Amazon Adventures
Waken the Senses

By Jim Johnson

October-November 2000

At ExplorNapo Lodge, each room has a bed with a mosquito net suspended overhead and tucked in on all sides. A pitcher of water and a metal basin for washing sit on a small table. A kerosene lamp perches on a small shelf. There’s no electricity, no running water, no flush toilets. Showers are cold, since river water is pumped each morning to fill gravity tanks. It’s 110 miles to the nearest town—about four hours down the Amazon by the fastest boat, the only means of getting there other than by foot.

As my friend Patricia and I arrived, a small group walked past us laden with gear. Mud, sweat and residual plant life clung to their clothing. "Ah, civilization!" one member exclaimed.

We’d come to the right place.

We’d been met at Iquitos Airport by our guide, Cliver. He would stay with us and be responsible for us until we returned to the airport nine days later. On daily excursions by canoe, boat and foot, he would point out animals that challenge the imagination like poison dart frogs, pink dolphins, three-toed sloth, monitor lizards and Jurassic-like hoatzin birds.

As we sped downstream by launch, we watched Amazon life that would soon become familiar: fishermen casting and pulling their nets, clusters of thatch-roof huts, dug-out canoes laden with bananas. Every ten minutes or so we passed a pamacari—one of the thatch-roofed water taxis that chug up and down the river—filled to capacity with bananas, chickens and people. Along the banks, children climbed down steps carved in hardened mud to wash, do laundry and wave.

We could see about a mile across the river to a vague silhouette of trees. "That’s an island," Cliver explained. "We’re not even in the main channel. The river’s about three miles wide here." At its mouth, 2,300 miles away in Brazil, it’s more than 100 miles wide.

We turned up the Napo River, one of more than 1,000 tributaries that feed into the Amazon. As we entered the river, its tannin-stained black waters swirled with the mocha, silt-laden waters of the Amazon. Soon, we came to the narrow Sucusari Stream and, after a series of bends, to a row of thatch buildings on stilts—our home for the next several days.

The launch docked and Cliver gave us the low-down: At night, keep a flashlight handy, in case the kerosene lanterns can go out. Stay to the wooden walkways to avoid snakes. Indeed, the fer de lance—a viper—was more venomous and more aggressive than a garden-variety, friendly American rattlesnake; it would actually chase its proposed victim for several hundred yards. Quickly. I made a silent vow to keep to the walkways.

The first jungle trek

We changed from airplane attire to jungle gear and met Cliver for our first trek in the jungle. After a few steps, I looked back. I couldn’t see beyond the curtain of green; we were already in dense rainforest. Cliver walked deliberately, and we stopped frequently. The trees were filled with birds. Cliver rattled off the species: white-throated toucans, ivory-billed aracaris, black-faced tacnises and spangled cotingas. We heard a crash in the undergrowth and watched a juvenile agouti—sort of an overgrown guinea pig—disappear into a blanket of palm fronds.

Cliver stopped again and pointed: A troop of monkeys—black saddle-back tamarins—was making its daily commute across the Sucusari River to dine on mangoes. Barely 20 feet away, they looked at us with curiosity. Their faces, bright white, carried the impassive look of mimes.

We shifted our attention to the ground as Cliver bent down and pointed. We saw nothing. He formed a cup with his hands and gently closed them. As he opened them, we saw a frog that almost glowed with red, blue and yellow markings.

It was the first of dozens of poison dart frogs we’d see—the kind that look about the size of a fist in nature magazines. In fact, they’re no bigger than the nail on your pinky. And no, people don’t die from touching them. But get a batch of them, boil them in water, and simmer away most of the fluid, and you’ll have the ideal coating for a blowgun dart and enough toxin to fell a bird or monkey. Among the nearby Yagua Indians the practice is still common.

We found the surroundings so foreign that adjectives don’t suffice; it’s easier to compare: tarantulas the size of cantaloupes, a rodent the size of a sheepdog, a termite nest the size of a beer keg, a monkey the size of a tea cup, piranhas with teeth as sharp as…well…piranha teeth.

