We were out early enough to see the sunrise and I love this picture of a boat heading across the Sun.
We probably saw six or eight sloths in trees. They would point out a big brown spotted piece of fur toward the top of a tree and we’d all take pictures of it. They were very hard to see and because it was a sloth it didn’t move.
I have all sorts of pictures of trees and I’m sure there’s a sloth in it but I just couldn’t figure it out. Luckily, I drew this line on this one so I know it’s a sloth.
Now THIS was pretty creepy. We came upon this floating item with a vulture eating pieces of it. It turns out it was a dead cayman floating on the water. It was the one of the only Caymans I saw.
CLICK. We marched through a jungle following a trail about 12 inches wide. You were told not to touch anything. So it was a good core workout trying to stay on the trail without using your hands for any kind of backup.
At some point he had a hack his way through the foliage so that we could get through.
Since Amand was a survivalist as part of his job he was able to show us trees that would leak a milky substance you could drink and cut a chunk of vine off and pour up to a quart of drinkable water out of the piece of vine.
He also knew how to strip Palm pieces and make a tiara or weave it into something that look like a grasshopper. There were other pieces of trees he would strip and twist and could be used for strong rope.
CLICK. This was some sort of Hawk that I happened to catch on video.
Amand used his green laser pointer to show us specific things and I believe he was showing us a no old and a fresh claw mark from a Jaguar who was marking his territory.
This was the creepiest thing in the whole jungle. Giant earthworms are under the dirt and as they poop they push it up through their tunnels to stick out on top of the ground. The big gray balls are earthworm poop.
Before I knew what it was as I was marching through these tiny trails I stepped on it and thought I had stepped in the biggest pile of dog poop. UUGGHH! But as we walked it was impossible to avoid these blobs of mud and by the end of the walk my shoes look like this.
This tree is an example of why Amand told us not to touch anything. Boy that would hurt!
This was a very cool woodpecker working away on a giant hole in the tree.
Going to these waterways was like boating through the swamps of the okeefenokee park in Georgia. The picture of the tree probably has some animal of note — possibly a sloth. Good luck in trying to figure out where it is.
The hanging baskets are birds nests. Theey build it out over the water so that other animals can’t get to their eggs.
CLICK. To see the monkey with a baby flying through the trees
There were very few houses on the Amazon.
We stopped at a floating house selling local souvenirs and we walked on a very rickety Bridge out to see the Giant lily pads.
CLICK. The monkeys were darling.
The lily pads are huge and they have one main stem that goes down through the water up to 18 feet to the bottom for sustenance. Animals land on them in the evening, it closes up until the morning and because the animals flail around trying to get out, when they go to another lily pad they pollinate the second pad.
Our cruise was really a three day and a four-day Cruise. Up the Amazon for 3 days and then came back to Manaus. Some people only were on the three day and we had a goodbye dinner that evening and met the captain.
This was a fancy dinner served so that there was no buffet. Food was good enough that I didn’t have to just eat bread. The fish was their famous tambaqui that we had at our first restaurant in Manaus.