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Preface
Preface
I know when I first wanted to go to the Amazon: I was sitting on a desk in Mrs. Young's third grade, pretending to paddle a canoe through the "jungle," pretending to see monkeys and macaws. Mrs. Young was not one of my favorite teachers because she was always trying to get me to write in script without curving my left hand above the ruled line, and I was always resisting. But that "trip" to the Amazon has always stayed with me, and when the possibility arose to go to the Amazon as part of a trip to Peru, I jumped at the chance.
Old Lady to the Amazon
Old Lady to the Amazon
In April, before our trip at the end of May, I found that if I was going to go the Amazon, it would have to be on my own; a group pretrip to my Andean visit was cancelled. But I'd been researching the Peruvian Amazon. My son had been there and said that he'd seen Explorama boats scooting all over the place, so I checked out Explorama, corresponded with its genial proprietor Peter Jenson, an American expat who'd run it for over 40 years(!). I committed myself to spending six nights on THAT part of my trip. I envisioned taking tours with others from the various lodges, but it turned out that Luis, a seasoned Explorama guide, met me at the airport and more or less took me in charge for the entire time. What luxury!
The heat was ameliorated to a great degree by the frequent trips out onto the water; there's nothing like a breeze in your face to cool you off. Seeing the rain forest from above the trees was an experience I'll never forget - but so was meeting a family in their carefully organized river home, and so was holding the sloth! at the giant water lily stop! I was lucky to be there in the time of lower water, when some of the river passages were low enough to go through. Brief rains came, and made things cooler for a while; there were certainly mosquitoes in abundance and other bugs, but in general bugs don't spook me, so I could just enjoy them.
I really can't be enthusiastic enough about the Explorama lodges and the way they're run. From the primitive one I stayed in the first couple of nights (ExplorNapo, whose wildlife extended from the charming capybara Charlie to the bats in the latrine) to the luxurious CeibaTops, where, after long hot days on the river, I could cool off in a pool or a comfortable bedroom; from the dark-night river exploration to the leisurely ramble across the suspension bridges of the Canopy Walk, they provided me with a wonderful adventure. The food was great, the visits to the villages and homes and school were very interesting, and I came to feel that, just a little, I understood what life must be like there.
The first lodge I stayed at was ExplorNapo, on the Napo River. I was taken, of course, by the handsome parrots and capybara, but of course the canopy walkway was the focus of my time there. It's fairly new, built in the '90s, well maintained, and really not very scary at all. There are 13 tall emergent-growth trees between which the suspension bridges have been strung; you climb to the first one and then ascend gradually to the others. It's quite hot, and hot on the walk through the forest getting to it, but I loved every minute of it.
A real highlight of the trip for me was visiting this local family, well organized and tidy in their subsistence way of life. I cherish the necklaces I bought from the mother, and remember the neighbors and their pig-dispersal gathering. Seeing people here who operate so much in the same way as villagers in Thailand, makes me realize how very little we need television, or cars, or telephones.
The Natives
The Natives
And now for something completely different: the Yagua Indians who live near the Explorama Lodge and whose elders will demonstrate their skill with a blowgun on the drop of a hat (or a sole). Their grandchildren who attend the high school nearby do demonstration dances to entertain the guests at CeibaTops a couple of nights a week. At the Explorama Lodge, there were great birds!
The rum factory, I'm told, has been around since the 1800's. It does look it!
The giant waterlilies were the occasion of our visit to this pond, but of course for me, meeting the 3-toed sloth was the big adventure. I mean, I can take anacondas or leave them, but SLOTHS... now we're talking. And this one was terrifically sweet and gentle.
As soon as we arrived on Monkey Island, the spider monkey climbed onto my hat. The several varieties of monkeys come out of the jungle because they are fed, but they are not in any kind of captivity. Most of the others are not so bold as that first one. They're captivating and gentle and curious about their visitors.
Each day Luis would arrange a couple of trips along the river to various points of interest. The river itself - the wide Amazon, the tributary of the Napo, and the little streams that feed into them, are teeming with life, human and animal and insect and of course, and particularly, plant life...
When we went ashore, into the rain forest itself, we saw ever more exotic plants and insects up close. We didn't see any snakes, though, except in the light of a flashlight in the dark dark nighttime rid. And we didn't see animals close enough to photograph, though there were monkeys high up in the trees, and we found the footprint of a tapir. The CeibaTops Lodge, which is billed as a luxury resort, comes close to really being one! What a lovely place to end one's stay! We took the Amazon Queen there from Iquitos before going off into the jungle, and came back on it as well, which was a pleasant ending to a lovely journey.
One of the highlights of the visit to the Amazon was the visit to the Ethnobotanical Garden. My English friends were surprised to learn that others before them had thought of finding value in Amazonian folk medicines.
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