Kathy's Travels: Earthwatch... the Amazon

We left the city of Nauta and began our boat trip down the Maranon River. The river, an extension of the Amazon River, was wide and brown. There were boats of many kinds carrying bananas or travelers to the city of Nauta or Iquitos. After many hours we came to the Samiria River, our destination. Here the water turns black and calm. The tanins from the forest vegetation turn the water black and the surface becomes a mirror, reflecting the forest on the banks. This area is protected as a reserve so we had to check in at the park entrance and obtain permission to proceed. Once in the Samiria there is no commercial traffic, only the small dugout canoes of the locals. We spent the night at the first stop and then continued for the next day to stop number two, where we spent the next week and a half. Our ship, the Ayapua, remained docked and each day we took auxiliary boats on excursions to do wildlife surveys.
We did Bird counts of Water Birds and Macaws. We counted species and numbers of birds that we observed as our small boat drifted on the river.
We went fishing and counted weighed and measured the species of fish we caught both on fishing poles and in the nets.
We observed River Dolphins and counted them and recorded their behavior as we floated on the Samira River and the small channel that led to the Tuna Lake.
We went on walks on the land in the jungle observing and counting the land mammals we encountered.
We boarded the boats at night and searched by lamplight the shores of the river for caimen. When we could we captured and measured the caimen. At night we also looked for and recorded Fishing Bats.
Each evening we returned to the ship and recorded our findings on the computer, showered and visited the bar to compare our findings of the day. At seven we had dinner and a debriefing of the days events and maybe a lecture or movie. We signed up for the next days excursions and by nine, exhausted we retired to our rooms.