Giant Otters in “El Dorado River”

It was a wonderful sight… giant otters in the Dorado River, at this time of the year… ! It was a wonderful surprise… not only for me… but for all those on board…! Steven one of our guests had just been asking about them the day before… and I told him that it was very difficult to get a sighting of them at this time of the year…!

We were spotting a group of macaws that were flying around us, they were coming out of huge tree making an enormous din, it was around 5:30pm., the sun was getting ready to set, the colors in the sky were starting to dance, it was that time of the day when you feel that the sky is starting to get ready for a wonderful party, all the colors beginning to change from a shinny turquoise, clouds changing from cotton wool white to a blush orange and getting stronger every minute… a wonderful palette of colors from yellow to purple developing under our eyes, and under this colorful awning we were silently looking at these eight macaws, who were noisily flying around.

I think they were searching for the right spot to spend the night, this majestic Lupuna tree, was spreading its arms letting them chat around, they were noisy, it was quite a concert... then Juan Luis distinguished a different sound, we all saw movement in the water… but thought the sound came from more pink river dolphins, we had been watching them feed at the point where this beautiful river merges with the Ucayali river, they had been quite active that afternoon, there must have been lots of fish.

Well, coming back to the movement in the water, we were in this small lagoon very near the giant water lilies, “Victorias Amazonicas” the biggest in the world! When suddenly we saw the master otter, he was with his family… there were 3 adult females and 3 pups, this group of 7 was a wonderful sight, the master otter saw us and was not that happy about it, he started to make loud noises to scare us showing his wonderful chest in a very male expression of strength, the rest of the family just curiously surfaced their head and steered towards us… freely… without shyness… they seemed to ask… Who are you guys? they are the noisiest specie in the Amazon waters and distinct vocalizations have been documented that indicate alarm, aggressiveness, and reassurance... They were heading back to some small underground den near to the river shore or creek where they can feel secure and their cubs safely away from predators... (humans) the male continued approaching us, in no uncertain terms trying to warn us to keep a distance, which we did... However we enjoyed the wonderful experience of this sighting, the giant otter family swimming free and happy back to their domain…

At this time of the year, with the water levels so high it is quite hard to spot these animals, they are usually sighted in the dry season, when the water level is low, and fishes are trapped in small creeks and lagoons, but at this time of the year we have never seen them before so it was a great gift from the Amazon to us…

Its distribution has been greatly reduced and is now discontinuous. Decades of poaching for its velvety pelt, peaking in the 1950s and 1960s, hugely diminished population numbers. The species was listed as endangered in 1999 and population estimates are typically below 5,000 in the wild. SO it great to look at them… just take a glimpse…

The Lupuna

I love local legends I am always talking to local villagers to tell me their stories, but someone that they have really experienced, not only the ones you read about, someone that they have personally experience or someone close that they know….

I was waiting for some guests who were visiting the local school and I was just walking around looking for different plants, then Rosa appeared, we started talking and chatting, I asked about that wonderful and huge tree we saw far inside the jungle, the one that rose on top of every other else….Oh.! She told me that is the Lupuna…..and here´s her story…

The Lupuna is a tree found in various parts of the Amazon. Is one of those beautiful giants of the Amazon, imposing and well rooted in the jungle soil. Its truck can be as wide as 10 mts. (33ft) when given the time to grow.

The Lupuna distinguishes itself from other tropical trees because of its “belly” a part of the trunk that is wider than the rest and bears some resemblance to a human abdomen. He is the proudest tree of all; he displays his large arms on top of the other canopy trees and always goes further up in search for the sun.

It´s spirit is also widely known to be a protector of the rainforest. Unfortunately, it is not entirely safe from deforestation, local loggers and lumberjacks are very careful about which Lupuna to cut down, because if they choose the wrong one, the tree will take revenge...

There is a local story that I was told in one of my visits to a local community. It was about a woman who still lives there. One day this woman was hiking through the jungle and felt a basic human urge. She squatted down near a big tree and relieved her bladder. She returned to town unaware of what was about to unfold. At nighttime her stomach began to hurt and swelled up to painful proportions. The discomfort kept her from sleeping that night and throughout the next day.

She looked for help, talked to the local shaman, who asked her what she had been doing when the pain started. Has she, by any chance, urinated near a Lupuna...?

The poor woman confirmed that, the shaman explained that the Lupuna was punishing her for showing disrespect.

