The Amatista. photo via IE Travel |
Forever associated with mystery and adventure, the Amazon is the largest river basin in the world. It's home to towering trees hundreds of years old, orchids and butterflies in dazzling variety, and the richest assortment of birds, freshwater fish and butterflies in the world. Wild monkeys, macaws, sloths, and anacondas live throughout the Amazon basin, and it's one of the last refuges for jaguars, harpy eagles, and the mystical pink dolphin. |
| No stretch of the river system is more beguiling than the headwaters region surrounding Iquitos, Peru, where multiple rivers come together to form the Amazon. Narrow tributaries stretch for miles through the dense rain forest where the water runs slowly though verdant banks, connecting lakes, rivers, and streams where you'll see giant water lilies, pink dolphins and caimans as long as 13 ft. |
| Native villages scattered throughout the wilds and ribereno cabins remind you that there are still people living a much simpler life than most of us are accustomed to. More than 200 indigenous groups still live here, tapping nature for food and traditional medicines. Many villages welcome visitors when accompanied by people they know and trust. |
Yaqua chief photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
Riberenos - "people of the river" - now make up 85 percent of the Peruvian jungle population. They are mestizos, mixed Spanish and Indian. Many mestizos moved here in the 1880's to capitalize on the sudden need for jungle rubber for tire production, which lasted only until the rubber barons could set up plantations. Riberenos wear clothing, not ornamentations, and are mostly concerned with making a living from the land and water. |
photo via IE Explorer |
Gateway to the region, Iquitos, Peru is on the Brazilian side of the Andes and not accessible by road. During the rubber boom large ships came all the way up here from the Atlantic. Now most people fly in from Lima.
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photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
Colonial mansions in the city reflect the wealth of the boom years. Low lying areas in the neighborhood of Belen are subject to flooding, and the area is famous for the houses on stilts and floating houses used to ride out the flood waters. |
photo via couplemissionariesinperu |
Ex-patriate American Bill Grimes owns a small tour company operating out of Iquitos called Dawn on the Amazon.
Grimes offers highly personalized tours including jaunts into the remote Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, a huge, watery park (twice the size of Yellowstone) just upstream from where the Ucayalli and Maranon rivers fuse to form the Amazon. Depending on the time of year, the cruises explore one of the two big rivers upstream from where they join, with the smaller Pacaya and Samiria rivers, narrow channels, and lakes. |
Matt Grimes on Dawn III with the boat's trademark Eagle. The custom made boat is full of hand carved art and trimwork. Photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
"When we pull off into the Pacaya River fork it is no longer a big, muddy, brown river," wrote Dawn of the Amazon guest Eric Sutherland, "but changes to a narrow, clear, black, incredibly beautiful reflective stream, with magnificent trees that grow down to the waters edge, close on both sides of you, and you see their reflection in the water, the mirror of the jungle, right in front of you. It is magical." |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
As you explore the vast isolation of the headwaters region, you don't feel like you are disturbing nature, but gliding through it unobtrusively.
Easing up a stream with treetops so close you are practically sitting among them, you have the privilege of enjoying a close intimacy with the natural world from the deck of your boat with binoculars and camera in hand. |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
| "We slow down to 6-8 kilometers per hour", writes Grimes, "because that is our best bird watching, wildlife, and plant life observation speed. The boat stops frequently when we see interesting wildlife, or plant life such as blooming orchids or bromeliads. Chances are good we will be surrounded by pink dolphins. We will tie up before dark, preferably near a ripe fruit or nut tree, to lure wildlife to us. If our lure works we will remain tied up the next morning for a leisurely breakfast (and watch them feed)." |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
At night the engines are turned off so guests can listen to the birds and monkeys instead of the noise of a diesel generator. Electrical energy generated during the day is stored in a series of 300-pound batteries. All of the boat’s electrical equipment continues to run. "Including the refrigerator that keep the beer cold. Sweet," jokes Grimes. |
| The air is heavy with humidity. Chances are you'll be sweating. At times you'll be annoyed by dank odors of forest mulch or a swarm of mosquitoes fascinated by your scent (be sure to bring your insect repellant). But it's the panapoly of sights and sound that will win the battle for your attention. The rest fades away. It's a living theatre out here--always changing, moment to moment. You never know what to expect, which is the meaning of adventure. |
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photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
Writes Grimes in his blog, "In the late afternoon we came to a location that caught our attention. Two incredibly beautiful large parrots took flight from a tree right next to a small band of howler monkeys. Usually that means a ripe food source and makes the best wildlife observation position. We tied up and decided to wait there till morning and soon the parrots came back. The next morning the howler monkeys were making their growling, dangerous sound close by. Saki and squirrel monkeys came to feed with the parrots. We could have tramped in the rainforest all day and not have seen as much wildlife as we saw sitting there in our comfortable chairs near that ripe fruit tree in two hours." |
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The Payaca river and it's tributaries sometimes get clogged by masses of waterplants which must be carefully navigated; but once these are cleared, visitors are apt to spot pink dolphins.
