Sunday, March 10, 2013.

We turned in by 10 pm and arose quite early due to the light.  We had done our stretches (somewhat truncated by space) and dressed before the six am wake up call.  The MV Aqua is traveling south but upstream on the river towards its birthplace at the conjunction of the Ucayali and Maranon rivers. 

Our route of travel will be from the Enapu Wharf in Iquitos up river on the Amazon River.  From the Amazon we will turn on.  We will proceed up the Yarapa River.  Due to the high water season we will be able to navigate a water way connection to the Maranon River called the Marayali Canal.  We travel on the Maranon to the Yanayacu River and the Pacaya Samira Reserve.  We enter the Pacaya Samira Reserve on the Yanayacu and travel to the Pucate River.  Again the high water will give us a passage way not available in the low season  back to the Maranon.  On the third day of our excursion we will make it to what our guides call the birth of the Amazon, the junction of the Maranon and Ucalyali.  The actual headwaters of these rivers are far upstream but this is the juncture where the name Amazon River is born. At this point we proceed up river a way and then back tract to Nauta where we land to get a land transfer back to the airport.

I realize all these river names without a map are meaningless and dizzying .  The take a way point should be that the Amazon basin is full of rivers and at least during the high season, many are interconnected.  We will spend most of our travel on a river other than the actual Amazon because they are more interesting.

The Amazon has a dry and a wet season but I have read it rains as much in one as the other.  Our guides disagree and since they have lived here all their lives I will go with them.  Another way to think about its is a low and high season.   In the low season the river occupies its banks and access to the jungle canopy is difficult.  In the high season the river level rises as much as 40 feet and spreads out into the jungle the source of all this water is the melting of the Andean snows from November to June.   It is the wet season now and the river is high.  The river we are seeing is quite muddy and we are told that the river contains over 18 dangerous microbial parasites including amoeba and giardia and other microbes that make it dangerous for all but the locals who have immunities to these risks.  (Presumably anyone who did not, died a long time ago.) The ph is about seven or neutral presenting a favorable environment for microbial growth.  On the other hand some of the tributaries such as the Yacaba are quite high in tannin content, black in appearance, acidic with a ph of 4 or below and relatively microbe free.  I hope to go swimming and I think I will prefer the black water tributaries to the Amazon itself. 

The river is constantly changing course.  As it goes around bends, it washes away the outside of the curve and deposits the sediment downstream at subsequent bends.  In this way it meanders but never widens.

For our morning excursion we boarded the specially constructed out board powered skiffs (there are three) with two rows of single seats and a capacity of 10.   We noticed another boat being towed and discovered it belonged to the tourist police.  There was a police officer on the boat the entire trip.  I was not sure if he was protecting us or protecting the Amazon from us. 

There are 15 passengers on board and we were told to expect another two to join us mid day of the first day.  There are the four of us and eleven others, including: Ian and Patti from England a childless couple in their mid-fifties and recently retired.  He was an aeronautical engineer and she a retired administrative assistant for the town council.  There were three Australian couples, one, Brett and Ann Marie, from Sydney, and two couples from Perth.  Finally, there is a family of three – mother, father and daughter – from Avon Colorado.  I did not learn much about them except the daughter is a student at the Colorado School of Mines and the couple – no older than their early fifties – are retired.  I just do not get this retire in one’s fifties business and here we had two such couples on this trip.  The two women in the couples for Perth were fraternal twins and did not look at all alike.  One husband was an engineer who had gotten into heavy equipment sales and the other a nice but goofy health sciences professor type.

We were lucky with our skiff assignments, sharing the boat with the English couple and the couple from Sydney traveling alone.  He is in the commercial concrete pouring business in Australia and the British couple are race car aficionados which works for Ben.

The excursion consisted of heading up river in advance of the Aqua and stopping for sightings of wild life.  Right out of the boat we saw a pod of pink fresh water dolphins.  Several thousand years ago, the Amazon flowed to the west and was connected to the Pacific.  The pink dolphins came in from there and somehow learned to adapt to fresh water.  When the South American uplift that created the Andes occurred the river reversed course and flowed to the Atlantic from whence came the grey dolphins.  These are large mammals and are virtually blind.  However they have very good sonar systems and are guided by what they hear.   We saw yellow-headed vultures, a tree iguana and a couple of tree sloths. Here is a picture of one of the tree sloths:

We returned for breakfast and then returned to our skiffs.  In the early morning outing we had Ricardo for our guide and for the mid morning we had Daniel.  Daniel was born in a little village up river from Iquitos.  When he was 8 his father got a job with an oil company and they moved to Iquitos.  To do so, his father had to fashion a raft that could withstand the rapids up river on which he put his whole family and such possessions as they had for the float to Iquitos.  In this way Daniel’s life changed.  He was able to get a good education.  He also learned about the river from his father and grandmother the ecology and natural lore that gave him an opportunity to enter the tourist industry.  He is fifty, has been a guide for 23 years with other tourist related jobs for 10 years before that.  He may be more knowledgeable than Ricardo, but his English is not as versatile.  He occasionally fails to understand questions guest posit, answering a different one.  He is however delightful and enthusiastic in the best guide way.

