It is an absolute truth, hard-wired into every explorer’s tales, that the Amazon is deadly dangerous. If the electric eels, piranhas, sting rays and caimans don’t get you, the hordes of biting insects and snakes will. Every living thing is ready to devour you or lay eggs under your skin.
And, in a world of water, swimming is particularly risky. When the naturalist, explorer and writer Redmond O’Hanlon ventured upriver, he claimed to have adapted a cricketers’ protective box to pee through: a barrier for the dreaded candiru fish that allegedly swims up the urethra and gets stuck. For men, amputation could be the only solution. But then in the world of old-fashioned exploration, it was mainly men who got to be explorers, and presumably, those who survived were cricketers, or had extremely tight-fitting swimming trunks.
More recently, the dangers have evolved. Now we have the additional perils of drug gangs, drought, forest fires and Pablo Escobar’s hippopotamuses. Yes, Colombia’s most famous citizen, after Shakira, introduced hippos into the region. All this, of course, assumes that you can even find the Amazon – deforestation having been ramped up by chainsaw-wielding proto-dictators leaving a gargantuan desert of genetically modified soya bean triffids.
It is with some relief, then, that I stand on the river’s banks and watch a flock of several thousand parrots cackle their way across the frothy fringe of primary jungle that lines the far side. We are about 30 miles (50km) upstream from Iquitos, the main city of the Peruvian Amazon. I started my journey downriver in the mountains of Bolivia, trekked down past the headwaters of the Apurímac and Marañón rivers, then took a short flight into Iquitos, a city of nearly half a million people that has no road connection to the outside world. From here, I will travel on various boats to Belém, Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon.
We board a canoe and watch pink river dolphins roll in the water ahead of us. On the banks, the parade of birdlife is incessant: five types of kingfisher in the first 20 minutes, plus everything from ani to zigzag heron – there are entire bird families I’ve never heard of. We reach our home for the next few days, the lovely thatched Pacaya Samiria lodge that is a birdwatcher’s riverbank paradise in itself, then we take a tributary, heading into the Pacaya Samiria national reserve, a two million hectare (4.9m acres) swathe of jungle that is home to several thousand Indigenous people.
I tell my guide, Rody, about the image of the Amazon abroad, the traditional dangers and modern depredations. He nods. “Things are changing here, and fast. As an Indigenous person, my upbringing was simple: 10 years ago I’d only ever seen black-and-white television, now everyone has a mobile phone and Venezuelan gangsters have moved into Iquitos. It worries me.” He is, however, an optimist. “I’m going to show you some good things. Let’s start with an anaconda.”
After a two-hour journey upriver, we disembark and set off through the jungle. Rody spots a tree rat, gazing down from a hole in a rainforest giant, then a female spectacled caiman staring impassively at us, her egg clutch under a nearby pile of leaf litter. However, these clear views are unusual, mostly we glimpse parts of creatures: the dappled shadows of disappearing curassow birds, the red cap of a woodpecker, the face of a tamarind monkey and then its bottom as it too disappears. We do not find even a small part of an anaconda.
Back on the river, we pass a small village and a man shouts from the bank, “Do you want to see an anaconda?” He’s caught one in his fishing net and is about to release it. Only eight feet long, the snake is one of the most powerful animals I’ve ever seen. It constricts itself around the well-muscled fisherman’s arm. He introduces himself, Alexander, and laughs as he wrestles himself free. Leaving some boys to watch over the snake, Alexander shows us around. There’s a fence around a turtle nest site in the centre of the village. “We used to take all the eggs to eat,” he says. “But then the turtles became rare. Now we protect the nests and only take three out of 10 eggs.”
With this compromise, the turtle population is increasing and the village gets a bit of income, selling surplus eggs in the market. These Indigenous communities struggle to earn a living and the temptation for quick money is strong: wild animals, colourful birds, hardwoods and fish are plentiful, and valuable. Then there are jobs on illegal coca plantations, as well as illegal fish farms, gold mines and oil platforms. Some cabins are empty, the inhabitants gone to Iquitos where they usually end up living in Belén, “Bethlehem”, a vast slum on stilts, that for much of the year stands in water. (When I visit, it’s dry and there’s masses of plastic rubbish gathering, waiting for the Amazon to come and sweep it 2,300 miles to the ocean).
