It was a beautiful, clear, and peaceful morning on Cedro Caño as we took to the water before breakfast in skiffs and kayaks to greet this first day of spring. A light breeze, cooler temperatures and the morning jungle symphony welcomed us to the day. This creek showed the hazards of not moving too fast—lots of water lettuce (manatee food) starting to grow across the creek like it does on some lakes. No manatees in this creek, otherwise the water lettuce would be kept under control.

After our usual delicious breakfast on board, we headed out again—this time to a local village, Flor de Castaña. Here we walked around the village of 500 people and learned about their daily activities. One group saw the cassava root being cooked to make Fariña—a tapioca-like way to store the root for future use. Another group stopped into a local house to see how Masato (“jungle beer”), a drink made from fermented cassava, is made. So many uses for cassava! The children were one of the highlights of the visit. As we walked through village, the younger children who were not in school wandered with us. Eventually we went to the high school and interrupted their math class to stop in, meet them, share gifts we brought, and trade some songs.

In the late afternoon we had some fun and rare sightings from our skiffs. We saw saddle-backed tamarins, scarlet macaws, a white-throated toucan, and an unusual sighting of a woolly mouse opossum. We were just about past it and the keen eyes of our skiff driver somehow picked out a small ball of brown fur hidden in a leafy bush. This opossum was easy to identify by a certain blue body part it had, to keep this rated G, no more will be said here.

Our final event for the afternoon was something some of us had been waiting for, rain! (How can you come to a tropical rain forest and not have rain!?) We had been surprised at the amount of sunshine and blue skies we had seen for the past few days. But by this afternoon we were realizing the downside to all that sun. Heat and humidity. But, the climate here has a nice way of regulating itself. And by late afternoon the clouds were building, and then they let go. It was fun to be in the skiff in the pouring rain, especially listening to it approach, and then seeing/feeling just how hard it could rain.