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The Dawn on the Amazon Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village.

Our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

We look forward to getting away from the city to work and play at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of the village of Llanchama, (pronounced janchama). No tourists were there for the weekend so we invited Marmelita’s extended family to join us. I think 24 relatives were there Saturday and 20 spent the night and stayed and played most of Sunday.

We don’t call it a lodge. That is too grand a description. It is more like a fishing cabin on the Wabash River back home in Indiana than a lodge. We have two bed rooms with 2 bunk beds in each room. Our maximum group size for tourists and travelers is 8. Like all of our tours, cruises, and services, we only use purified water for cooking, drinking, and rinsing fruits and vegetables. We charge $86.25 per person per day, and provide a remarkable experience.

Our Jungle Cabin is similar to most of the other native cabins in the village except we have more blooming bushes and fruit trees than the others, and by far the nicest outhouse and water spring for bathing.

We never know what our experience in Llanchama Village will be. It is something different each time we visit. This article is specifically an account of  last weekend, January 9th and 10th. If you go there next weekend, “your mileage may vary”.

We purchased plants to landscape our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

We packed our bags, cleaned up last minute emails and business, paid the Dawn on the Amazon crew,  loaded up in Guido’s motocarro, and headed out. First we stopped on the way and bought 4 hibiscus, 3 bridal bouquet, and a pink Baston del Emperador blooming bushes. Then we had to stop at the Amazon Golf Course to pay the grounds crew but that was no big delay because it is on the same road to Llanchama.

The view of the Amazon Golf Course from the second floor of the club house on January 9, 2010, on the way to our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

Then we stopped at Arapaima Gigas to eat lunch, but that was no big delay because it is only 1000 meters past the Amazon Golf Course on the same road, headed the same direction to Llanchama. I enjoyed my fresh paiche ceviche, Marmelita and Guido got the sabalo fish cooked on the charcoal grill. After our delicious lunch, we turned left at the bottom of the lane and headed west toward Zungarococha, Nina Rumi, and on to Llanchama.

Fresh paiche ceviche at the Arapaima Gigas Restaurant just past the Amazon Golf Course on the way to our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village.

We were lucky the road was passable all the way and we arrived at the cabin at 2:00pm. Most of Marmelita’s family were already there when we arrived.

Marmelita and I walked all around examining everything. Part of our goal for the weekend was to organize a work force to replace the thatch roof with a new one, to line our fresh water spring with sand bags, landscape our yard, and repair the fence.

We were disappointed, again, that our caretaker hadn’t done a better job of maintenance. Gossip travels fast in a small village so our previous caretaker saved face by resigning. That’s fine, firing one of my crew is the worst part of being the boss. I get attached. We are more like family. But I expect a lot, and everyone has to be pretty remarkable or I will find someone that is. Everyone knows that.

The first thing we did was hire a new caretaker from the village. Louisa worked on our boat once and made a good impression with her hard work and good attitude. I think she will be a big improvement.

Marmelita and family landscaping the front yard of our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

Then Marmelita and Guido got right to work landscaping our new plants into the yard, including 8 small crotons we started as cuttings from our house plants. A few of Marmelita’s family helped with the landscaping, others were cleaning the cabin, and cooking dinner over the wood and charcoal summer kitchen fire pit.

Cooking over the open fire at our Jungle Cabin summer kitchen on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

The young family members started a volleyball game with the neighborhood athletes, and soon the place was abuzz with activity, both work and play.

I went to the back yard and found a secluded quiet place to sit and watch nature. It wasn’t long before a 5 or 6 inch brown lizard came out of hiding and hunted insects on a dead branch. Four small parrots, 2 Black Cara-caras, and 3 chicken hawks flew over, then a green lizard hunted insects on an Aguaje branch. That lizard could puff up it’s throat real big. It was good to get out of the city.

Nature at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

Marmelita came out and found me just before dark. We strolled back to the cabin to make the beds before we lost the last of the light. Marmelita’s mom, Filo, filled and lit the five kerosene lamps, while her cousin Nora cooked a sweet milky, rice and tapioca drink, called mingado. A neighbor brought over fresh fish. Filo fried them. Marmelita chopped up tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cucumbers, with the fried fish, and mingado, made an excellent jungle meal for 20 hungry people.

