We woke up to rain and had to push our visit to the canopy walk back to around ten. Our guide pointed out purple heart trees, leaves that are used to cure malaria, and vines that contain gallons of water. Walking through the canopy was awesome and we finally got to experience the true height of the canopy trees. We missed out on the opportunity to see most of the wildlife because of the early morning rain, but we saw a Guyanese white faced monkey on our way out of the forest. We got back in the truck before lunch and drove south towards Rupununi. As we drove through a valley, the Rainforest suddenly turned into savanna, the skies opened up and the trees grew smaller and smaller. The savanna gave us great views of the mountain ranges. A beak in Annai provided us with fresh coconuts and many of us tried coconut water for the first time. We drove for about five hours on rough roads until we got to Yupukari.
The Caiman House has a great view of the savanna and the Rupununi River Valley. Mike, Alice, Rafe and Fernando greeted us at the gate and got us settled in our rooms. They guys stayed in a banab with hammocks and mosquito nets.
On Thursday, we spent the day working on our research projects and touring Yupukari. In the afternoon, we went on a three hour hike around the valley and got to see the Rupununi. We are not able to easily see caiman because it is the rainy season and they are further up the smaller tributaries. Some of the guys jumped in for a quick dip in the river. Once we got back to Caiman House, some people took off to play volleyball with some of the kids in the village. The night was spent playing mafia with Roop, who guessed the mafia just from making eye contact with all of us.
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