The hike barely scratched the edge of the 250,000-acre Sucusari Reserve, 250,000 acres of primary rainforest purchased by Explorama to be protected in perpetuity.

After 90 minutes on foot, we returned to the lodge, showered and dozed in bright, fabric hammocks. In two hours, after lunch, we’d meet for our second excursion.

This became a daily ritual: eat, relax in hammock, hike, shower, return to hammock, then repeat at least once more a day. Or substitute a boat trip for a hike. Given the heat and humidity, I found the schedule a perfect balance of activity and relaxation. We never felt rushed, bored or even exhausted. At each meal, Cliver explained the next activity and what to wear and carry. This let us focus on the surroundings rather than on an itinerary.

Meals—served buffet-style—were familiar with a Peruvian flair: breaded catfish cooked with breadfruit and manioc, chicken braised with plantain, and beans and rice simmered with cilantro. Before dinner, lodge workers frequently gathered to sing traditional music.

Tranquility and danger

While I never felt danger, I did realize that the jungle narrowed the boundary between safety and peril. A trained guide makes the chance of misfortune minimal, but the river or jungle could easily swallow us without leaving a trace. I started making a list of ways I could die or get seriously hurt: caimans, piranhas, vipers, anacondas, electric eels, sting rays, bullet ants (with bites, Cliver said, "20 times as painful as a wasp sting") and just plain getting lost.

Still, the remoteness from civilization and complete immersion into nature yielded more tranquility than unease. Our bodies and minds soon adapted to diurnal cycles. We slept when it was dark—most often falling asleep to the subtle sounds of rain through the jungle canopy. Just before sunrise, the nocturnal creatures fell quiet. As the sun hit the horizon, there was a shift change; the resident macaws squawked loudly, and white-throated toucans gave calls that sounded disconcertingly like dripping faucets—amplified 50 times.

Cliver was born on the river and grew up in a small village about 200 miles upriver from Iquitos. He had lived like most of the ribereņos—or river people—we had seen, living in thatch-roof huts on stilts, fishing and hunting for food, planting and harvesting crops, and playing soccer—futboll—in every spare moment. His parents moved the family to Iquitos so Cliver could attend high school in the "city."

In Iquitos, he met Peter Jenson, an American expatriate who founded Explorama Tours in 1964. Cliver started work as a dishwasher and bartender at Explorama Inn. Jenson quickly recognized the young man’s talent and encouraged him to learn English and to train as a guide. After years of training and behind-the-bar dues-paying, Cliver became a guide—not just for would-be adventurers, but also for some of the world’s leading scientists. He can recite the English, scientific and local names for every plant and animal in the rainforest. And, with his help, researchers have classified hundreds of species, some of which had never been seen before.

An ongoing biology lesson

Cliver was the perfect teacher for us and crammed three years of college biology into a week. We learned about how various species used coloration to survive. Some, like the leaf-mimic toad, blend perfectly with its background. Others, like the poison arrow frog, use bright colors to warn away predators. Yet others, like the owl butterfly, use deception, taking on the look of one of the jungle’s most successful predators.

Some animals demonstrate amazing adaptations. The wood stork, for example, makes a hole in the catahua tree and covers itself with the sap. Then it rinses itself in the river. The sap is toxic to fish, which die and float to the surface as an easy dinner.

Cliver stressed how every animal plays a role in the jungle. Vultures, however repugnant their meal choices, keep the rainforest clean and reduce disease. Even mosquitoes have a job: as a primary nutrient for birds and bats. (But where does that put humans in the food chain?)

He knew birdcalls and used them both to identify species and stir mammals into movement. When he found a three-toed sloth hanging almost hidden from a high branch, Cliver made the call of a hawk, one of the sloth’s primary predators. Almost immediately, the sloth lifted his head in casual alarm—and then slowly and deliberately shifted it back.

