A jungle walk and a sunset cruise

This morning, Terese and I both woke late so we had to leap out of bed and have breakfast straight away. Our agenda this morning was a ride down the river to the Grand Lagoon and a hike for 2 or 3 hours in the jungle.
This, to me, was a little disappointing. Pedro showed us a few medicinal herbs and we heard a couple of toucans in the distance. Otherwise there was little sign of life. It is either necessary to go much deeper in to the forest to see more animals and flora or my expectations are too high having watched all those David Attenborough programmes in which he finds all sorts of amazing things! It may also, of course, have been that we were just unlucky.
We met the canoe at a different point to the one at which we had started, and went for a swim in the lagoon before going back to the lodge for lunch. The water, this time, though, was quite cold in patches and not as warm as it had been the other evening. It was so hot and sticky that I, for one, gave no thought to the creatures that might be lurking beneath me! It was also a lot easier to get back onto the boat now that I had had some practice.
The afternoon was spent lazing in a hammock, reading, which was a very pleasurable way to pass the time.
In the late afternoon, we set off in the canoe once again and out on to the Grand Lagoon. On the way we were lucky enough to encounter some pink river dolphins. They are quite elusive as they spend most of the time underwater, just coming up, periodically, for air when they are desperate. They do not leap out of the water to the same extent as other dolphins I have seen so it is difficult to see their entire bodies.

Nobody wanted to swim this evening, so we waited in the shallows until it got dark and then went on the cayman hunt once again. It must have been our lucky night as Pedro found a black one and a white one close to the banks of the lagoon. I use the term ‘saw’ fairly loosely though, as the white one was just a splash, too close to the boat for my comfort, and I had trouble distinguishing the black one from the surrounding branches.

On the way back to the lodge, Pedro also spotted a boa constrictor lurking in the trees. He found all of these creatures by shining a torch along the vegetation and looking for eyes reflecting in the beam. The driver chopped the branch of the tree, complete with snake, and they brought it into the canoe. I happened to be sitting at the front and I can say that it is a little disconcerting having a branch containing a boa being waved in front of your face!
The evening was most enjoyable and I, for one, would not have been disappointed if we hadn’t seen any animals as it was quite beautiful being out on the lagoon at that time of night.