Weird and wonderful
It’s a tough environment, but Peruvian Amazon amazes with unique creatures, plants
I first visited Tambopata National Reserve in 2008. I’d never set foot in the Peruvian Amazon before but plunged in at the deep end. It took two days, travelling upriver in a motorized canoe, to reach my accommodation — a remote research station that accepts a few tourists every year. There was no hot water and there were no walls, but I loved every moment, from the talks by research scientists to the thrill of sleeping metres away from the raw wilderness of the rainforest.
Eight years later, I’ve returned to a different lodge on the same stretch of the Madre de Dios river, and I’ve plumped for some luxurious extras: the Tambopata Ecolodge has walls, a shower and electricity for a few hours a day.
Puerto Maldonado, an hour’s flight from Cuzco, is the starting point for explorations of this part of the Amazon. It’s a gritty, dusty jungle town whose inhabitants are a mix of farmers and gold miners. It’s an hour’s drive from the airport to the port — in reality a ramshackle pier and a dusty stall selling battered cans of insect repellent.
We chug upstream to our lodge, but it’s only minutes before we spot a caiman lounging on a riverbank. The driver nudges the boat closer so we can see the bright red butterfly on its forehead — caimans sweat through their eyes and insects feed off the salt.
As we press on upriver, our guide points out more creatures — bright green snakes draped from branches, rainbow-hued macaws flying in tandem and impossibly cute capybaras, the world’s largest rodents.
It’s a testament to the Amazon’s diversity that I soon become accustomed to guide Leo Gutirrez’s announcements of animal sightings.
On night walks, we spot huge tarantulas lurking inside tree holes and listen to the booming cry of tree-dwelling bamboo rats.
One evening, a porcupine waddles across the path in front of us, yellow spines twitching in the light of our head torches.
We visit a clay lick — macaws feed on toxic berries, and they come here to nibble at the mud, rich in nutrients, which neutralize toxins. Gutirrez points out a group of monkeys slowly making its way across the top of the tree canopy. Later we notice the primates have moved closer and the arrival of a hawk prompts them to move down from the upper canopy and continue their journey inches above our heads. We watch in awe as they swing from branches, eyeing us suspiciously before moving on.
It’s not just the animals that amaze. As lush and green as the Amazon jungle is, the soil quality is poor, with billions of plants and animals sapping its nutrients. For this reason, life here can be brutal.
Take the strangler fig. Its seeds are eaten by birds before being dropped to the ground, where they sprout triffid-like tendrils that encircle the nearest tree, suffocating it. Eventually, all that’s left is the tree, hollow inside, where its host once stood. One specimen we saw had enveloped a tree so large I could walk inside with five other people and stand in the empty space.
Equally cunning are walking palms, which move up to three centimetres a day, their stalklike legs searching out gaps in the canopy, which provide them with life-giving light.
In the evenings, we jump into the boat for night-time explorations of the river.
Gutirrez balances on the prow, scanning the sandbanks with a spotlight. It’s pitch black but he knows the beam will bounce off the shining eyes of nearby creatures, and before long, he raises a hand and the driver drifts closer to the bank. A huge caiman eyes us. Moments later, Gutirrez shines his spotlight on two grassmunching capybaras. I can’t help but wonder if they know about the caiman lurking nearby. My favourite moment occurs when the driver cuts the lights and engine. We drift in silence, enveloped by total darkness. But above me is the brightest night sky I’ve ever seen.
The stories told by the guides are wonderful reminders of how tough this environment can be. Gutirrez, who grew up in a tiny village downstream, tells me how he contracted leishmaniasis — a flesh-eating bug spread by sandflies — and developed sores so deep he could see his bones.
And how, when he contracted malaria as a boy, doctors at the village hospital announced death was imminent. In a last-ditch attempt to save his son’s life, Gutirrez’s father, Marcial Gutierrez, took him to the banks of the river and buried him up to his neck in cold mud.
“He stuck a machete in the mud next to me and told me to use it if a jaguar attacked,” recalls Gutirrez. He remained in the mud for two days and nights. His father returned regularly to check on him, bringing herbal concoctions which eventually helped to lower his temperature and save his life. It’s an amazing story, but in a world of tree-climbing rats, walking trees and caiman teardrinking butterflies, it’s one easy to believe. Tamara Hinson is a U.K. writer.