions.
At 7:45, we gathered for our morning tour. Francisco took Greta, Nathan, and me for a canoe trip through some narrow tributaries and then to the local village. We saw a Noisy Night Monkey, a pink dolphin, micro bats sleeping on a tree, a fishing spider, and a lot of the same birds as the last two days. Even the bugs here are colorful and interesting. Multi-colored blue and red dragonflies, iridescent grasshoppers, and gigantic, but not black, crickets.
Francisco slowly paddled us up a narrow and dark tributary of the Yanayacu, and then we turned around and paddled down the Yanayacu River toward the local village that Muyuna supports.
Francisco showed us around the village. It was right on the river, but on slightly higher ground. The center grassy area is for volleyball and soccer. The buildings and homes built around the grassy area are on stilts. Francisco showed us the school, discotheque, jail, which is more like a wooden drunk tank, the Catholic church, and the professor’s house. At the end of the tour, we were given the opportunity to buy handicrafts from the local women. Each lady has their own stall, and Francisco encourages us to spread our purchases out between the stalls and not buy everything from just one lady. Nathan and I each bought two items.
From the village, we hopped in the waiting motorboat, and towed our canoe back to the lodge. We got back to the lodge at about 11:15, and lunch was at noon, so I showered and we got ready for lunch.
Lunch was fish, spinach salad with apple & sweet peppers, rice, quinoa, and fruit pancakes. A few people are leaving today, including the couple from LA we’ve been chatting with, as well as Greta. From this afternoon onward, Nathan and I do not have to share our guide Francisco.
We had until 3 pm to rest and prepare, and we both sit on our bungalow’s porch. Across the river from our porch, we can see capuchin monkeys in the trees trying to open fruits by banging them on the branches of the tree. Nathan took a snooze in the hammock, and I sat on the loveseat and wrote.
By 3 pm, we are dressed in our rubber boats and have backpacks ready. We hop in the boat with Francisco, and motor up a small tributary. We get out of the boat and go for a little hike. We saw red howler monkeys, more squirrel monkeys, anaconda holes, which I hoped was Francisco pulling our leg, and a family of capibara. By 5:30, the mosquitos were coming out, and darkness was falling, so we motored back to the lodge.
Dinner is served at 7, so we went to the dining room and enjoyed happy hour and our camu camu sours. Dinner was a chicken, rice, egg and olive mixture served steamed in a local leaf of some kind, with squash soup, plantains, beans, and a marmalade crepe for dessert.
After dinner, we got ourselves ready for a night canoe with Francisco where we saw wasps, bats, a snake, jumping sardines (one in our boat), two types of frogs, while listening to dozens of types of frogs as we gently floated down the river by the light of our headlamp or no light at all.
