Probably not surprisingly, the humidity here is amazing,
almost 100% and it was very difficult to sleep last night.
We were woken at 05:30 for breakfast at 6:00 and ready to
set out at 06:30. We paddled across the
lake and no sooner had we left the shore we saw fairly large Caiman, a Red
Capped Cardinal and a Snail Kite; light levels are low post dawn so rubbish
pics.
After about 20 mins up a creek (!)
we came to a landing stage and walked about 15 mins through the jungle to the
observation tower. Built of steel it is
about 100ft high and a jolly hard climb – the steps are quite shallow so
there’s probably about 200 of them. It
was amazing to be above the jungle canopy but nigh on impossible to actually
see anything, let alone take pictures.
Andreas had a telescope (don’t know what range) and he and Hugo (our
indigenous, non English speaking guide) found a few birds for us to view
through it, but somehow it’s not the same as finding them for yourself either
with the naked eye or binoculars. We
probably spent about 2 ½ hours up the tower and then walked a different way
back through the jungle with Hugo describing how various trees were
traditionally used pre Spanish times.
A perfect illustration of the effects of high humidity.
A very fuzzy picture of our companions, I made the mistake
of getting my 2nd camera out whilst up the tower and didn’t wait for
the humidity to clear from the lens.
There were some Bullet Ants around, apparently so named that
their bite is so painful you feel like you’ve been shot. I wasn’t prepared to get close enough to put
some scale beside it but probably 1”
And this delightful lizardy thing which was obligingly
displaying.
We were lucky to see these Night (Owl) Monkeys which as the
name suggests are usually nocturnal but they watched us for a long time from
the safety of their tree.
Back
at base mid morning we had a short break before lunch (delicious) and them some
much needed downtime and whilst Ian was having a rest
I wandered around the lodge taking photos of butterflies, flowers and my
favourite leaf cutter ants.
At 4pm we were back on the water looking for any wildlife
but the jungle is so dense it’s really difficult to spot anything or take
decent photos, so here’s a couple of monkeys - Red Howler and Squirrel
These Hoazhin’s are very funny
creatures, their common name is Stinky Turkey and they remind me of pheasants,
the moment you get slightly near they take off
like a noisy helicopter and land a in another tree a few meters
away.
They’re nesting at the moment so
mostly are in pairs and they sit on a branch making this weird huffing
noise. We spent a lot of time watching
some Capuchin monkeys trying to steal the eggs.
This cute little thing is a Tagu, a smallish reptile, which
had probably climbed into a birds nest to steal the eggs and fallen asleep in
the sun.
Phew, better get this posted before I lose Internet yet again so probably lots of typos which I'll correct later!