The Rainforest (Part 1)

Just before lunchtime on our second day in the forest we had boarded our motorized canoe with Mario, our boat driver, and Jose. We'd spend the next two and a half days navigating downstream on the Madre Rios river (a major tributary of the Amazon River) and upstream on the Manu River.

The goal of our first afternoon in the canoe was to reach our camp outside Boca Manu, the last village outside of the reserved zone.

Boating on the river, besides being the only way to travel so deep into the park in a short period of time, gave us an opportunity to see many more birds and animals that fed or drank at the river. We saw a large number of egrets, cormorants, terns, kingfishers, and the beautiful cocoi heron. Unfortunately, Mitchel's encyclopedic knowledge of the forest wildlife quickly out-paced my rather short short-term memory, so there are many pictures that I'm not going to be able to label myself...which is why I got his email address.