RovingMind: Expedition Amazon

With Juan our guide keeping watch, we set off downriver.

Under a mottled gray sky, our boat motored out of Leticia harbor at 0900 and throttled up onto the great wide river flowing brown and swollen. The cloud cover was a blessing as it obscured the sun. Only a few degrees of latitude below the equator, the direct rays can blaze in onto you with a vengeance.

It was four hours downriver to our destination -- a river camp in a place called Zacambu, in Peru. The members of our group settled back and took in the sights.

Onboard was an international cast: Three French women, all from Paris, a woman from Germany, another from Peru, a man from Poland and me, the wayward American. They were all in their twenties or thirties and I was the old guy at, well, let's just say that I was older.

When all was said and done, the age thing didn't matter; we were all drawn together by the same goal -- to experience some of the Amazon, the largest and most diverse ecosystem on the planet.

River camp. Stilts are for the Amazon's high-water phase.

Stairway down to the boats.

Juan, our guide, with a fresh caught arapaima.

For that region, ours was a standard tour: Embark out of Leticia, followed by three or four days staying in various camps and tribal villages. The more adventurous could opt to stay out in the jungle for a night or so. For those of us averse to mosquitoes, tarantulas and other vile creatures of the darkness, sleeping inside was the preferred option.

Besides getting a good look at the river itself, the tours offer various activities: Swimming with fresh water dolphins, for instance. We saw dozens on the voyage and got into the water to frolic about with some. A few had even turned pink, which they do when they age.

We also visited a primate rescue center for monkeys and sloths, one of the highlights of the tour.

The rescue center. Note water enveloping trees at left, indicative of the river rising.

Mary from France with the star of the center -- a baby sloth.

Lively little fella.

Next day on a fishing outing we caught a slew of las pirañas, the fearsome and dreaded piranhas. The word means small, toothed fish. And believe me, they do have some teeth. The guide instructed us on how to hook them and how to grasp the keepers so that they don't clomp into your flesh.

Back at camp later, we cleaned them and ate them for lunch. They reminded me of pan fish back in the U.S., only without the choppers.

Yours truly with a stringer of piranhas

The gang -- a great bunch of young adventurers.

One of the toothy critters -- on the dinner plate.

We sailed out one night to find caimans, alligator-like reptiles that inhabit the area's waterways. How do you find them in the dark? In the beam of a spotlight their eyes shine like twin little stars just above the waterline, that's how. We saw some six-footers and caught a few small ones which, after a lecture/demonstration by our guide, we released.

A young caiman snatched up from the river.

After more such activities, we then switched to phase two of the tour -- the trek into the rain forest to visit a shaman, a medicine man. And to stay in his lodge or hutch. Made of wood, bamboo and straw, his dwelling was of the type still used by many tribal peoples of the Amazon.

Your humble correspondent on the trek in.

Strange creatures along the way.

Don't get bit by this one!

In the evening, hammocks for sleeping were strung between lodge poles and enveloped with mosquito nets. With no electricity there, candles and flickering from the firepit were the only lighting. This made a great atmosphere for relaxing after the long, sweaty hike in and for telling stories.

Next morning, with the shaman's supervision, we picked leaves from a certain bush to make mambei, a green powder. It's used to make a tea-like drink or to tuck behind your bottom lip like snuff. Supposedly mambei has properties conducive to good health. But all it seemed to do is give us buzzing in the brain, along the lines of turbo-strength caffeine or nicotine. Some us experienced minor hallucinations as well.

Fish wrapped up in banana leaves cooking over charcoal.

The shaman processing mambei, the green powder.

Except for some snakes draped over branches, which the guide called constrictors, we didn't see any land predators. None of the infamous anacondas, for example; the giant constrictors that supposedly wrap you up and squeeze until your eyeballs pop out. Only smaller ones, that take birds and jungle rats and such.

At various stops, locals spun stories of jaguar encounters or jaguar lore, including that evening with the shaman and flames flickering in the firepit. As time went on, such stories fueled the anticipation many of us had to see one.

As we were hiking back out to civilization next morning, our guide bent over the path and exclaimed, Aiee chicas, un gato grande! Hey, you all, a big cat or jaguar! in other words. He pointed to a series of paw prints in the mud.

Track of the cat.

No, it was not a live jaguar. But a live one had been there a short time before -- maybe even scouting or stalking us. It was nice to know that, despite declining in numbers, some were still out there. Moreover, this one had been trodding our very path!

This gave us all a jolt of excitement and was a fitting way to wind up what had been an interesting and worthwhile expedition.