5:00 am start on the boat to stake out the macaw clay lick. Really eerie waiting in the half light by the river alongside the jungle mountains to the otherworldly screams of Red Howler Monkeys (sweeping walls of sound that you would swear was thunder rolling forward over the hills, and which astoundingly come for the voice box of one lone monkey each time). But it started to rain torrentially as we waited so first real fail of the trip (macaws stay away in the rain). Spent until lunch playing uno and jenga with Ronnie and mucking about with the boat driver's little kids. After lunch headed by boat to an oxbow lake where Ronnie steered us around on a raft. Saw loads of cool birds with binoculars, including these huge "Watson" birds (which have no living relatives, have two stomach and regurgitate their food like cows, and are descendants of Chinese dinosaurs). At one point about five of them all congregated on the same branch and then three of them watched as the other two had sex. Dirty birds. There was also this other bird which mimics the sounds of about 80 other birds. One particular one must have been retarded though because he was going off like a pinball machine - making one different sound after another (I found him with the binos). On the half hour path going from the lake back to the river we saw fresh jaguar tracks that hadn't been there on the way in - so a jaguar might have been following us which scared the hell out of Jen.

It's also worth recounting some verbatim Yen conversation...

Jen: That's a strange sound? What bird is that?
Ronnie: That's a pigeon

And later

Ronnie; They're farming Golden Spiders now to use their web to make bullet proof vests
Jen: They must be light
Peter: They wouldn't just be using a spider web like this one Jen ...
Jen: I know, I'm not an idiot. Bit spider web would be way lighter than iron or whatever they use for them now.