animals, Peru, South America, Travel, walking

Into The Amazon.

‘It’s just you and the creatures now’, said Juan Carlos as he waved goodbye. The air was loaded with sound. We could see nothing, but knew that life was all around us. We were at the last outpost on the Yanayacu de Yacapana River, at the start of our Amazon Refuge adventure. Beyond lay only jungle and watery veins of the Amazon.

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We plunged right in. A three-hour forest walk. Dense vegetation, vines and huge trees intertwined, orchids growing on branches, fungus eating away at bark. There were no visible pathways and only decomposing vegetation underfoot; a soft mulch of leaves, mud and rotting wood; creepers tugging at feet and ankles. The ground felt spongy, flexible – odd – like it wouldn’t hold our weight. Continuously looking down at my feet wasn’t conducive to animal spotting, and even when Wilder announced with an excited whisper ‘pygmy owl- beautiful bird, beautiful bird’, I had trouble seeing what he was pointing at. That man could spot a glow-worm whose light had gone out, at twenty paces. The heat was incredible. My clothes stuck to me like a second skin. Beyond hot, my face glowed tomato-red and perspiration pooled. Every step required effort. The mosquitoes however, were active enough, and our clothes quickly became pock-marked with tiny splatters of blood. Now the greatest sound echoing through the emptiness was the slapping of hands on flesh.

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Wilder was in his element, eyes sparkling, always laughing, his live-by line: ‘Anything is possible’. Part energiser bunny, part boy scout, part Crocodile Dundee, he forged ahead. We saw tiny owl monkeys with tan-orange bellies and huge eyes peeping worriedly beneath white brows; they stayed stock-still long enough for us to get a photograph; we caught glimpses of capuchin monkeys flying through the trees with the greatest of ease, scampering along branches barely more than twigs, and free-falling to boughs meters below; and merely smelled howler monkeys. All of our senses turned up a notch, the energy of the place palpable.

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The sun left the sky in a hurry, a man on the run, melting into the water, the trees, the land totally. Black-out. Until the stars appeared and fire-flies offered pin-pricks of light, pulsing, flitting, flashing, wrapping the forest in natural fairy lights. Time for a canoe ride. Oars dipped almost silently in and out of the black water. Trees nothing more than shapes. Ripples in the water. Birds flying overhead. And suddenly a huge splash. Wilder had managed to grab hold of a little cayman. It eyed us warily, waiting patiently to be returned to the water. After a while, Wilder thanked it, as he did all the creatures he handled, and let it go.

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Over the next few days he dragged an anaconda out of the water, caught piranha with a spear (‘good lunch for me today’, he laughed), and captured a tree boa. One morning he announced, ‘OK, now special looking for sloth’, and he almost ran sixty foot up a tree to bring one down. As he cradled it like a baby, and rocked it back and forth, the creature opened it’s long arms, splayed it’s legs, and looked totally content. When it was set back in the tree, it began to climb out of reach. Every move considered, graceful, and oh so slow. It stretched out an arm, and waited, moved a leg, and rested, blinked slowly, turned it’s head, and grasped a higher branch. It was like waiting for syrup to drip off a spoon, maddening and mesmerising. There were night walks (snakes, tarantulas and spectacular bugs), more boat rides, with misty morning starts when it was deliciously cool, glorious sunsets, hundreds of egrets scared into flight, filling the air with cotton-wool balls of white, and pink dolphins.

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The water, the jungle, the weather changed continuously. It was often uncomfortable, but always beautiful. It was four days filled with natural grace and wonder and a great way to end our stay in Peru.

Practical Stuff. 

We stayed at the Amazon Refuge – a 6-hour boat trip from Iquitos. http://www.amazonerefuge.com

 

21 thoughts on “Into The Amazon.”

  2. Wow! This gives me goosebumps, it is really amazing to go closer to the Mother nature. By the way, I just can’t stop thinking about how people managed to live in such atmosphere hundreds of years ago.

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  3. I think in many ways, Megala, life there is the same as it was hundreds of years ago. But I know what you mean. But then of course people would have been totally unaware of anything outside their own little bit of the Amazon.

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  6. What a character! And your writing really had me immersed deep in that jungle.. though now I’m happy to be back in the AC 😀

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    1. Thanks Leisbet. It was about five years ago now that we did this, but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. Although next time we’d probably go to the Galapagos Islands – we couldn’t afford to do both.

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  15. Wilder loved snakes, he dragged them out of the water, out of the rafters and out of trees. They’re not my cup of tea either, Nurul, but his enthusiasm was quite infectious.

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  16. Tracey, Tracey…would you believe it, I was just chatting with a gym buddy and she told me about her husband and her forays into the Amazon. I was immensely enthused by the sound of her travels — though not by the humidity quotient of the Amazon. And here’s your post which never fails to transport me to places far removed. I am going to make Adi read your post and shudder at the thought of the anacondas and tarantulas (stuff that dreams are made of). I do hope to make it there one day but I will have to up my mosquito-swatting game by then — though having grown up in India, I do pride myself on dispatching the little monsters to the next world with great efficiency.

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