Friday morning

 We will post two blogs today, because the morning boat ride deserves an entry all its own.  The schedule for today was: breakfast at 5:00, on the water by 6:30, returning about 10:30 when it would start getting really hot.  Then lunch and an afternoon boat ride from 3:30 till dusk (about 6:00).  But as you'll see, we stayed out a lot longer this morning, and we'll be heading out at 3:00 because the viewing has been so good.

Our morning started with a pod of giant river otters (different from yesterday's den) fishing alongside our boat.  They hunt collectively, but once a fish is caught, that otter treats it as his sole property.  We learned that the otters immediately bite the tail off the fish so that it can't swim away if they drop it.  The crunching noise while an otter ate his (Large!) fish was amazing. We saw several new birds this morning (we are up to 150 species so far), a green iguana and a lot of sunbathing caiman. 

We looked for yesterday's jaguars, but while other boats got a fleeting glimpse of them, we did not, so we continued exploring. We found a pair of Paraguayan Howler monkeys (unlike other types of howlers, these show sexual dimorphism with the males black and the females burnt orange, a bit like gibbons).  Then we saw a troop of Capuchin monkeys jumping through the trees and snacking from an "ant tree", a type of mimosa with hollow trunks that are often home to small biting ants. We watched a caiman catch a fish, but he didn't choose to eat it in front of us. 

By then it was about time to turn around and head back -- but we found a howler mom with a small baby nursing, and then riding on her back.  About halfway back to the lodge we saw boats waiting in the river (and not at a known fishing spot) -- yup! Jaguar.  First two cubs, larger and older than yesterday's, resting at the top of a vine covered bank.  It was fun to watch them swat deer flies and decide where was most comfortable to rest (which was also a great lesson in their camouflage skills).   Then their mom joined them, and we got a real appreciation for what a large cat this is!  She went for a dip in the river (unfortunately hidden by the vines) and then all three of them sunbathed for a while.  We didn't want to leave until they did -- hence the extra hour-plus to our morning ride.

Six jaguars, including four cubs, in our first two boat rides (and in less than 24 hours).  Our guides are as floored as we are!