According to Amazonian legend, the pink dolphin's supernatural powers allows it to transform itself into a handsome man who seduces innocent women living near the water. (So a woman who unintentionally becomes pregnant can conveniently blame the charming character who mysteriously emerged from the waters - and then later transformed himself back into a dolphin and returned to his watery world.). |
The smaller Dawn I, shown here visting a Bora Indian village on the Momon River, covers much of the same region. Both include jungle walks, fishing, bird watching, regional food, and promise to take travelers “off the beaten track.”
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photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
The menu aboard Dawn on the Amazon is original and varied: Here's a sample lunch:
Dorado Catfish steamed with tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, garlic, and ginger. Herbed rice. Palm heart, tomato, and avocado salad dressed with lemon juice, and olive oil. Cocona sauce (made from a citric tropical fruit that goes with fish). One bowl of cocona sauce is mild and one is with charapita hot peppers. Fresh Camu Camu juice. Whole wheat and white bread, real butter, jam, cheese.
The company will tailor your trip. A typical 2-day cruise runs about $345 per person, and a 7-day cruise is about $1200. The cruise is free for children under 6 who share a mosquito net with their parents. 6 to 12 year olds pay half price. |
| Bill Grimes, president and owner of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises, is a one-time Indiana farmer who traveled the world during winter months before becoming a resident of Iquitos, Peru. “I guess I have had more adventures than most people', he says. "Viet Nam, Chiapas Mexico, ...Central America, island hopping the South Pacific, three African safaris, climbing the volcanoes of Uganda to be with the mountain gorillas, the Congo and Rwanda, Down Under, and a whole lot more that I could tell you about if we get to know each other, but I never had any adventures that suit me better than I am having here in the rainforest of Peru.” Not to mention that in Iquitos he met a beautiful woman named Marmelita, and fell in love. |
Bill and Marmelita. Photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
Marmelita selecting fruits and vegetables for a cruise at a market in Belen. Photo via DawnOnTheAmazon |
Grimes' “Captain’s blog” is full of useful information about local attractions, markets, and traveler tips.
"We see most people still live like their ancestors, in thatch roof houses built on stilts to stay above the flood, with no doors or windows, and frequently with no walls, with strips of soft bark for doors. A machete, a bucket, and a few pots and pans are their only manufactured implements. Men and women work together tending a patch of yuca, a small grove of banana trees, with a few lemon, lime, orange, papaya, mango, cashew, or cocoa, and other exotically delicious jungle fruit that most of you have probably never heard of let alone tasted, such as zapote, mamey, ubilla, guaba, shimbillo, macambo, copoazu, caimito and camu camu." |
"The typical mode of transportation is still the dugout canoe, and nearly always a fisherman is in sight working his net, or an individual or family are canoeing. Women wash clothes in the river, carry water in buckets to their houses, cook over open fires, and nurse babies. Children run up and down the bank waving and yelling at us." |
Most of the river people don't have electricity or running water or many of the simple things that we find essential and take for granted. During the day the men often go out to hunt and fish while the women tend the village. When not in school, the children play in the jungle or along the river banks swimming or canoing. You'll see them running along the riverbank as your boat floats by. |
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Transporting roofing materials downstream for sale. Photo via Dawn On The Amazon |
Unlike jungles downstream and closer to the coast that are being doggedly logged and exploited for oil and gas, the headwater areas are still relatively pristine. Eco-tourism may be the salvation of the region. Large reserves are being set aside for preservation, with cruise operators promoting their tours as eco-friendly, and even the Indian Villages realizing they benefit by welcoming visitors.
