I have been on many launchas, but this is the most crowded launcha I have ever experienced. There are people, chickens, dogs, canoes, and piles of cargo everywhere. We are constantly stopping to let people and cargo off and on the boat. As soon as one person takes down their hammock, a new person springs from the shadows to hang a new hammock. In many places there are hammocks hung on top of each other to save space. There are also people sleeping on the floor, and on benches along the edge of the boat.

Last night I awoke to birds squawking near my head. Men stacked 4 crates of Macaws and Amazon Parrots a few feet from my hammock. It is illegal to harvest birds from the wild in Peru, but people do it anyway. These animals are destined to be sold in markets, like the Belen Market we visited last week. Seeing these wild animals taken from their natural environment and sold as pets is very sad.

Last week, your responses to the Daily Dilemma provided some great feedback on the illegal pet trade. Everybody commented that they thought it was wrong for animals to be taken from their families and displaced from their habitat. Mrs. Whitney's class responded that, "If animals are removed from their natural predators, overpopulation could take place in the new environment." Student-explorers have had very good ideas for lots of difficult issues. Keep it up!

The launcha is full of new sights, smells, and sounds, but we are ready to leave the launcha and begin our journey by canoe.

The seasonal floods have come to the Amazon, and many of the villages we pass are flooded. During the high water season it is hard for the launchas to go up-stream against the river's strong current. A trip that takes 2 days when the water is low will take 3 or 4 days because of the strong currents caused by the rising water.

However a slower trip is a small sacrifice. When the river floods, it brings nutrients into people's gardens. Many of the trees in the lowland rainforest also rely on the flooding to help them grow and reproduce. The seasonal floods play an important roll in the flooded forest, so spending a little longer on the launcha is OK with me.

The votes are in, and you have decided that we should travel into the flooded forest and study the animals that we encounter this week. When we leave the launcha we will purchase canoes, and paddles, and then we will travel into the jungle to look for animals.

Keep exploring!

Dave

Join us for this weeks Chat on Wednesday, April 12th from 9 AM to 10 AM (CST). Please remember to log your class into the chat room on one computer. We recommend using an LCD projector to project the Chat Room onto a wall so the whole class can see the screen.