Down by the RIVER
The Peruvian Amazon — less famous than Brazil’s rainforest — is a world of dense greenery, wild sights and ‘the jungle of mirrors’
My first sighting of Inca Kola is on the arrivals concourse at the Lima airport. Only Peru’s favourite soda — acid yellow, sugar-packed — helps sharpen my thoughts off my long-haul flight, as I dodge the taxi touts who swarm as soon as travellers emerge from customs. The drink has an appropriate name, given its almost godlike status in the country of its invention. It hasn’t made much headway outside these borders, but like much about Peru, if you know, you know.
There are many surprising things about this country. The Amazon River starts here. It’s a place of three climates: desert, alpine and rainforest. It’s home to most of the world’s alpacas. One well-known fact, however, is that Paddington Bear hails from here. And with “Paddington in Peru” set to hit theatres later this year — seeing the beloved fictional character return to his native land from his adopted London home — I thought it was high time for a cultural exchange. I, a Londoner, would head into Darkest Peru, to get to know the rare bear’s very humid world. No wonder he needed a hat and coat when he arrived in the U.K.
Iquitos is my gateway to the Peruvian Amazon, the jungle covering nearly 60 per cent of the country, though it’s often overlooked by travellers in favour of Brazil’s swath of the rainforest. The largest city in the world that cannot be reached by road, Iquitos is a two-hour flight from Lima. A different kind of heat hits me at baggage claim: thick, swampy, unforgiving. My G Adventures tour group is met by guides Victor and Hulber, whose catchphrase — “Holy wow!” — quickly becomes our staple saying for whenever we see something amazing, which is often.
Our itinerary entails six nights on a riverboat, drifting down the Amazon basin, with two skiffs taking passengers into the depths of the jungle, where the canopies are so thick that the forest floor rarely sees daylight, and the blazing sun can turn into a deluge in seconds.
Our coach trundles two hours through dense greenery, down one of the only roads in this region, finally arriving at our boarding jetty. At its end is the Marañón River, an Amazon tributary, where our riverboat, the Zafiro, waits.
After a welcome and an evening meal, we step on to our skiffs for the first time; a night tour beckons. We cut through an eerily quiet waterway, silhouettes of ancient trees towering above us, heading into the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, an extraordinarily biodiverse flooded rainforest accessible solely by river.
I can feel the life teeming around me, but I hope not too close — I am doused in 60 per cent DEET after all. I listen to the night’s wild-track: lapping, soupy water, crickets, caimans, pygmy owls, rustling vegetation and, yes, mosquitos. Vampire bats swarm around us, and then something flies into my neck and bites me. I resign myself to the fact that I’m a goner.
Thankfully, I wake in the morning with nothing but an itchy neck as we skiff through the high-shine lagoons and lakes — the reserve is also known as “the jungle of mirrors.” The dawn chorus greets us; parakeets, golden-headed manakins and other birds I have since Googled join in the forest song. We glide down the main waterway, passing waving locals in their dugout canoes as they go between their villages, catch fish and exchange goods. Life is slow here — the thick atmosphere dictates it. Most cargo from Iquitos is delivered by riverboat (taking a day), and “forest people,” as our guides
call themselves, can also charter a hammock on the same boat to take them to the main city.
Sun up and scorching, we dock at a nearby bank, and take our picnic breakfasts on the skiff — the main revelation being the bright pink, tart camu camu juice, made from a rainforest berry high in antioxidants. On cue, and colour co-ordinated with the juice, pink dolphins leap out of the water only a few metres away. Their pigmentation, the guides claim, is down to their shrimp diet, like that kid who drank too much SunnyD and turned orange.
Our days are mapped out according to the weather gods. Plans are delayed, abandoned or adapted according to whether the heavens are open or closed. During the time we are confined to the boat, we get to know the local wildlife through talks, learn how to make the national dish, ceviche, with the on-board chef, or simply sit on the deck with a beer and watch the rainforest slip by.
The majority of our time is spent away from the Zafiro, however, either on a skiff or getting in and among nature, our clothes clinging to our skin within 10 seconds of being away from the air conditioning.
Often, the motor suddenly cuts out as we glide towards the bank, our guides having spotted a creature or two. In one instance, our bow bumps into a nondescript bank, a vague silhouette of a woolly monkey in the mid distance. Suddenly, the troop is upon us, a mother with a baby clinging to her back boldly making her way down from the rubber tree, and onto our skiff. Further into the forest, we spot a nest of baby tarantulas (cute), and our eyes quickly flick up to a sloth hanging nonchalantly above us.
We swim in the lagoons, and tuk-tuk around the very bumpy rainforest town of Nauta. We release baby yellow-spotted turtles — their eggs rescued from poachers — back into the wild. I call mine Gertrude. We row dugout canoes down the great Amazon as the heavens suddenly open, all the time shepherded by our knowledgeable and enthusiastic guides, who are first up and last to bed.
With all the life happening around me, the tranquility is astounding. In fact, I have never slept better, though this may have something to do with the antihistamines for mosquito bites, and the absence of Wi-Fi. Nevertheless, this place never stops being a revelation.
My return to sprawling Lima after a week in the wild is quite the culture shock. In the rainforest, I didn’t get to see any of Paddington’s brethren — officially known as the spectacled bear — as they live at higher altitudes. But on a walk along the promenade of Miraflores, the well-to-do tourist district, I suddenly spot him: a statue of the marmalade-loving bear, tipping his hat, suitcase in hand, gifted by the British Embassy as a symbol of friendship between the U.K. and Peru. My wildlife bingo card is fully stamped. Holy wow.