There still about 200 different ethnic native groups, mostly living in scattered small villages. Large numbers of of the original population were enslaved and died during the rubber boom that spread through the region in the 1880s and 1890's before tire makers smuggled out seeds and set up plantations in Asia. |
The Ayupa dates from the rubber boom era. Photo via Green Tracks |
The Ayapua is one of the original rubber era riverboats, fully restored by AmazonEco. It's one of three river boats offering cruises through Green Tracks.
“Sunrise is so exciting we often forget to go down to the dining room for breakfast,” said a traveler after a recent cruise |
 Photo via Green Tracks |
Green Tracks, offers a variety of other "eco-tour" cruises, including a 16 day voyage in a 100 passenger ship all the way from the Atlantic coast up to Iquitos. |
 Gary Lighthall. Photo via Green Tracks |
| Or join a small boat exploration of a remote area along the tributaries of the Rio Marañón where guide Gary Lighthall has standing invitations to visit friends among the Shimacu Indians who live there. (Not for the squeamish. This area is primitive, and you'll be lodging in the private houses of Indian families or a community building. Your toilet facilities are the jungle, bathing facilities are either the river or buckets of river water in the camp.) |
Pick up is in Iquitos but tours begin at Nauta after a short bus ride. Headwater cruise costs range from $1808 to $2108 (double occupancy) for a 4 day/3 night program on more modern Delfin II, to $2500 and a $200 single surcharge for a 7 day/6 night cruise on the Ayapua or Clavero (another rubber era riverboat), to $3539-6818 per person for the frontier trip (depending on the number in the group). |
| The Amazon riverboats often have biologists and naturalists who know the region along to point out wildlife and natural features and sometimes lecture about village life, pink dolphins, blackwater lakes, Snowy Egrets, or dozens of other topics. People get out and interact more closely with the jungle on small boat side trips, and visits to Indian Villages, fishing spots, butterfly gardens, blooming orchids, or Monkey Island. One tour boat advertises night trips to observe the caimans, their eyes made a fiery orange by the light of flashlights pointed in their direction. |
Amaista dining room. Photo viaIE Travel |
International Expeditions offers an assortment of Amazon River cruises as well as ‘extensions’ to the trips, such as excursions to Machu Piccu and Lima. The company has been offering Amazon River excursions for nearly 30 years.
"Until a place is visited, it is nothing more than a green smudge on a map or an answer to a test question," observes William Ecenbarger, writing in the Chicago Tribune My perception of the Amazon had been largely colored by old documentaries and fanciful tales of lost cities, 60-foot snakes, and Indians with blowguns and poisoned darts. I was in for a surprise.
"It began with a warning from Robinson Rodriguez, one of two International Expeditions naturalist-guides who accompanied us. 'The Amazon is not a zoo. We do not know what we will see today. Every day is different out here, and we will see what we see. We never know.' "
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IE also begin their journeys in Iquitos. The 28-passenger riverboat, La Amatista offers air-conditioned rooms and live music onboard. (Imagine those caimans rocking out to the sound of the passing riverboat.)
Prices on the lower deck run $3138-3298 per person double occupancy, and $3348-3498 on the upper deck. Singles are $4722-5147.
IE say they promote the welfare of the people and communities in the area, and make it a point to thoroughly understand each place they visit to minimize their impact on it. The company provided major funding for the International Ecotourism Society (TIES), and has also created water treatment plans in small villages.
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Small boat expeditions bring nature closer. Photo viaIE Travel |
Aqua is a new luxury boat cruising the same waters that echoes the exterior of the rubber era boats with a much more moderne interior.Aqua Expeditions offers suites ranging from $2250 per person double occupany for a 3 day cruise, to $5600 per person double occupany for the master suite on the 7 night cruise.
photo via Aqua Expeditions
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photo via Black Blog of Travel |
 photo via Aqua Expeditions |
photo via Aqua Expeditions |
The Clavero is the oldest cruise boat on the river. Built in Paris in 1876 it was orignally used as a Peruvian Navy veseel. Photo via Amazon Eco |
Airfare to and from Lima and from there to Iquitos and back is not included in the prices quoted. International Expeditions offers in-country flights for $325 when purchased with their tours. Guide and crew gratuities are also extra. |
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