One hopeful source of income is the superfood, açaí, which grows naturally here. Previously, villagers simply felled a tree to reach the fruits, but now an NGO has taught them to climb the slim trunks. As a result, the trees are proliferating and household incomes have risen. All down the Amazon this small, unprepossessing fruit is playing a vital part in protecting the forest. Another new source of money is people like me: the children and women bring out trays of intricate and beautiful handicrafts for sale. I gladly fill my pockets with purchases.
As we motor downriver back to the lodge, I am musing on the gap between the reality of the Amazon and its outside image. I remember Redmond and his cricket box. “Does anyone ever swim here?” I ask Rody. At that moment we sweep out of the tributary into the main river, which must be about 250 metres (820ft) wide. Flocks of egrets grab fish from the shallows with impressive regularity. Islands of vegetation sail downstream at a good clip.
“The village children swim.”
“I mean across the Amazon.”
“You want to try?”
“Sure.”
I do not ask about the various deadly creatures. Rody does not try to dissuade me. I take that as approval. I start at the lodge jetty, watched by a suspicious osprey. After 20 minutes of strenuous breaststroke, I glance back to see I have managed about 30 metres, at the same time being swept half a mile downstream. Rody is drifting along behind me in the boat. The sun sets. I try harder and break through the main rush of current. From then on, it’s a steady pull towards a distant mudbank, though I give a yelp of fright when my fingertips touch the rough hide of a giant caiman, only to realise it’s an inanimate log.
“You OK, Keviño?” shouts Rody. “I thought I heard you scream?”
On the boat back to the lodge Rody tells me a horror story about electric eels. His friend died after taking a sting on the chest.
After several days, I move back to Iquitos, which owes its existence to the car despite its lack of a road connection. At the turn of the 19th century, a rise in demand for rubber for tyres triggered the first wave of Amazon despoliation. The rubber tree was native and the Indigenous people knew how to tap its sap. Merchants were soon demanding huge quantities and, as time went on, using increasingly brutal tactics to get results, terrorising locals into slavery. At the peak of the boom, entire Indigenous groups took to their heels and retreated into the jungle, probably the ancestors of today’s “uncontacted tribes”. Meanwhile, the merchants built grand houses and stores along the Iquitos waterfront and spent their money freely. It’s a fascinating city to wander around and has many great little restaurants serving local treats such as patarashca (stuffed river fish), washed down with jugs of cool guayaba – guava – juice.
From Iquitos, there are river boats going 600 miles downstream to Leticia, the spot where Peru, Colombia and Brazil meet. I had wanted to take the slow boat – four days in a hammock on deck – but low water means only smaller, faster boats are on offer. I board at 4pm, then sit in an uncomfortable seat for 16 hours as we jet downstream. For all that time, there is only primary rainforest on both sides. A few times we stop, pulling into a muddy bank. Continuous sheet lightning reveals a clutch of tiny shacks and a handful of people waving electric torches like shipwreck survivors in the middle of a green ocean. Someone leaps on board and we roar away, once again flanked only by the two dark strips of jungle.
It feels as if I am heading for the heart of the Amazon, and the place where all the problems and pleasures of the planet’s greatest rainforest are focused. I am, I’ll admit, a little apprehensive.
The trip was provided by Sumak Travel, which organises sustainable tailor-made trips to destinations across Latin America, including community-based and Indigenous tourism initiatives. Its private seven-day tour of Lima and the Pacaya Samiria reserve in the Amazon rainforest (near Iquitos) starts at £1,385pp (based on two travellers sharing), including accommodation, a domestic flight (Lima – Iquitos), guided activities, transport and most meals. Excludes international flights.
The final part of Kevin Rushby’s Amazon journey will appear online on 8 July
