Day 5, Tuesday, September 10th; Oxbow Lake nature trip & No Monkeying around

This section will be our afternoon and it involved a different activity full of photos and Lana finding two capuchin monkeys outside of our room which led to photos and a video.

Venomous spider on a log while on our hike back to the lodge from Oxbow Lake. 

This is our second activity of the day and my second favourite activity given the hike, canoe and all the flora (plants)/fauna (animals) we saw in the jungle. We left around 15:00 in the sun and returned in the dark. 

Belly Palm tree. They call it a belly palm tree as halfway up it balloons for a while like it is pregnant. Dennys is pointing to that part of the tree. It is a very weird looking tree. 

This is a famous Walking Palm tree. Yes, palm trees can 'walk'. It does not move perceptibly, but over the course of a year it will indeed move. Wow! 

Termite nest.

Naked tree. Called that because of its bark or lack of bark. 

This is an Ironwood Tree. One of the very tallest tree species in the Amazon. Plus, it is home to Macaws. 

Rubber tree. I tasted the sap that appeared after Dennys cut into the tree bark. Very gummy!

Watch out for the Army Ants!!!!!!

We entered the national park at this point to access Oxbow Lake. As you can see from the signage there are a lot of restrictions here for visitors. 

Oxbow Lake although in about 10-15 years it may no longer exist. The grass is growing in the lake and the water supply is cut off from the river channels so it is gradually drying up. This is too bad as there are so many creatures that use the lake to survive. For larger animals that would be caiman, anaconda snakes, large catfish and electric eels. 

This is a longer distance picture of a Tiger Heron. They are hunting for fish and are very patient. 

A particular Tiger Heron decided to become our buddy and hitched a free ride on our canoe. 

We even through pieces of bread right near the bird and it still never caught a fish. It simply tried to stab the occasional small fish and was never successful. Oh well, he was a good boat mate. 

We were given pieces of bread by our guide to toss into the water and watch the various fish attack. The smaller silvery fish were Sardines and the quicker larger fish were Piranha. Wow, all these smaller fish were pretty quick. The water colour was pretty brown so not great visibility. We did not see any of the larger predators.

On our way to the lake Dennys came across some super gigantic Cicadas! These insects are super loud just as they are in Canada and the USA. Except, they are 10x the size here. They can take 18 months to emerge as a full grown from deep underneath the ground. Around the lake there were birds called Mealy Amazon Parrots. But, even louder than those birds were the Hoatzin birds who make asthmatic noises like they cannot breathe. Very eerie noises. 

Hoatzin birds on a tree. 

                                                            More Hoatzin birds. 

We docked our canoe on the far side of this very small lake and on a short hike to see a giant Kapoc tree. These trees are softwood and called the "Mother of the Jungle" by Indigenous tribes. These trees can live to more than 800 years old. This tree was around 65 metres tall!

Very hard to see the actual top of this gigantic tree. 

                                                         Damn tree taller than me!

Close up of a TARANTULA SPIDER.

Can't remember what was in this photo? Finders fee.... Ohhh, I believe it is a Toad. 

Venomous Cobra Snake. 

OK, on our way back in mostly the dark, we came across a number of creatures inclusive of huge Bullet Ants, Cobra Snake, Toad, many Fireflies and of course the Tarantula which had some babies scurrying around. Pretty fantastic walk through the jungle at night finding all sorts of fauna. We eventually returned around 18:30 and it is still hot and muggy. Very tricky walking on the trail in the dark even with light as the tree roots can make for a good fall. 

While our group was doing the Oxbow Lake experience, Lana was back in our room recovering from al the sun and humidity so was not up to this activity. The bonus was that while she was resting in our room some Brown Capuchin Monkeys decided to hang out right near our room. She got a great video and some pictures. Where else could you be in a lodge and find monkeys like this?

Lana's Capuchin Monkey Video 

A good reason for these curious monkeys to be staring into our room is that Lana had taken off all her clothes to lessen the heat so maybe her nakedness was of primary interest?

                                                               Stare much, monkey?

This frog was on our mirror when we returned from dinner. 

Bottle of famous? "Inca Cola" which tastes exactly like Cream Soda. 

So much was accomplished today with the two activities. We were scheduled for a post-dinner activity, but everyone bailed as we were all tired and beaten from the sun and moisture. For Randy it was 16,300 steps today so I got in my 10,000 plus steps.