Fish, majas, and tapir cooking over the open fire in the summer kitchen at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama

There was much conversation, joking, and laughing all around the table as we cleaned up from the meal. I went to bed early, around, 9:30, but Filo and Lupa went out to a village bar and partied until around 1:30am.

I got up at first light around 5:30am and used the best outhouse in Llanchama. It has a flush toilet, plenty of toilet paper, a sink, soap, towel, and mirror. Of course the toilet, and sink water comes from a bucket.

I cleaned up and crawled back in bed for a few minutes.There was a flurry of activity getting everything cleaned, the fire built up, and the kettle put on to boil the purified water for coffee and tea. I timed it just right, and climbed back out of bed in time for the coffee.

Boiling water for coffe and tea over the open fire in the summer kitchen at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama

I sat out on the porch sipping my coffee and discovered one of the new hibiscus bushes only had a dozen leaves left on it. Life is tough in the jungle. Only the most adaptive survive.

Speaking of survival, as I was sitting on the porch drinking my second cup of coffee, 5 rifle shots rang out, maybe 1,000 meters from the cabin, followed in quick succession by 5 more rifle shots. We found out later the 1st set of 5 shots bagged a 25 pound majas, a  nocturnal fruit eating rodent, considered to be the best meat in the jungle. The second volley brought down a 300 pound tapir, a mammal related to rhinoceroses and horses, and also prized for it’s meat by the natives.

At 6:45, three Duski Titi monkeys were heard calling and were spotted jumping from branch to branch, putting on a show for us in the back yard, right where I was sitting enjoying nature the evening before.

These tiny orchids were part of my nature observation at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama

Our neighbors are great subsistence hunters, fishers, and gardeners. One common survival trick is to bait a noose trap with yuca to catch a special type of edible rat, the Green Acouchy. One of our closest and favorite neighbors came over and gave us two of the little rodents cleaned and ready to cook, with half a dozen fazaco fish. Truthfully none of those are my favorites, more survival food than a delicacy, but since we had over 20 hungry relatives to feed, we gratefully accepted his offer. The Green Acouchy is also known as the “cuy of the jungle.” Cuy are an edible domesticated livestock raised in the Andes for meat, which happens to be a rodent you might know better as guniea pig.

Do you remember the research Farley Mowat did on the wolf in Alaska. He wrote a great book and a movie was made called Never Cry Wolf. After observing wolves stalking and killing dozens of rats every day he realized that rodents were their primary diet, not the reindeer as most less observant people thought. Knowing government officials, hunters, other scientists, and the general public would be skeptical, and because his food supply was running low, he started trapping the rodents and eating them himself. He lost weight, and his health went bad. He had a flash of understanding. His problem was caused by poor nutrition because he was cleaning the carcass by gutting it. As soon as he started eating the liver, heart, and the partially digested contents of the stomach and intestines, he put weight on and regained his health.

Two Green Acouchy carcasses cleaned and ready to cook at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

My point is the natives here already know that, as you can see from the photo I took of the two little “ratoon” carcasses we were given, which contain nearly all of the organs, ready to eat.

We sent Lita out in the other direction and she found another neighbor with better fish to eat.

We have some of the best lime fruit I have ever eaten anywhere, and a lot of wild charapita hot peppers. We brought fresh basil, cilantro, ripe tomatoes, sweet peppers, garlic, ginger, potatoes, rice, tapioca, salt and sugar with us from Iquitos.

Copoazu fruit hanging from one of our trees in the back yard of our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

That second morning, Marmelita planted the two new citrus, and the jungle apple pomarosa saplings in the back yard. We used the extra two bags of compost to mulch the other citrus, banana, copoazu, huasai, and other fruit and palm trees.

Palm blossom in the back yard of our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

It started sprinkling rain after the trees were planted and mulched. The sprinkles and clouds kept the temperature down to a comfortable level, and it wasn’t long before the volleyball games resumed.

A haunch of Majas and some fish to feed the masses at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llancham Village

Around 10:00am another neighbor brought a haunch of the majas, and some good fish, another neighbor brought a piece of tapir tenderloin. Another villager brought over a big stringer of around 20 racta-cara, and yaraqui, some of the best fish in the lake. That was more like it. No more fasaco or rats thank you. We improved beyond survival food into the realm of jungle delicacies. We had a feast.

