Amazon cruise day 5: deeper into the jungle

We start this day with a workout. I signed up for kayaking again, but they messed up the allocation. Alexis and I ended up on a canoe. These two persons torture devices are the true test to the strength of a couple's relationship. I do recall that every time we went on one together, we ended up fighting.

We didn't have time to fight on this ride. Alex, our guide, simply got us powering through the channels at a super-fast pace. Our Australian friend, Deb, just all but gave up and hanged at the very very back of the group. She said this was Olympic pace, and Australia certainly didn't win any medals. Honestly, she was right, we should have done the same. We probably would have enjoyed it more. Alex was trying to make us see otters and monkeys. But we saw nothing and because we were on a mission, we didn't really get to just enjoy nature peacefully either. I am going to be on Osmar group from now on.

And luckily the morning slow walking group was with Osmar. It was in secondary forest, the one that gets flooded half of the year. They are easier to walk through, not like the primary forest we discovered the past 2 days. We didn't even try to see wildlife, instead we focused on survival skills. We showed us 2 ways to light a fire and how to find dry kindling. He also made a bow and some arrows with wood, spines and lianas. With his machete and some leaf, he could imitate the sounds of some birds. He said it was interesting to do to signal others, but also to hunt.

We found some small purple orchids, and another type of purple flower that smelled divine! It was a fairly shorter ride than the previous days but very informative.

We pass out for the next 3 hours, how can we still be able to take these long naps is still surprising me.

It has rained while we slept, and when we start our launch excursion, there is that beautiful smell of wet dirt, of nature after the rain. It's a scent I really like. We don't really see anything new today, but the birds decided to get closer to the edge, so we could see them really well without binoculars and that made this outing really nice. Another particularity of this area was the smell of flowers. We didn't see any but at times, we would get these huge moments of beautiful floral smells. We looked at each other’s to ensure none were hallucinating, but we all smelled it.   There must be a concentration of a specific type of tree in these channels.

I have taken the habit of spending the hour before diner at the front of the boat to admire the landscape, the sunset and enjoy this moment of fresh air before night fall. Today, thunder is on the horizon and the bolts of lightning that we see are pretty impressive. I am unsure if we will escape this storm or if we will get right in it during our last outing of the day. Turns out, we stayed dry tonight in the launch.

It didn't increase our chances of spotting wildlife. We only saw one sloth, two cute sleeping birds and nothing else. A yes, a giant water spider inside the boat as we were disembarking.