This entry is for Wednesday, December 24, 2025.

I woke up naturally at 4 AM and enjoyed my quiet coffee time as I had in prior mornings. This photo was taken right about 5:30AM.

We had a 6 AM departure on the skiffs.

We are in the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve and had to register with park rangers. Our guide, Jorge (of the jungle!) registered for all 3 boats.

Our first sighting of the morning was a falcon. I caught it just as it started to fly away below.

Pretty bird hanging out with the morning glories.

Not one but two Pygmy owls, which Jorge assured us was very rare.

We stopped in a swamp to look for frogs. Jorge over achieved and comes up with a baby tarantula. Do NOT watch the video below if spiders freak you out.

I thought the look of everyone looking for frogs was hilarious.

Giraffe frog.

I don’t remember what this one was called. Thumbs for scale.

All three skiffs pulled into an alcove of sorts and the staff brought out this incredible breakfast. That is two chicken sandwiches, a ham and cheese sandwich, a generic muffin, and a jar of fruit. That was supposed to be for one person. Ash and I decided to split it, but we did ask for an extra serving of fruit. And fresh squeezed local juice in the bottle on the floor. I don’t know what it was, but it tasted a little like grapefruit.

The entire gang at breakfast.

Random pics of me and Ash above and below. 

This looks very solid, but all of the greenery is just floating on the water and we drove right through it. 

There are monkeys in those trees in the distance. 

Tamarind monkeys. three of them actually which you can see in the very brief video. 

Really pretty grasshopper. 

We made a restroom stop here.

The next encounter we had was with three beautiful macaws. Actually, I think there might’ve been five in this tree, but I could only get decent photos of two of them.

Full disclosure: all of the photos which follow of these macaws are a little doctored on my end to highlight the colors. Because of where the sun was at, they were mostly in shadows, so I decided to get some help from technology. My excuse being, I can’t put in color that isn’t already there. But I thought if ever there was a time to do some photo editing, this was it.

One is in the top left, and the other is in the bottom right.

This little video shows some of them moving around in the tree.

Upside down!

This was the one bird I wanted to really see that we hadn’t seen yet so now I can check the box. 

Everyone who wanted to was prepared to go swimming in an area they had told us that was possible. Ash and I both passed.

But people were pretty excited to be able to say they swam in the Amazon. Although technically this isn’t the Amazon, but it is the region.

We got back a little after 11 AM, out for a full five hours. Lunch was at 12:15.

Lunch was a yummy chicken soup, pork loin with rice and vegetables, and like a banana crepe with a really nice chocolate and caramel drizzle.

After lunch, I had a 1:30 PM massage, which was excellent, and Ash took a nap. It is now 3:30 PM and he is still napping. Our next excursion is at 4:15.

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It is 6:30 PM and we got back about 30 minutes ago. Just a few things worth posting so going to try to get this done before dinner at 7.

The point of this video is the sounds of the birds. Never heard anything like it. Sounds electronic, like something out of Star Wars. Turn the volume all the way up. You won’t regret it. 

We had another sloth encounter pretty early on. This one was hanging upside down in the tree, scratching himself endlessly.

Look at that face!

On the left, you can see how ridiculously far away this bird was. But it was such a striking color you could see it with your naked eye.

There were a few other birds and monkeys, etc. just couldn’t get photos of everything.

We are relaxing on the deck, waiting for dinner to start. They have a special Christmas dinner planned. Ash is dressed accordingly. 

Dinner was heart of palm with like an avocado salsa; pork and turkey with your choice of sides; and apple strudel for dessert. There was also a passion fruit crème brûlée that we shared.

Next is a BBC documentary called River of the Sun, about the region we are in.

We may or may not watch that. Suddenly we are awfully tired!

We hope you are having a great holiday with loved ones however you celebrate.

Merry Christmas, everyone!