Samiria River

 Friday, November 11, 2022

Last night we sailed for 12 straight hours to get to the starting point for this morning’s skiff ride on the Samiria River, one of the most pristine sections of the reserve. The local naturalists are familiar with this river but our trip leaders had never visited it before. In order to maximize our explorations (while avoiding the midday heat), we left at dawn and ate a picnic breakfast on the river with the three skiffs hooked together. The Samiria is a “black water river” meaning that it flows from the forest and is dark with tannins, rather than the other streams and rivers we’ve seen, which flow from the Andes and are brown and murky. The Samiria was also much calmer, with little visible current and much less floating debris. The gray river dolphins had a wonderful time playing all along our route.

Shortly after turning from the larger Maranon River into the Samiria, we found a pod of giant river otters, both in the water and out on the bank moving up and down to their den. Today was Toucan and Macaw day — we saw 4 species of the former and 3 of the latter. We also saw several groups of red Howler monkeys and our guide saw a Harpy eagle, which would have been amazing, but it flew off before the rest of us could see it. 

Pictured: giant river otters, white-throated toucan, horned screamer taking off, gray river dolphin