Cliver tossed in some anthropology for good measure. As a ribereņo himself, he knew about life of the river. He talked often about how children, boys especially, at a young age would take on great responsibility for fishing, hunting and gathering crops of sugarcane, bananas, yucca, hearts of palm and breadfruit. And how thatch huts were built on stilts to protect against snakes, insects and high water. He described how villages often moved once the nutrients in the land were used up, and how the floods, which replenished the soil with nutrient-rich sediments, were welcome rather than feared—as long as they came after the harvest.

Rainforest medicines

He also had extensive knowledge of rainforest medicines, much of it learned from a local shaman, Don Antonio, at the nearby ReNuPeRu Ethnobotanical Garden. Cliver demonstrated—to our grateful relief—how the sap of the dragon’s blood tree soothes insect bites and promotes healing. He told how a mixture of juice and sap from the ficus tree killed intestinal parasites—an endemic problem since ribereņos and Indians say that treated or boiled river water "doesn’t taste right."

He pointed out cat’s claw, which is used as an anti-inflammatory and is currently being investigated by a German pharmaceutical firm as a cancer treatment. In fact, part of Don Antonio’s job—beyond serving as a healer for local tribes and villages—is to work with the visiting scientists to identify medicinal plants that have potential beyond the rainforest. It’s estimated that as many as a third of today’s prescription drugs have their origins in the rainforest.

Cliver possessed an uncanny sense of finding things, or at least great eyesight. When we hiked in search of leaf mimic toads, Cliver found a dozen—no small feat when the quarry is tiny and blends into its background. On a night-time hunt for tarantulas, we found three, including one of grapefruit proportions that uncharacteristically leapt at Cliver. During a

nighttime canoe trip up a cramped stream, we spotted a viper twined around an overhead branch. Piranhas, caimans, monkeys: no problem. Heck, we even had a catfish jump into our boat. Napo was base camp for a number of side-trips, some by boat, some by foot. One afternoon we fished for piranha, baiting our hooks with bloody steak. Cliver assured us that the piranha’s viciousness is grossly overstated; we could even swim if we wanted—and if we didn’t have any cuts. We passed. Within 30 minutes, we landed nearly 10 of them. They were smaller than I expected and didn’t look ferocious. Then Cliver picked one up and used a twig to pry its mouth open. The teeth were razor sharp and clicked loudly as it tried to destroy the offending stick. At dinner, we ate our fish (sweet but bony) and were presented with their teeth as trophies. Another trip, by launch and then by foot, brought us to a black-water lake, an oxbow that once was part of the Napo’s flow. We boarded a small skiff in search of the hoatzin, a prehistoric bird that looks like a Spielberg creation. When the bird is young, it has claw-like arms. If danger presents itself, the chick hurls itself from the nest into the water. When the threat moves on, the bird uses its claws to climb back up. Once it learns to fly, the claws fall off. The three that we saw looked like a cross between a turkey, a vulture and a scarecrow.

On Top of the Jungle

One morning, we stowed most of our gear at ExplorNapo and packed the bare essentials for a 45-minute trek and two-day visit to the ACEER—the Amazon Center for Environmental Education and Research. The ACEER, a primary research station for scientists in the rainforest, is also home to the world’s longest canopy walkway.

By chance, we were the only guests at ACEER, and the isolation was sublime. After a brief rest, we hiked even deeper into the jungle to the walkway. The walkway, a series of 12 spans, took more than two years to construct and was designed so that no tree would be harmed: no nails, no cutting. Some scientists spend days (and nights) at a time in one spot on the walkway to study lizards, birds, insects and mammals that rarely, if ever, stray below the canopy.

The walk starts in a two-story tower. Then it’s a leap of faith onto 18-inch wide planking suspended in sturdy mesh and supported by rope and cable. As we climbed through the canopy, we startled a pair of toucans that quickly took flight. Movement in an adjacent tree revealed a troop of monkeys. A foot-long lizard sunned itself. A hidden woodpecker tapped for a late lunch.

