We boarded the Ayapua a little after noon. It is just like it looks in the pictures. Over 100 years old and was restored a few years ago using parts from other steam ships from the rubber baron era. This boat could bring back over $2 million of rubber in today's dollars in one trip. Because we only have five volunteers, we each have our own room, which is good because I can't imagine two people and their stuff fitting in there.
There are three types of water on the boat. One is good water like at home that is safe for drinking and cooking. The second is the type of water we shower in but should not use to brush our teeth. It comes out of the river and gets treated to some extent. The third type is straight river water. It's important because we use it to flush the toilet. There is a five gallon bucket beside the toilet with a faucet like on the side of your house. After relieving oneself, you pour a few gallons of river water into the toilet and the weight of the water flushes the toilet. They ask that you put toilet paper in a little trash can rather than flush it to keep from clogging the pipes. We have a few crew members and they do things like clean the rooms and get the trash.
I'm writing this on Monday am. We've had three meals now. The food is fine but skewed toward local food, some of which doesn't look appealing. So I'm eating what looks good. Had some chicken for lunch yesterday and fish for dinner. Had an omelette this am for breakfast. Better food than my Africa trip but not near as good as Antarctica.
Caught a glimpse of our first gray and pink river dolphins this morning. Because the water is so muddy, it is hard to make them out. Hoping to see them better in the research zone when we are in smaller boats. So how did these two species of dolphins end up in fresh water? And this far from an ocean? Before the Andes Mtns were formed , these dolphins predecessors were in the Pacific Ocean. They got trapped in a giant lake that was sealed off from the Pacific by this new mountain range. Eventually that lake broke thru its banks in several places and left behind the river system that we now know as the Amazon basin. The dolphins adapted to living in the fresh water rivers.
Only a couple of mosquito and other bug bites so far. The boat moving creates enough of a breeze to keep them away I guess.
The rivers that we have been on so far are very wide with very strong currents. They have a ton of debris in them like full size trees that fall in from eroding river banks. The pilot slows down some to work around the bigger trees.
We go past some local villages that are located on the river banks. Looks like two to ten families living in wooden shacks with thatched roofs. They hunt small animals (including monkees) fish in the river and eat fruits from jungle to survive. Our guide calls this "subsistence living". They must have a strong tie to their culture not to have abandoned it and moved down stream to Iquitos or somewhere else. They must trade in some way to get fuel for their motorized canoes, but I'm not sure how that works.
Shrunken heads and I'm not talking about the store on Franklin St. A couple of times a day as we are headed up river we are getting lectures on the history of the Peruvian Amazon and on the conservation project we are on and how the whole thing fits together. Yesterday pm the head scientist mentioned head shrinking a couple of times. Having heard of that thru the years, but not knowing if it was real, I asked him to expand on the subject. Seems there was a time about 100 years ago when human heads were shrunk. There would be a dispute between villages and someone would get killed. That guys head would be cutoff, boiled, his skull removed somehow. Then the winner would wear the losers head on his belt for one year. At that time the head was buried to signal the end of the dispute. At some point, rich Europeans became smitten with collecting shrunken heads and they became commodities and the price went up. So people were murdered for the value of their head rather than to settle a dispute. Not until the 1920's did Peru outlaw head shrinking.
Had a good Nat Geo moment this evening after we docked on the side of the river for the night. A group of four gray river dolphins fed for over an hour off the rear of the boat between 10 and 30 yards away. Because we were on the third deck of the boat we had a great view of them coming up for air and eating fish.
Samiria River. Yesterday we finally made it onto this river which is the one we will do most of our work on. It's water is dark black because of the tannins the decaying leaves leave behind. It's maybe 150 yards wide with jungle on either side. So now we are getting the constant jungle sounds of birds, monkees and insects chirping. Sounds just like it does in the movies. It's Tuesday am and we will be at research site after lunch and go out in the small boats this pm.
Had my first major mosquito encounter early this am. Came out about sunrise to try to see some macaws flying around and got swarmed in minutes. Put on my deet laden clothes and they diminished. Hope that is true when we are walking in the forest.
Went out to do our first field work which for me was counting macaws. They move across the river early am and late pm going from nesting to feeding sites. Unfortunately they fly so high and fast that I can't even make out what color they are. The highlight was having dolphins right around us most of the three hours we were out there. Got one pic that could be a keeper of a dolphin mostly out of the water.
After dinner the whole group went out hunting caimans. These are small alligators. To spot and then capture one you spotlight the river bank and look for their red eyes. We saw several and managed to capture one. Our local guide caught him in a noose and drug him on a boat. He was bare footed while doing this. Then he and his helper tied up his legs and duct taped his mouth. Then we got to touch him and measure his length and weight. We know it's a he because we checked. Definitely a highlight to get to touch one of these animals.
Today is Wednesday and this pm I went out to walk in the jungle for the first time. We set two camera traps up to try to get photos of the larger animals that are so hard to see. This would include jaguars and pumas and then the smaller stuff that look mostly like pigs. On the way back it poured down rain like you would expect in the rain forest. We got soaked. But the rain ran off the mosquitoes which were just swarming around us on the way out and when we were stopped to set up the cameras. Hoping the deet worked enough for me not to be covered in bites.
Starting to settle into the daily routine now. There are six different field research efforts made each day starting with "morning macaws" where we leave at 5:30 am and ending with the caiman hunt each night that leaves at 8:30 pm. There are five volunteers and we get to pick what we want to do each day trying to rotate around so that everyone gets a taste of everything. We have dinner at 7pm and talk about what animals were seen that day and then pick our activities for the next day.
