Adventures in Peru: the Amazon, part 3

Every meal we had a different kind of freshly squeezed juice. Here we had cocona (peach tomato). Did I mention how amazing the food is at Otorongo Lodge?

Oscar and Jill with the resident toucan, who is quite fond of nipping at people's heels.

On our second night we went looking for pink river dolphins, which I was skeptical about--yeah right, and then we'll go find some unicorns--but sure enough, we saw plenty of them. They're much larger and not nearly as graceful as gray river dolphins, and when they die they're no longer pink (don't ask us how we know...ygggh!)

Anyway, Oscar told us this local legend about the pink river dolphins: the Dolphin King sometimes steals a woman and takes her down to live with him in his underwater palace, or some such. As the sun was setting Kate, Jill, and Oscar went for a swim in the river, and we had a nice big laugh at the thought of Jill getting spirited away by a big pink dolphin.

(Unintentionally artsy-fartsy. Kate took this one, and a lot of other photos I'm posting. She and Spencer have really nice cameras--Spencer's especially--which made me realize just how stinky mine is. I know what I'm asking Santa for this year.)On our third evening we walked to the nearest village. The people there live very simply--most of them basically live in shacks--but they seem really happy.  Everyone was out and about, chatting and playing bingo and soccer and volleyball.  They only have electricity for a few hours in the evening, so at six o'clock when the TV in the grocery store switched on, some people came over to stand in the doorway and watch.  Most people stuck with their games though.

On our last morning we went looking for gray river dolphins, and saw a few more pink ones too. This family of fishermen had such a huge catch that we motored over so Randy could help them haul it in, and Oscar showed us a catfish and vampire fish that had gotten mixed in with the others.

Next post: back to Lima!