Soon we reached platform six, 120 feet above the jungle floor and the walkway’s highest point. The ground was obscured by a tangle of leaves, vines and trees. Taproots dangled from epiphytes—plants (including countless species of orchids) that use trees as their home and dapple the jungle skyline. As I looked out upon seemingly endless verdant horizons, I felt both empowered and humbled. Black clouds approached and thunder rumbled nearby, and we decided to leave our jungle-top perch. By the time we arrived back at ACEER, a storm had hit. With the thick canopy overhead, however, the downpour barely drizzled to the ground. After dinner, Cliver led us on a night-walk. Without lights, we couldn’t see our own hands. Just a hundred yards from the compound, Cliver pointed his light at a squat frog. "It’s a laughing frog," he said. "Until two years ago, it was an unknown species. A scientist discovered it here." A few minutes later, Cliver directed the beam at a low tree branch. Red lines glowed back from a moving twig. "That’s a Peruvian firestick," he explained. "Discovered for the first time 10 years ago. Never seen anywhere else."

The main event was yet to come. Cliver led us from the path to a small clearing. He turned off his light and asked us to do the same. Immediately, the ground started to glow. Specks of light stretched about 20 feet in each direction.

"I can tell you it’s bioluminescence," he said. "I can’t tell you what causes it. No one can, even the scientists. We’ve looked elsewhere in the area, but it only happens here."

Leaf mold, fungus, some biochemical reaction? Maybe a mystery for the next research team to solve.

We fell asleep to rain and thunder but awakened to clearing skies and the offer of another visit to the walkway. The sun was barely over the horizon, and mist rose through the canopy. A monkey troop passed below us, and the treetops were a bird-lover’s dream. As we walked from platform six, a rainbow formed across the horizon.

After breakfast, it was time to return to Napo. As we trudged into the lodge, we were almost unnerved by the presence of other people. In less than two days, we’d been spoiled.

Village Visits

The ribereņos are mestizos, a mix of Spanish and Indian blood. Tourism has touched them slightly, but tainted them little, if at all. We found them to be warm, welcoming and sincere in their graciousness. When we visited Manco Capac, a small village on a minor tributary, families kept on with their daily routine. Men and boys returned from the river and fields. Some continued to net-fish from the riverbank, and a few were digging up manioc roots. One man was clearing a

patch of land for planting. A group of young girls fresh from washing clothes in the river ran barefoot by us. Each glanced at my friend Patricia and giggled; blonde hair is still a curiosity. Women peeled rice, roasted tapioca root and ground farina in the raised huts, while pigs, chickens and dogs mingled in the shadows below. The huts were simple: palm tree walls, roofs made of woven fronds, and slatted flooring. Instead of mattresses we saw clothing strewn beneath mosquito nets. Everyone we saw smiled and waved. "Jungle life is really hard," Cliver said. "But these people have time to enjoy their families. They have so little but enjoy life so much." To experience truly traditional life in the Amazon basin—life that’s changed little in centuries—travelers need only visit one of many Yagua Indian villages in the area. While the ribereņos are apt to wear Hard Rock Cafe t-shirts, the Yaguas still wear traditional skirts and headdresses made from woven palm fibers and dyed red, the color of good fortune. While the ribereņos tend to be Catholic or Evangelic, the Yaguas still worship mayantu, a jungle deity. The guides avoid over-frequent visits to the Indian villages, fearful of tourism’s impact on ancient customs.

When Cliver, Patricia and I arrived by boat at a remote Yagua village on the Yanayacu River, two children saw us and disappeared down a narrow path. As we approached the path, we walked the 70-foot length of a fallen palm tree. "The Indians let it rot, so that beetles will lay their eggs in it," Cliver explained. "When the larvae grow, the Indians dig them out and eat them. Quite a feast." He then described a traditional drink—masato—made from manioc roots chewed to a pulp by the village women and spit into a kettle to ferment for a few days. I hoped our visit didn’t include dinner. When we reached a clearing, the curaca—or chief—greeted us with a broad smile. His tribe, four generations of extended family, gathered behind him. Cliver talked to the chief, who went into a hut and returned with a five-foot blowgun. He reached into a quiver, pulled out a dart, placed it carefully in the mouthpiece, and blew lightly. The dart blurred into a wooden target 50 feet away dead-center. Two more tries, also dead-center.The chief handed the blowgun to me and pulled a dart from the quiver. It was slightly larger than a toothpick, with a fluff of cotton on the end for stability and to build air pressure behind the dart. My first shot went wide, but the other two hit. Admittedly, I was only about 15 feet from the target, but I was impressed. Tourism apparently wasn’t completely unknown. While we were playing with lethal weapons, other tribe members quickly assembled a community handicraft stand. For $15 dollars and an inexpensive watch purchased for the trip, I was able to bring home a variety of necklaces, bracelets and woven bags.

