Made it to the Border!

Amazonian Internet cafes have successfully killed my will to write long, verbose blogs and run on sentences. So I’m limiting this blog to a few bullet points and a bird list.

• We made it to the Brasil! Don now pauses frequently to scan the banks for the famed g-string clad Brasilian beauty. So far, he hasn’t spotted one, but I will update this status once we get to Manaus.

• The river dolphins continue to evade our photographic efforts, although we still see them frequently.

• A few days before arriving at the Brasil/Peru/Colombia border, we hit the confluence with the Rio Napo. For those of you who are a little rusty on your Amazon Basin geography, the Napo comes from Ecuador. Every river on the Eastern Slope of the Andes that Don and I used to guide on in Ecuador flows into the Napo, so it was special for us to see the terminus. We also particularly enjoyed the Napo because it had very good flow and help to carry us downriver.

• Peruvian bird list for all you bird nerds out there. The birds are listed in no particular order.

Neotropic cormorant
Great egret
Striated heron
Fasciated tiger heron
Jabiru (stork)
Roseate spoonbill
Andean swift
Swallow tailed kite
Horned screamer
Andean goose
Andean condor
Black vulture
Turkey vulture
Black collared hawk
Black chested buzzard eagle
Spix’s guan
Sunbittern
Salvin’s curassow
Chilean flamingo
Common nighthawk
White throated toucan
Lots of terns…just not sure which ones
Torrent duck
Cattle egret
Snowy egret
Black crowned night heron
Puna ibis
Yellow headed caracara
Osprey
Red throated caracara
Collared plover
Sandpipers–not sure which ones
Blue and yellow macaw
Blue headed macaw
White eyed parakeet
Parrots and parrotlets–tons of them, but very hard to identify which ones
Greater ani
Swifts–not sure which ones
Ringed kingfisher
Aracaris…again, not sure which ones
Emerald toucanet
Andean coot
Green jay (aka inca jay)
Crested oropendola
Yellow rumped cacique
Martins. Lots! Don’t know which
White-capped dipper

Ok, that is it until we hit Manaus. Bye bye Peru, viva Brasil!