Peddling quietly off on our bikes at 5:30am, with Maddie in the pack, we went to meet our 4 new friends and then walk all the way to the end of town. It was quiet except for the odd person, up at this incredibly early hour, sweeping the streets or digging in his garden. We passed a huge mango tree that was absolutely deafening with the song of grackles and their variety of sounds.
There were more people out than I would have imagined. Shopkeepers starting their day as the dawn light was just bright enough to see. Just past the bridge, Abrahim and his ponga awaited. He took us out on the river and we spent a good few hours viewing the banks of mangroves, spotting the odd egret and then once we got up the river a bit, the bird life was stunning. Our driver, a young fellow, sweet and very knowledgeable and obviously in love with this river, pointed out and told us the names of all the birds. There must have been six types of herons, all kinds of birds I'd never heard of or seen; some nocturnal, some huge. Black eagles, buzzards, ones that sounded like monkeys, others that sounded like tigers, seriously. When the sun finally hit the mangroves, we warmed up a bit and then we couldn't keep up with the amount of life we saw. We headed towards the flood plain to the pink flamingo nesting grounds and upon approaching it, realized its grandness from afar. Every year the pink flamingos come back to nest on this bit of island in the middle of the flood plain at the end of the river. We navigated carpets of water hyacinths as fish jumped in the water in front of us, sparkling streaks of silver in the morning light. Maddie was intrigued and although it was her first time in a ponga, acted like she did this everyday. Eventually she just lied down and rested, comfortable in the company of everyone.
The flamingos were stunning; they say they are pink because of their diet of shrimp. All I know is that they are so beautiful and share their nesting grounds with storks (very funny looking) and black ducks, who make a very quick repetitive throaty sound, like Buddhist monks chanting in a hurry. It was a flurry of activity as the young flamingos continually bobbed up and down to show their mother how hungry they were. You could smell the ammonia from the guano depending where the breeze was blowing from. There was nothing but an island of birds, bright morning sunlight, the sound of Abrahims paddle plunking through the water and everyone was speechless and taking it all in. Sweet.
On the way back, we must have seen 18 crocodiles, about 4 of which were very very large. They usually shot far deep into the water as we approached, but some were lying on the banks and were eerily prehistoric looking. We spotted some tortugas aslo. In fact the whole scene could have been the setting for a movie set in the mesozoic period.
After the river, we went off to the beach and acted like crocodiles, doing nothing in the sun.
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