We lost one of the volunteers for a day and a half. They aren't sure what he had but think it might have been a bad reaction to being swarmed and bitten by many mosquitoes. He went on the first jungle walk and they only made it half way due to him feeling bad. The water is very high for this time of year and that increases the mosquito population. It also makes for less land to walk on making the mosquitoes congregate in tighter bunches looking for mammals to bite. Not a good combo. That has led the head researcher to cut back on the land walks which is fine by me.
Today is Thursday and my morning work was fishing for piranhas. Didn't catch any but did catch some kind of prehistoric catfish that has all its bones on the outside of its body and none on inside. Pics to follow. Afternoon was dolphin counting. We went upriver about 4 miles and then drifter back counting the number and species we saw. Saw eight gray and no pink. So I still need to see a pink one fairly close.
On the Thursday night caiman hunt it was my turn to stand at the front of the boat and do the spotlighting and help with the capture attempts. We spotted three but only captured one baby. It's pretty exciting to be that close to the action. And I got to control the caiman for release after the tape was taken off its mouth and then toss it back in the weeds and water. Quite a rush. Can't imagine doing that for a bigger one.
Today is "Malaria Friday". Have to take my weekly malaria pill. Now that we are out here, we are being told that the malaria carrying Mosquitos are only in the towns like Iquitos and not in the jungle. I'm not taking chances and will keep taking them. Plus it isn't like you can take back unused malaria pills. Finally saw the pink dolphins this pm. A bit of a letdown as they only poke their heads out of the water a little bit to breathe. If somebody didn't tell you what you were looking at you wouldn't know.
Went on the Saturday 5:30am macaw census today. We saw over 150 macaws in two hours with all four species accounted for. The highlight was finally getting some good pics of them. Two sat down in a tree low enough and we got to take pics from the boat for about five minutes. At that same stop in the river, our guide noticed a toucan sitting in the top a tree way in the distance. I think I've got a good pic to show how the beak really looks like the cereal box artwork. Also got some good pics of a sloth. They eat leaves and their digestive track works so slow that they only have to come down out of the trees once every week or two to defecate. This is important because they move so slow that any predator could catch them on the ground. Strangest looking animal so far.
Caught and handled my first piranhas today. Caught both the red and white species on a cane pole just like Opie Taylor. You try to just yank them in the boat when you feel them take the bait. Even the smallest ones have to be handled with leather gloves on as their teeth are razor sharp. Have pics of me holding one with his mouth open and teeth showing. Another Amazon must do checked off the list.
Super Bowl Sunday. Doubt I ever spend this day in a place this remote again. Counting everyone on the boat, I think there about 20 of us and nobody but me would have even watched the game if we could have. Would love to know how far away the next humans are in each direction. We did our morning field work and then moved the big boat upriver another five hours to spend the rest of the trip in this second location. We went out caiman hunting tonight and got soaked and had to come back in before capturing any.
Still raining buckets on Monday am. All activities called off. Stopped in pm and we went caiman hunting and got skunked again. Starting to think our caiman success early in the trip was luck.
Big Tuesday. Went on four hour jungle hike. Wore me out. I can check close encounter with a poisonous Amazon snake off my list. So three of us volunteers and three staff are walking single file with the lead staff guy swinging a machete clearing the way. I'm third in line figuring that the middle seat is the safest and if we need to sacrifice someone, maybe that person will be at one end of the line. We've been told to look down rather than up when walking because that's where the trouble is, snakes. About two hours in, all we've seen are a few monkees. As we are stepping over a fallen tree, three of us get past it and the woman behind me says "snake". As it turns out, all three of us went within a foot of this small snake without seeing it. It moved about the time she was going over the log. Got some great pics of it. Google "fer de lance" which is the species. Told its similar to our rattlesnakes without the rattle warning sound.
Wednesday and Thursday were pretty routine. Counting macaws in the am and pm. Fishing for piranha mid morning. The dolphin population must be healthy as we see them every 15 minutes or so no matter where we are are. Captured a couple of caimans both nights.
Now it's Friday am and we are headed back down river towards Iquitos. It will take a day and a half to get down there to finish the trip Sat pm. We are going to stop at one of the villages on the way back to see what life is like for the locals.
Uncontacted Tribes. Our main guy gave a talk on the indigenous people of the Peruvian Amazon on our way down river this morning. He was preparing us for the people we were going to meet this pm who are from the Cocama tribe. He mentioned that there are several groups of people who live further up several rivers that eventually feed into the Amazon who have no contact with the outside world. They have their own languages and have killed outsiders such as missionaries and people poaching lumber and animals off of land they consider theirs.
The village we went to had about 25 families and 150 people. They live in thatched roof houses. Some houses have wooden sides on them and some are completely open to the elements. They have no electricity because the community generator the govt gave them broke over a year ago. They sleep on the wooden floors with some houses having one hammock in them. The houses are built several feet above the ground so that the river can flood underneath them. When it floods worse, the village abandons everything and rebuilds further inland. There are more children than adults in the village and they do go to school. They had a ceremony for us with village elder welcoming us and all the kids singing us a few songs. Very surreal setting.
It's Friday night and we've pulled over to the side of the river and tied up to a tree for the night. Not safe to pilot the boat in the dark. We get back to Nauda around lunch time and then bus to Iquitos dropping two of our group at the airport to head home. The other three of us travel all day Sunday. Hoping for three on time flights. Adios.
