Lots of our time was spent cruising up the Amazon (south). There were many small villages tucked into the forest. Often we could see a just a rooftop, some smoke, or a stairway carved into the mud bank of the river. Occasionally we caught a cross decorating a church.
We viewed charcoal being made in a clearing and small gardens being tilled.
We had our chance at paddling a dugout canoe up a tributary. Thank goodness we were not expected to do this by ourselves, but the canoe owners were hired as the guides and main paddlers. Believe it or not, no one dumped themselves in the water.
The canopy walk was about 40 feet above ground and about 8 sections long. Only two walkers were allowed on each section at a time to view the varied undergrowth, steams, a tiny lake, and wildlife. My only wildlife was a beautiful, very large, blue dragonfly, but the last ones to walk caught sight of some rarely seen monkeys.
At the end of the walk an 85 year old native man demonstrated how the turpentine bark would burn and shed it’s liquid.
The cloud formations were always beautiful. I guess since it rains so much…nearly 9 feet a year, you can expect beautiful thunderheads and from clouds, you can expect beautiful sunsets, right? Yes!! Even though it rains a lot, most of the Amazon River water comes from melting snow pack in the high Andes mountains. The river level varies 30/45 feet during different seasons. This is why we saw houses built on stilts!! And we learned that the Amazon River basin produces 20% of the world’s oxygen, so we DO need to protect the rain forest.
All too soon our river cruise was over and we were flying back over the Andes to Lima and on to Cusco, the ancient capitol of the Incan Empire.
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