Above the falls, a sense that we’d entered a different version of the river and its forest was immediate and striking. The trees were shorter, smaller, and closer, the water nearly level with the shore, the wildlife even more bold and abundant. Flotillas of giant otters poked their wild-eyed faces out of the river while legions of macaws cackled and rasped, and every few hours we heard the screams of red-throated caracaras warning their rivals and laying siege to cities of wasps. Howler monkeys peered down from the crowns of the tallest trees while bands of squirrel monkeys raced along lower
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