“The only solution is to ask the Lupuna for forgiveness otherwise you will die”……he said.
With these words he went on his way looking for the moody Lupuna. The woman waited in agony, hoping that the shaman would succeed in his mission. He found the tree according to her description and spent the night at the Lupuna´s feet, carrying rituals and asking the powerful tree for forgiveness. He took a knife and carefully cut the Lupuna´s belly and took some of the juice that trickled from the wound.

In the morning he returned with this potion and told the punished woman to drink it.
Almost immediately the swelling and agonizing pain subsided.

By the evening she was up on her feet again, good as new and with a very important lesson learned…..!

You have to be careful in the Amazon Jungle, everything is very alive, even though you don´t believe in all this local legends but they exist because of something, we have to show respect for all the spirits of these wonderful place and always be aware that this legends mostly try to protect the forests.

A new tale about the Mysterious Pink dolphin

I was waiting for some guest in the local Yanallpa Community; I was talking to a local woman who was drying up fish and just chatting about her life.

“I would like to know more about the pink dolphins, I told her…..do you know any story from your village to tell me about…? and she told me….well I know a real story that happened here while I was a little girl…it was about Cecilia…..my mother’s very good friend…..

“The people here have a belief about the “bufeos colorados” (pink dolphins). They live in our world, but they also live beneath the water in a more beautiful world…..is a underwater world…an enchanted place, where harmony rules, one so beautiful that once you know it, you will never want to come back……we call it “Encante”. The bufeo is boss of this magical world and he has many magical powers too”…..!

Here lived some years ago a very beautiful girl called Cecilia. She used to wash her clothes in the rivers shore as all of us do. One day a bufeo swam by. He saw how pretty she was. He appreciated how hard she worked washing the clothes. He heard her humming a pretty song…..
The girl didn´t notice the dolphin. Day after day he swam by, hoping to see her and hopping she notice how much he liked her, but she didn´t…. She was thinking of other things…weeding the garden…making stew for dinner… she thought about her husband, a young man who worked in the forest.

One day her husband went to the forest to work. Sometimes when he went away he stays months in there..

But this time he came back that very night, and she was glad. He brought her lots of different beautiful fish –some she has never seen before- she made a tasty stew and the couple had a feast.

Very early in the morning though, Cecilia´s husband left. He came back that night and bought her more delicious fish. Things went like this month after month. Then one day, when her husband came home, he didn´t bring any fish. “Why don´t you have any fish tonight, my husband…?" she asked. Her husband was surprised. "I never brought you any fish"... he answered amazed... “Why.? I have been away in the forest for almost a year.”

What had happened…?

So the husband went to the “village shaman”. He is a combination of a natural doctor and a priest. He knows how to make medicine from the jungle plants to cure sick people. He knows the spirit world of the jungle. He can hear the voices of plants and animals, of fishes and dolphins. Sometimes the plant spirit tells him how to heel people or how to make special medicine. Sometimes the animal spirits tell him where to hunt to find food. And sometimes, the dolphin’s spirits reveal secrets about the beautiful underwater world of the Encanté –only a world a shaman can visit- after a special ceremony asking them for permition.
In a trance, the shaman visited the enchanted underwater world kingdom, where there was music, dancing, feast and festivals. Caimans and catfish, otters and arauanas, piranhas and pirarucus, all danced together in a peaceful world of plenty –a world ruled by the magical pink dolphin-.

The shaman met the dolphin who had fallen in love with Cecilia. And he found out what happened…

“The pink dolphin has powerful magic”….he said….lonely for Cecilia´s love, each night the pink dolphin left his watery world behind. Each night when her husband was away, the dolphin had come up on the land and magically changed his shape. His flippers turned into arms, his tail into feet. The dolphin transformed himself into the very image of Cecilia´s husband. Dolphins are humans, you see…-my local friend told me-… they are not that different after all.

Can pink dolphins change into something else…? Are they really magic…? Just then a pink dolphin showed up to help us answer those questions…

Perhaps these “encantados” really are magic, there is so much still to learn from pink dolphins…they are so beautiful and so mysterious….and when they trap you under their spell...you will never stop being fascinated by them… so you try to search for more and more stories about them.

I wasn´t going to write about this story….but I´ve just read a book by Sy Montgomery, that is called “Encantado” and I found the same story in her book…so I said to myself…well why don´t you tell the same story….it is shared by more of one people that does not live in the jungle….so I hope you enjoy it as much as I do….