This young caiman was cavorting with a whole mess o' turtles in the Chagras river just past the dining patio at the Gamboa Rainforest Resort. We saw adult caimans here as well, but they didn't pose for me.

This was the (voluntary) resident caiman at the Esquinas Rainforest Lodge, idling his time away in a pond just outside the dining area. The lodge staff put up a "Caiman Pond" sign and named him Lorenzo (don't ask me why). They overfeed him with scraps of meat from the kitchen, and he is one fat and happy caiman. The lodge manager told us that about six months earlier he vanished one day, and only reappeared three months later. Our guess is that he went off in search of lady caimans to woo with his flirty smile. But he did come back, because he knows a good thing when he sees it.

Here is a complete list of the species we found on this GreenTracks trip.

Black caiman were extremely common at Mamirauá; we must have seen at least a hundred in a few days, always floating in the water. So-called Common Caiman were much harder to discover. We saw this one basking near the edge of Lake Mamirauá late one afternoon, but this is the only individual we saw in four days.

Here is an account of the four days we spent at Uakari Floating Lodge in the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Reserve.