Colourful mushroom

Mussaenda erythrophylla

Ixora red, flowers and buds

Ixora red

Go for it!

How sweet it is!

Heliconia butterfly on flower

Over water at Bosque Santa Lúcia yesterday

On the move - to another mango!

Hibiscus looking up and over the fence

Young tajá

Snail

Hamadryas Butterfly, 26 March 2016

Arthur Daniel Alexander

It was great having my younger son, Arthur Daniel Alexander, on the Regatta tour today.  Daniel is an employee of Amizade Global Learning in Pittsburgh.  His wife, Lais, will be bringing two groups of American volunteers to Santarém in April.  Thanks for joining us.

Cruise ship Regatta

Master guide Franklin Chaves led the group of 14 passengers from the Cruise ship Regatta to Bosque Santa Lúcia early this morning.  Thanks Franklin.  Great tour.

Dia Mundial da Água

Cruise ship MARINER

Clelson Melo, caretaker at Bosque Santa Lúcia leads our honoured guests from their bus to the Reception Center from where they will hit the forest trails.

Resting butterfly

Passengers from the cruise ship, Seaborne Quest.

Thanks for your visit to Bosque Santa Lúcia today.  A special thanks to guide Franklin, who is much appreciated as the guide who knows the Amazon, his own home.

Desert Rose

Beautiful upstairs and downstairs, the Desert Rose

Mandioca - Manihot esculenta

Improvised road signs at Bosque Santa Lúcia

  

Many stories are to be be told about the origin of this road sign posted at Bosque Santa Lúcia.

Heron of the night

Herons find safety for the night in the larger trees in Santarém.  Hundred of them, as a matter of fact.

Palm leaves

Young palm at Bosque Santa Lúcia

Pau Brasil - Caesalpinia echinata

We need it! How sweet it is!

Oropendolas

Hammocks for birds.  They swing about in the winds with the greatest of ease and safety.  Constructed by the female oropendolas.  Photo taken on road to Bosque Santa Lúcia. 

Palm trunk

Amazing dichotomy 

Cicada - exoskeleton - stock image

Pequeno Museu do Bosque Santa Lúcia

Stock - Gustavia agusto

Reception Center

Garage and entrance to Reception Center at Bosque Santa Lúcia - in greener days!

Rain, at last!

Jabuticaba

Poço Branco - Bosque Santa Lúcia

Distances

Distances from Bosque Santa Lúcia - Santarém - Pará - Brasil

Caladiums before the drought set in

Tajá

The drought continues

Assucena flower

Scarlet Ibis - Belém

Born dustless

Six months without a drop of rain on a dirt road produces a lot of dust.  This flower, Lilly family, is a "new-born", thus fresh and dustless.

Desert Tour?

Not a drop of rain since July of this year!  It's enough to make me cry!

Howler Monkey

The howler monkeys are screaming, where's thee rain?  Six months without a drop of rain.  At least the howlers are equipped to get away from the dust of the road and they find food in one form or another up in the trees.

Wild fig tree and fruit on the ground.

Footbridge reconstructed

The dry weather left our footbridge at Bosque Santa Lúcia high and dry, so we took advantage of the situation to reconstruct all 42 meters of it.  It's been ready for nearly 6 weeks but no rain to inaugurate the structure.  It connects the reception center to the main forested area at the Bosque.  There are times towards the end of the rainy season when the bridge is complely under water.  I've rebuilt it at least five times over the years.  This latest construction is the work of our caretaker, Clelson Teixeira ands brother Clei.

Drought

Ha!  Entrance to the Bosque Lúcia reception enter.  Funny how the picture looks like a black and white shot.  But in reality, it's in full color!  The dust has settled in to make it look like black and white!

Drought continues

I took this photo of the road that passes next to Bosque Santa Lúcia just day before yesterday.  Yes, that's dust ... and plenty of it.  It hasn't rained a drop since July.  There's some prediction that it might rain in the next week.  Please!

Muiratinga tree

No, it's not a pertrfied penis, it's a fallen branch of the muratinga tree.  What would appear to be the head of the penis is actually the socket of the branch that was embedded in the trunk of the tree.