My bowl of delicious majas stew at the Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Village

Marmelita cooked the fresh majas in a delicious stew over the open fire. Nora cooked the Tapir tenderloin over the coals. The fish was cooked four ways, depending on the best way to prepare each species, soup, directly on the grill over the coals, fried, and/or wrapped in Bijao leaves from the back yard, and steamed in their own juices, with cilantro, and sweet peppers my favorite. Very few people in the world ate better than our crowd of 20 hungry guests. We lived off what the fat the land provided, more like how the natives lived 200 years ago than how you probably live in the civilized world today.

Nora cooking over the open fire in the summer kitchen at our Jungle Cabin on the outskirts of Llanchama Vilage

We put the word out when we first arrived that we wanted to replace our thatch roof. One roof thatcher brought 80 sticks with the palm thatch woven on, and promised another 20 sticks on Monday. Edwardo brought 50 sticks of thatch, with more promised early in the week. The going rate is S/ 150 soles for 1oo high quality sticks of thatch. We probably need around 300 sticks of thatch, or S/ 450.

Thatch roofing being carried to our Jungle Cabin in preparation for reroofing.

We made arrangements to line the spring with sandbags. It will be more like a comfortable outdoor bathtub. Marmelita’s Mom Filo stayed to supervise the work. She would stay at the Jungle Cabin nearly all of the time if she could. She loves it there. So do we.

Before we left, Marmelita picked a beautiful bouquet to bring back to the Dawn on the Amazon Explorers Club office.

Wild ginger that became part of Marmelita's bouquet.

We had a very difficult time getting back to Iquitos. The left rear wheel bearing went out of Guido’s motocarro. The wheel locked up many times. He stopped and took it apart 5 or 6 times. Each time it got hotter. He/we were very frustrated, but we made it home. Instead of taking an hour and a half it took four hours.

Guido trying to keep the left rear wheel on his motocarro from locking up on the way back home to Iquitos.

On the way back we were lucky to stop in three interesting places. The university’s agricultural and forestry department is on the road to our Jungle Cabin.

The UNAP agricultural and foresty campus buildings on the road to our Jungle Cabin.

We were thankful to arrive back at the Amazon Golf Course well after dark. Fortunately Rodrigo had an extra rear wheel and chain that only needed a small modification to fit Guido’s motocarro. After that, everything was easy.

Exiting the gate from our Jungle Cabin getting ready to leave Llanchama Village and head back home to Iquitos

Our work and play getaway to our Jungle Cabin for the weekend went well. We accomplished our work goals and it was a fun family gathering. I hope we can go back soon. I never even told you about the best part of going to our Jungle Cabin, and never even took a photo of the beautiful lake with the rainforest island in the middle and the narrow channel connecting the lake to the Nanay River. I love that lake, the island and the river. Next time I will tell you all about that part. I guess it will be titled the Dawn on the Amazon Jungle Cabin, Part Two, Overlooking The Lake, Island, And River. Or something like that.

Maybe you will want to join us for Part Two? Let me know.

The Dawn on the Amazon Jungle Cabin, on the outskirts of Llanchama village.

Bill Grimes is president of the Dawn on the Amazon Jungle Cabin. Click the link to learn more.

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“Thank You Very Much For Remembering Us, And God Bless All Of You”

We are from west central Indiana, just trying to do some good in the world.

It is great when friends and family from my home town area in west-central Indiana come to visit me. Last year at the end of June and the first of July, two friends of mine, Sally and Sue, who teach at Turkey Run, received an Eli Lilly Grant to study the Amazon Rainforest first hand. They arrived in Iquitos Peru full of enthusiasm for their work. No one could have worked harder or learned more that those two women. We did everything that time permitted and then some.

Happy Mishana village school children.

Because of their life long commitment to education, one of the highlights of their learning experience was visiting the one room school houses in the remote jungle villages we stopped at. It puts things in perspective when you see how few personal possessions the native people have, and how few educational supplies are in the schools.

A student of Mishana with inflatable world globe. Where is Indiana?

