Pacaya Samira National Reserve
The Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve was created in 1982 and is bounded by the Maranon and Ucayali Rivers. The Peruvian government invited the local communities to protect the reserve and has provided some resources to help; others come from NGO like the non-profit portion of International Expeditions (our tour company) and other tour organizations. Each year about 90% of the reserve floods. It has the largest stock of Pichi (largest fresh water fish) which causes a problem with poachers. Poachers take Pichi, turtles, wood, birds, etc. Conservation efforts help the turtle population as well as other anti-poacher efforts. One of the items exported from the park and surrounds is catfish.
There are 3 types of water in the Amazon: Black water which is high in tannins, but is otherwise “clear water”; Brown water which is full of mud and silt; Clear water which is from terra firm regions or mountain streams.
The different types of insect nests which all hang from tree branches: Ant nest which looks like brown beards; Termite nests which are rounded like brown sloths; wasp nests which are like white cylinders; and bees nests which look like vertical beards.
Some of the plant life we saw included kapoc (up to WWII the seed “fuzz” was used as filling for jackets) and henna (which the fruit is used as food, and crushed seeds are used as a dye). The lushness of the vegetation is amazing with brilliant green leaves complemented by white to red trees. We passed villages that still uses dugouts for canoes and the houses were thatched walls and roofs, often on stilts.
During our visit we traveled up the Pacaya River to Ranger station 2 or as it is sometimes know as Point of Vigilance 2. At the station we had a 35 minute jungle walk to a White Kapoc, which was considered the giant of the forest and a holy tree to the natives.
The Amazon is the largest river in the world by volume (the other top 8 added together makes the same flow), length (6275 kilometers) and delta width (240 kilometers). There are over 1100 tributaries that make up the Amazon River. The channel of the Amazon will move up to 30 meters during a season by eroding one side and depositing silt on the other. The depth even up in Peru (over 2700 km from the Atlantic Ocean) was over 22 meters, with a seasonal swing of 10 meters! During the normal wet season up to 90% of the land is flooded, only terra firma stays dry, but last year they went over their max by 2 meters. This flooded miles and miles of “high” ground and drowned many animals and displaced thousands of people to Iquitos. If you look closely at the trees you can notice the flood lines that are 8 to 10 feet higher than the current water level along the rivers (depending on your season of visit)
After years of disagreement between Peru and Ecuador, the river source of the Amazon was determined by calculating the largest volume & depth of the tributaries, which determined the source was the Ucayali river in Aerequipa at 1700 ft above sea level in the 1970’s, not in Ecuador.
Where the Amazon splits into two rivers (Ucayali and the Maranon) we took the Ucayali River up into Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve.
The terra firma forest being an area that never flooded was much different than most of the Amazon that we had seen, with much denser brush, much like what we are used to seeing in our forests at home. However this was a primary forest, nothing had ever been cut down which gave it a very different feel.
Read MoreThere are 3 types of water in the Amazon: Black water which is high in tannins, but is otherwise “clear water”; Brown water which is full of mud and silt; Clear water which is from terra firm regions or mountain streams.
The different types of insect nests which all hang from tree branches: Ant nest which looks like brown beards; Termite nests which are rounded like brown sloths; wasp nests which are like white cylinders; and bees nests which look like vertical beards.
Some of the plant life we saw included kapoc (up to WWII the seed “fuzz” was used as filling for jackets) and henna (which the fruit is used as food, and crushed seeds are used as a dye). The lushness of the vegetation is amazing with brilliant green leaves complemented by white to red trees. We passed villages that still uses dugouts for canoes and the houses were thatched walls and roofs, often on stilts.
During our visit we traveled up the Pacaya River to Ranger station 2 or as it is sometimes know as Point of Vigilance 2. At the station we had a 35 minute jungle walk to a White Kapoc, which was considered the giant of the forest and a holy tree to the natives.
The Amazon is the largest river in the world by volume (the other top 8 added together makes the same flow), length (6275 kilometers) and delta width (240 kilometers). There are over 1100 tributaries that make up the Amazon River. The channel of the Amazon will move up to 30 meters during a season by eroding one side and depositing silt on the other. The depth even up in Peru (over 2700 km from the Atlantic Ocean) was over 22 meters, with a seasonal swing of 10 meters! During the normal wet season up to 90% of the land is flooded, only terra firma stays dry, but last year they went over their max by 2 meters. This flooded miles and miles of “high” ground and drowned many animals and displaced thousands of people to Iquitos. If you look closely at the trees you can notice the flood lines that are 8 to 10 feet higher than the current water level along the rivers (depending on your season of visit)
After years of disagreement between Peru and Ecuador, the river source of the Amazon was determined by calculating the largest volume & depth of the tributaries, which determined the source was the Ucayali river in Aerequipa at 1700 ft above sea level in the 1970’s, not in Ecuador.
Where the Amazon splits into two rivers (Ucayali and the Maranon) we took the Ucayali River up into Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve.
The terra firma forest being an area that never flooded was much different than most of the Amazon that we had seen, with much denser brush, much like what we are used to seeing in our forests at home. However this was a primary forest, nothing had ever been cut down which gave it a very different feel.