Elusive pink dolphins

The next afternoon, we set out in search of elusive pink river dolphins. We made our way up a small tributary, and three dolphins broke the surface. Each one made an eight-foot arc through the water and flaunted bright pink on its sides. The rare dolphin is the stuff of legends with the local river people and Indians. One popular one is that women shouldn’t swim near dolphins, or they’ll get pregnant—probably a great way to keep young girls from swimming out too far into the current. It may be an even better way to explain away the results of more land-based amorous activity.

As we headed back toward the Napo River, Cliver pointed frequently: "That’s a yellow-headed caracara, a raptor. Did you see that? It was a white-necked heron." He never tired of sighting birds and other animals, and we never tired of hearing about them.

Cliver timed our arrival back onto the Napo perfectly. The sun was setting across the river and cast an orange glow on cumulus clouds and on the still river. Trees changed to jungle silhouettes, as the last of the red sky turned to darkness. We pulled over to the river bank and tied to a fallen tree, scaring some bulldog bats into flight.

"Don’t worry. They just eat fish," Cliver said.

"Let’s listen to the jungle concert," he whispered. "Close your eyes."

It truly was a concert. Cicadas started with their tenor tone, and tree frogs added the counterpoint. An occasional macaw or parrot joined in. In the distance, drums summoned members of a nearby Yagua Indian village to a community gathering.

A night to remember

When we opened our eyes, we watched the sky fade to black. With no town for 100 miles, light pollution wasn’t a problem. Stars filled the heavens and stretched to all horizons.

"O.K., now it’s time to look for caimans," Cliver said.

As we motored quietly downstream, we swept our flashlights across the Napo’s high banks. After a few minutes, two eyes reflected back at us. We cut the engine and paddled quietly toward shore. It wasn’t a caiman but rather a bull frog, perhaps one of the musicians we heard earlier.

About eight feet above it, at the top of the bank, we saw some motion and focused our lights. We moved the boat closer, and Cliver moved to the bow. "It’s a caiman! Probably about four feet. A small one." he told us. "Do you want to go on shore to see it? Come one at a time."

Before I had a chance to ponder a response, Patricia made her way to the bow. She took off her sandals and jumped into ankle-deep mud. Cliver helped her as she used a vine to pull herself up the bank.

As I bravely stood guard in the boat, Patricia and Cliver closed in on the caiman. Cliver stopped short. "He’s bigger than I thought. He could take a good bite out of us. Patricia, do you want to get back into the boat so Jim can see?"

I had helped Patricia aboard and was contemplating a step into the muck when she shouted. "A snake!" Cliver turned his light toward the boat and we all saw something slither past where my right foot would have been. "It’s an anaconda!" he shouted back. "I think I’m going to get back in the boat."

It was about five feet long, a baby, Cliver said. Not big enough for a B-movie strangulation, but big enough to inflict a painful, although not venomous, bite. And certainly not as dangerous as a fer de lance or bushmaster. Safely in the boat, we watched it move fluidly along the shore. Its mottled skin—brown, yellow and green—reflected in our lights.

"I can’t believe it. We are very lucky," Cliver said. "First the dolphins, then a bullfrog, caiman and anaconda all in the same place. This never happens."