When they returned to Turkey Run they started a campaign to raise funds to help purchase supplies for the village schools they visited. I was amazed that they sent us $100, raised mostly from dimes and quarters from the school children from Turkey Run. That is half a fortune to these poor people. Here is what we invested the money in; We got the $100.00 on 06/23/09 and changed it into soles. The rate exchange was S/ 2.97 so it means the money for school supplies was S/297.00. Here is what we bought and distributed.

•    48 note books                                     S/  36.00
•    36 play dough                                           10.50
•    24 Pencils                                                  10.00
•    01 chalk box                                                2.30
•    18 Erasers                                                    5.30
•    06 Alphabets                                               4.80
•    1/2 Millar copy paper                               11.00
•    20  Pencil Sharpers                                   12.50
•    50 Pens                                                      15.00
•    25 Cardboard                                              8.30
•    50 Color tracing papers                             9.00
•    02 Balls (soccer and volley ball)               24.00
•    02 scissors                                                  4.00
•    12 hand towels                                         15.00
•    03 tapes                                                      2.40
•    04 games                                                    7.50
•    12 tooth paste                                          18.00
•    24 toothbrushes                                       32.00
•    01 glue                                                        1.50
•    First aid material….                                  ——–
•    01 big alcohol                                              5.80
•    03 yodo alcohol                                           2.50
•    03 cottons                                                    3.00
•    01 ibuprofeno box                                       6.50
•    01 bandages box                                        4.00
•    02 cue tips                                                    3.00
•    Movilities 2RT                                               6.00
•                                                               —————-
Total purchase                                          S/  259.90

That leaves us with S/37, approximately $12.33, to buy some more supplies for our next expedition to the schools.

Some of the school children of Lagunas with school supplies.

On June 28 we delivered some of the school supplies to the village of Mishana which has 14 students, and the rest to the village of Lagunas which has 53 students.

Delivering school supplies to the village of Lagunas.

Sally and Sue, I wish you could have been there to deliver the supplies in person. The teacher at Mishana remembered you and was very emotional. She was nearly crying when she said; “Thank you very much for remembering us and God bless all of you. In this time of the year the present was very appropriate because most of the children don’t have more materials, some of them don’t come to school because they don’t have notebooks or paper to write on and the father doesn’t have money to buy, so this will help a lot to keep the children in school till the end the year, thank you very much for making it possible. All of them are sending their regards to you.”

Marmelita and the teacher with school supplies for the remote jungle village of Mishana.

“Thank You Very Much For Remembering Us, And God Bless All Of You”

Each student recieved some version of this care package of school supplies and personal hygiene.

Bill and Marmelita, Dawn on the Amazon

Here Is What Happened On Our Amazon River Boat Cruise, describes the expedition where we delivered the supplies donated by the generous people in the Turkey Run area of Indiana.

This link is about Sally and Sue receiving the Ely Lilly Grant, Biology Teachers Awarded Grant To Study Rainforest.

To learn more about what Sally and Sue experienced on their Amazon Adventure read this story; Why Does the Sloth Swim Across the River?.

This little boy was very emotional about his care package. They apprecieated your gesture so much.

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A Haven for Eco-Tourism; Monkey Island, La Isla De Los Monos

A guest post by Anna Lund

On Monkey Island, La Isla de Los Monos.

The pulsating jungle drips with wet sounds, drenching your ears, yielding to the forces of the jungle. Roars of monkeys, swishes of bird wings flapping, water clunking the boat dock, the crinkling of fried bananas… senses overload! Embrace the jungle with each breath of wet air. An inhale of this dense humid atmosphere should entail nutritional label of all the magical ingredients, invisible to the human eye, but felt deep inside; resonating a resin in the lungs to seep through the body lush energy. The trees gift oxygen, Amazon- “the lung of the planet”

Welcome to Monkey Island “La Isla De Los Monos”. Upon arrival, Rusa, a red howler monkey, will linger around your shoulders to greet the visitors with a warm grasp of monkey love. Rusa acts more like a sloth if you ask me, she always is lounging around.  With 7 different species of monkeys here there is a diverse group of personalities to each monkey. They are like children, constantly “monkeying around” playing with each other.

