Pete in the Rain Forest

On the last few days of our expedition, we had an awesome time in the Amazon Basin. We explored the Tambopata Natural Reserve. Although the weather was not great while we were there, we saw some amazing things. We woke up at 7 a.m. to look for the resident family of giant otters. We took a fifteen-minute boat ride up the river and then went on a half-hour hike through the rain forest. When we finally arrived it was raining, but that didn’t take away from the great scenery of the lake.

As we slowly floated across the lake in a catamaran, we saw many species of birds. The first that we spotted were hoatzins. These are birds that are related to cuckoos but are large and have a rooster-like shape. We also saw tropical kingbirds, belted kingfishers, and a black-collared hawk.

That afternoon five of us went on a self-guided tour of the jungle to spot some wildlife. We were looking for howler monkeys and tamarins since some had been spotted earlier. On the way back, we spotted three saddleback tamarins just outside the lodge. It was so cool to be so close to these tamarins. They were only ten feet above us!