Pink River Dolphin Season — Amazon

About this spectacle

During the Amazon dry season, the mythical boto — the pink river dolphin — becomes dramatically more visible as receding floodwaters concentrate these animals into narrower channels and isolated oxbow lakes. Visitors at the Mamirauá Floating Lodge drift through flooded forest at dawn, watching the distinctive pink and grey bodies surface and roll through dark tannic water surrounded by towering ceiba and rubber trees. The calls and splashes of dolphins echo across the still morning air, often accompanied by the cries of macaws and hoatzins overhead. Schools of fish forced into confined pools attract dolphins in numbers rarely seen elsewhere, and at close range their pale, almost translucent skin and flexible necks — so unlike marine dolphins — create a genuinely otherworldly encounter. The flooded forest itself adds sensory depth: the smell of wet vegetation, the chorus of unseen insects, and the silence between surfacings.

When to go

Jun — Nov, peak Jul — Oct

Getting there

Nearest airport: MAO. Nearest city: Tefé.

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