You will also be greeted by the great people living here who can explain the history of Monkey Island. A brief history of how the monkeys congregated here is because hunters shoot the mothers of these monkeys from treetops and eat them. The babies are to be sold at the Belen market either as a pet or food. But soon the city folk realize that these animals are high energy and are more pests than pets when kept confined in a home. Thus people donate monkeys to the island in hopes of them reuniting with their native habitat and fellow monkey friends. It is safe to say that this mission is accomplished here at Monkey Island.

The monkeys are very personable, but also wild. At night they sleep in treetops. In the daytime they have the options to socialize with humans, or forage for fruit in the jungle. They live an independent life here and have many options of fruit to choose from. It is important to provide a rich habitat for monkeys and the people living and working at the island. Thus, a goal that Gilberto (the owner of Monkey Island) has is to preserve and protect the native flora and fauna. This is where I come in-I am Anna Lund, a volunteer student also living at the island. I was intrigued from my first visit here last summer with the lush forest canopy at Monkey Island, and of course fell in love with the monkeys. I had the inner urge to return and do a project with some Amazon plants. There are so many options of plants here, with so many secret usages that I wanted to learn more about. So with the help of locals I acquired a little over 100 trees to plant at the island. some for lumber to use when cooking such as Marupa, huayruro, cedro, mahogany/caoba, tornillo, also medicinal properties for curing cancer, the common sore throat or cough (Ajos Acha), mosquito repellent (Yerba Luisa, which is a FANTASTIC plant to have around, also makes a great lemon tea), curing diarrhea (Oregano), pain in the stomach (Menta), tooth pain (flor amarillito), body pain (Patiquina), curing diabetes (Menta Brasilero), and even a plant to stop bad luck! (Mucura). These are just a few of the additions to the island. There are plentiful varieties of fruit trees here that visitors will enjoy a jungle walk to gather fruit to feed monkeys. This place is truly magical.

A usual day here starts very early, the jungle noises start to infiltrate into my dreams at about 4 am by the confused rooster that likes to start croaking early… then to wake up at 6 am to hear all the varieties of monkeys waking up. The babies are hungry and need to be fed milk so that is my first chore. Then to tranquilly rake leaves in the sandy soil like it is my very own Zen garden. Throughout the day tourists will arrive. We will chit chat about the island and hike around. Gathering fruit for juice and eating is like munching the veil off from the Garden of Eden or more so the “Garden of EATING!”. A pinnacle part of the day is to finally swim all the accumulated sweat off my body in the refreshing Amazon waters! Swimming is a must here.

Then resting time- The night usually simmers down pretty quickly here, as there is no electricity we entertain ourselves by mesmerizing candlelight talks of good humor and events of the day. Then off to bed by about 8 o clock to start another early fascinating day! What a laidback lifestyle; not to say that it isn’t hard work to maintain a living here… these people work very hard with everything they do.

The wonders of plants and the plentiful species of the Amazon jungle keep me coming back to learn more and more. Enhancing the diversity of plant life at Monkey Island has been a pleasure and getting to know this wonderful family of monkeys and people harmoniously intertwined, as one large welcoming group will be apparent with a visit to La Isla De Los Monos.

On La Isla de Los Monos, Monkey Island.

Gilberto was one of the first in this area to start a fair eco-tourist haven that protects the environment and does not harm animals by putting them on display in cages. This project started 10 years ago and with the help of people to support the island it will go on for many more. If you want to visit these great creatures, come visit Monkey Island!

A Haven for Eco-Tourism; Monkey Island, La Isla De Los Monos

I am Anna Lund a student at Pacific University in Oregon studying the environment and sustainability! Here I wrote an article about my internship at Monkey Island. I hope you enjoy it. Thanks.

Read other entertaining articles about Monkey Island, by Bill Grimes, and Our Visit to Monkey Island by Helen Hazelman.

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Here Is What Happened On Our Amazon River Boat Cruise

The Selva Viva at the village of Mishana in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve

Hi, I am Bill Grimes, president of Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises. I want to share this story to give you an example of that might happen if you join us on one of our Amazon River Boat Cruises. No two cruises are ever the same, so your mileage may vary.

This was our maiden voyage on the Amazon River Boat, the Selva Viva. There is much to like about the Selva Viva. The cabins, windows, bathrooms, and dining rooms are larger than most Amazon riverboats. The best benefit for passengers is the observation deck. It is the place to be to watch the river and rainforest go by. It is tall enough to be your own private canopy walkway. The boat is stable and handles well.