Our thoughts turned to mama caiman and mama anaconda, and we decided not to push our luck. As we motored back, we saw flames flicker inside huts and vague silhouettes of families eating their evening meals. The occasional scent of smoke and meat wafted on the wind.

Just another night on the river.

Explorama Lodges

ExplorNapo is one of five lodges owned and run by Explorama Lodges.

Explorama Lodge, about 50 miles downstream from Iquitos, is the largest lodge and the first one built by Peter Jensen, in 1965. Its age doesn’t show, however, thanks to extensive renovation last year. Accommodations, "amenities" and excursions are similar to those at ExplorNapo. The Lodge is about half-way between Iquitos and ExplorNapo, which often means more people (not necessarily bad) and more "convenience."

For those who really like to rough it, there’s ExplorTambos Camp, a primitive camp deep in primary rainforest. It’s fairly basic: an open hearth for cooking, a creek for washing, and small one-person shelters with mattresses and netting (actually, there’s also a shelter with "matrimonial mattresses" and a large mosquito net, but I wouldn’t recommend this for honeymooners are amorous travelers.

Explorama Inn, about 25 miles from Iquitos, is a cluster of cabins with running water, indoor plumbing, electricity and ceiling fans. As with the two lodges, there’s also a dining area and hammock house.

At the luxury end of the spectrum is the brand new Ceiba Tops Resort adjacent to the inn. Still being completed during an early spring visit, it offers 40 well-appointed rooms with air conditioning, flush toilets, electricity, lights, ceiling fans, hot showers and drinkable tap water. There’s even a swimming pool. Its relative luxury and 25-mile distance from Iquitos should almost guarantee success. Many excursions similar to ones offered at ExplorNapo are available at Ceiba Tops, so guests won’t miss out on the jungle experience. Some guests will find that the relative luxury makes them feel somewhat disconnected from the jungle. For others, however, it’s the best of both worlds: all the creature comforts, with jungle and river adventures just outside your door.

If You Go

Lodging

Explorama’s rates depend on length of stay and the number of people in your party. Examples for a party of two: $275 (per person) for two days/three nights, $855 for five days/four nights, and $1,065 for eight days/seven nights. For further information, contact Explorama Lodges, Box 446, Iquitos, Peru. Phone: 51-94-2530; fax: 51-94-25-2533. Email: amazon@explorama.com. Web site: http://www.explorama.com. Explorama is represented in the United States by SACA at 800-707-5275, but we had no trouble arranging our trip through emails, which were responded to quickly and thoroughly.

Transportation

Direct flights are available from Atlanta, Dallas/Ft. Worth, Houston, Miami Newark and New York. Primary carriers are American, Continental, Delta and Lan Chile. Expect to pay $600-$800 round-trip depending on departure city, but a recent New York fare was as low as $420. From Lima, flights run several times a day on domestic carriers to Iquitos. Flights and airlines tend to change erratically, and Explorama has built a page that keeps up with the changes. Expect to pay $140-$200 round-trip.

The transportation from the airport to the docks and by boat to the lodges is included in Explorama’s package prices.

Clothing

This close to the equator, day-time temperatures average about 90 degrees (F.) year-round, with humidity generally 90 percent or higher. Night-time temperatures offer little relief. Rain is frequent year-round, resulting in muddy walking. Rather than bringing good hiking boots, bring a couple pairs of old sneakers you won’t mind throwing away at the end of the trip. Bring long-sleeved shirts and long pants as protection against sun and mosquitoes. Synthetic fabrics are helpful but are no match for the humidity. Some guests bring along as many as two throw-way t-shirts for each day of travel. Especially on river excursions, wide-brimmed hats provide necessary eye and skin protection against the sun.

Health

Check with your physician or local health department, but it’s likely you’ll need immunizations against hepatitis A and B, typhoid, tetanus and yellow fever. You should also get a full allotment of malaria pills. Get the strongest insect repellant you can tolerate, since mosquitoes and flies can carry all sorts of fun diseases.

[ Home ] [ Up ] [ Downhill All the Way ] [ Silent Night ] [ Citrus County ] [ Amazon ]