Our afternoon excursion consisted of more river exploration.  First we went to the junction of the Yacaba River and the Amazon and an eddy that contains lots of giant lily pads.  Here it was possible to see many pink dolphins and try to photograph them.  From there we explored the byways of tributaries seeing spider monkeys, tree iguanas, other monkeys as well as several hawks.  Especially fortunate, we saw two tree sloths that are very well camouflaged.  We found a propitious looking area and stopped to fish for piranha.  Having only a pole with a hooked line and beef for bait we tried our luck.  We were fishing in an eddy covered by green water plants.  The technique was to beat the water with our pole to create sound for the piranha and to open a hole through the vegetation and drop the line in the affected area.  Apparently piranhas are also sound navigators.  Neither Ben nor I landed any piranha although I hooked three large ones, losing them in the air as I tried to bring them aboard.  I have to assume something about my post bite technique fails to fully set the hook.  Caroline on the other hand was a champ catching and boating two or three.  Gail landed a small one, as did most if not all of the rest of the boat.  It was fun.  We were met by a number of canoes from a village nearby that, spying us, came out to sell us their handicrafts.  Gail purchased some items but neither Caroline nor I were moved to become purchasers.

Back at the boat we showered changed and set down for an Italian lunch of Amazonian pizza and pasta.  It is really amazing that this small (but admittedly elegant boat) has such fine food.  Now I am seated on the upper deck pecking away at these notes and Caroline is trying to take a nap.  I see that the final component of our contingent has arrived (I only just spied them so no report yet on what they are and what they are like)

After our rest we headed out again.  This time with an extra guide and the remaining two folks of our group we broke up in to smaller groups.  On our skiff were the four of us and the couple from Sydney, Brett and Ann Marie.  Our guide was once again Daniel.  Our goal was to explore the Nauta Creek tributary to the Amazon, a black water stream about 20 feet wide with a two mile per hour current.  Not what we would call a creek at home but apparently one here.  First we had to sign in at the ranger station.  The ranger had two scrawny dogs name for the former President Toledo and his wife.  They hopped on our boat as we picked up the registry book and drifted in to the shade for all to sign.  Returning the registry and the dogs we headed upstream.  The first excitement was sighting a large tarantula swimming across the creek. We stopped and all get good photos of the tarantulas.  For some reason Daniel thought it was a good idea to bring the creature on board for close up pictures.  We all nervously snapped more pictures and we handed off the tarantula to our comrades in another boat.  Moving on we saw termite mounds, ant mounds and wasp nests.  We saw a pair of macaws and two parrots.  Both of these species are monogamous mating for life.  They both were in pairs today.  We snapped many photos but unfortunately the light was behind them and the clarity was impaired.  We also saw several species of monkey and a red-throated caiman sunning himself on a downed tree log.  After exploring the river for two hours or so we came into a large lake where we met our colleagues and tied the three boats together.  We all wondered why our bartender Robinson would have come along, but now it was revealed we were being offered sundowners on the lake.

As we finished this repast, the sky became threatening.  The crew and guides passed out ponchos and turned for the run for the boat at least 30 minutes away.  Just then the heavens opened up and a torrential downpour resulted.  The ponchos were high quality but could not completely protect us from the rail.  It pelted us in our faces as we motored back with the guidance of one light and experienced drivers.  We returned at 7 and had until dinner to dry out.  The crew collected our drenched clothes and took it to be dried.  It had been returned to us by our return from dinner.

Dinner by the way was another tasting menu format.  We began by cocktails in the lounge and then adjourned to the dining room. We began with an appetizer that looked like sushi but was catfish and rise.  The wrapper was like a banana leaf but we were told it was inedible.  The appetizer was a plate that had avocado, shaved heart of palm, a little potato, a little tomato and “monkey nut” creamy cashew butter.  The two entrée was grilled catfish and a puree of a sweet fruit. Mine had chorizo and Lina’s had mushrooms.  The second entrée tasting was for me exquisitely grilled peach of beef and for Caroline it was sautéed vegetables.  The main desert was a cream brulee like dish that seemed pudding’ish under the caramelized sugar topped with halves of a grape like berry.