We were traveling with Dave and Dottie Bonnett, their daughter Shayla, and two of their grandsons, Dave and Dylan. Marmelita and I consider it the highest compliment when our guests become our friends, and return to visit and cruise the rivers with us again. This was our third cruise together.

Among many other things, Dave is a scientific researcher recording and studying Pink Dolphin communication. He is building a large data base of recordings from several rivers in the upper Amazon. On this expedition we went up the Nanay River into Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

Our goals were to find and record Pink Dolphins, share our knowledge and love for the Amazon rivers and rainforest with the Bonnett family, swim, fish, deliver school supplies to remote jungle villages, and enjoy lots of good food. Mission accomplished.

The First Day;

After only four hours of sleep, I woke up at 3:30am going through my mental check list making sure everything was organized, that we were not forgetting anything important. I tossed and turned until 4:30 and since I could not sleep more I got up and worked on my computer sending last emails, and writing and publishing short articles for two of my blogs.

Marmelita got up at 5:30 and scurried around packing the coolers, coffee maker, toaster, fans, and organizing the last of several trips she had made the two days before for our expedition to the Amazon river boat The Selva Viva. Thanks to Marmelita’s great organizational skills and our experienced crew, we make staging these expeditions look easy, but of course it is not. It takes a minimum of two full hard days to get ready, three days are better.

The Selva Viva in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

We arrived at the Victoria Regia Hotel right on time and our guests were relaxing in the lobby with their luggage all packed and ready. Dave and Dottie Bonnett have gone on two other extended cruises with us, as well as on some memorable day trips and have become our good friends. This time they brought their daughter Shayla and two of their grandsons, Dave, and Dylan. The Bonnetts have established the non-denominational Dorthey and Dave Bonnettt Foundation, and sponsor several small NGO’s up and down the rivers from Iquitos, including Molly Mednekow’s Amazon Cares, The CCC Amazon Library.org, Patty Webster’s Amazon Promise, Pam Bucar’s Conepac Adopt a Schools, Dr. Elenor Swiftwick Peruvian Amazon Conservation, Dr Lenea Smith’s Amazon Medical Project, and they are patrons of the local artists.

We loaded into three motocarros and paid them S/ 3 soles apiece to take us to the Puerto Huequito, transferred over to Dawn on the Amazon I, which ferried us to the Selva Viva, our floating home for the next 4 days. The Selva Viva was built in 2007, in a traditional wooden Amazon Riverboat style, only with many nice features, such as solar panels that charge and store power in a bank of batteries, an electrical generator for back up, reverse osmosis water supply system, refrigeration in a modern kitchen, nice sofa, chairs, and lighting in the dining room, a GPS/Sonar unit, and a great observation deck  with hammocks and a long table where we ate our lunches in the shade with the breeze. The Selva Viva is an attractive 22 meters long, 5.90 meters wide, with a shallow draft of around one and a half meters. She sleeps 8 comfortably but has a unique system that doubles the capacity for groups of scientific researchers, missionaries, big families or friends by dividing the large cabins with a thick curtain, with doors, bunk beds, windows, and plenty of cabinet storage space on both sides.

Old man in the dugout canoe.

We met Captain Hernan and crew, who carried the luggage to our cabins, and like most of our guests will, went promptly to the observation deck and spent most of the day there.

We have to file a document called a zarpe with the Captain of the Port that shows our schedule, destination, and list of passengers and crew. No tourist boat can leave port without the Captain of the Port’s authorization. For those of us with boats, he is like God. Never get on the wrong side of God. It doesn’t matter if he shows up for the inspection two hours late, like this time. I always tell my guests this is where itineraries come to die. Why I don’t know. In the hundred plus cruises we have staged we have never been denied permission to leave port but only rarely have we been given authorization to leave on our scheduled time. I used to get very impatient, but am much more relaxed these days. That is just the way it is. There is nothing I can do about it. It is just another fact of life for an Amazon cruise company.

Finally we were cleared to cast off. We turned our stern to civilization and started toward the rainforest. We steered up the Nanay River into Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve, one of my favorite places on earth. Ohhh it felt good to be back on the river. The first several hours were about our boat, the people on the boat, the other boats we passed, the villages, and putting distance between us and civilization.

Family in a dugout canoe in the middle of the Nanay River.

We feasted for lunch on fillet of fresh fish, dressed with a gravy sauce made with nuts and heart of palm mixed in, herbed rice cooked with a few raisins, and a crisp green salad, washed down with fresh squeezed camu-camu juice, which has the highest vitamin C content of any juice. The fish and juice were a big success. The boys did not eat much of the rice. I liked it. We had freshly made peanut butter for back up.

It seemed like it sprinkled rain every 15 minutes, which kept us cool but the solar panels did not receive the maximum sun or deliver the maximum charge to the batteries.

Llanchama Island across the lake from our Jungle Cabin.

Our first stop was the middle of the afternoon to pull into the beautiful lake of Llanchama. We have a Jungle Cabin there and usually pull in to show it off, visit the village, take a little hike, and blow off steam from being on the boat. The boys played with two frisbees and left them and a soccer ball with the children of the village.  We dropped off supplies for a small group that will stay there for three days while we are up the river. Dave and I did not have as much steam to burn off so we stayed on board and enjoyed good conversation about our shared experiences.

We took this small boat excursions to shore, and around a lake at night.

Llanchama is on the edge of Allpahayo Mishana National Reserve, so shortly after everyone re-boarded the Selva Viva and we were under way we entered the reserve. Dave and I celebrated with a cold Iquiteña Extra beer, the ladies with Pisco Sours while we enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

Sunset on the Nanay River in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

The crew did a good job of finding a place to tie the boat up right after dark, and we settled in for another good meal. This time it was homemade pasta and tomato sauce, with fresh snow peas stirfried with garlic and a little soy sauce, washed down with a sweet milky tapioca regional drink that is a favorite of the two Dave’s, and I.

Marmelita and I took showers around 10:00pm and were serenaded asleep by rainforest frogs. I slept good until around 3:30 when the power stored in the batteries ran out and the fan quit. With the windows open it was cool enough but the Duski Titi Monkeys hooting and the tree frog chorus kept me awake.

The Second Day;

I took a shower around 5:00am. We had some electrical problems, partially because the solar panels did not generate enough extra power on the first day. We had a new motorista that did not understand the power system so the crew struggled for a couple of hours trying to figure out what was wrong. I like the coffee to be ready at first light, and it wasn’t.

Two troops of Duski Titi Monkeys started hooting back and forth at 5:35, a night hawk was still feeding at 5:37, we had a nice sunrise, it was great to be back on the river, this was Dawn on the Amazon again.

A pod of Pink Dolphins were feeding right by our boat, frequently coming within a few meters, and entertained us from 5:45 to until 7:20. There were at least 2 immature calves, two mothers and a male.

Pink Dolphin sounding. "Thar he blows."

Our electrical problem was solved and coffee was brewed by 6:45, early enough for most people.

After a big stuffed omelette, five types of tropical fruits, and fresh squeezed orange juice we cast off and wound around the bends of the Nanay River to the village of Mishana.

A boat loaded with jungle extracts on the Nanay River in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve

We were bringing school supplies from Sally and Sue, teachers at Turkey Run School in Park County Indiana. They received a grant to study the Amazon, came to Iquitos, traveled to these same remote villages we are going to, made friends with the children, and donated a lot of school supplies to help educate the village children. That will be a blog post for another day.

Marmelita delivering school supplies to the remote village school in Mishana.

After distributing the educational material some of the group took a short hike out the back of the village, a few took a long hike, and Dave and I stayed on board. We made plans to find a lake where we could record underwater pink dolphin sounds, swim and fish. We were not worried, our chef Judy was still on board cooking lunch, which turned out to be marinated cecina, mashed potatoes, and chicken broth soup, araza, or guayaba Brazilera.

Dylan ready to start the hike.

After the hike and a short swim we cast off for farther into the Allpahuayo Mishana Reserve. Along the way, Dave spotted a sloth, I heard Pygmy Marmosets, but they were not close enough to see. We enjoyed seeing the 4 toucanets. Dave counted 7 pink dolphins, and we stopped at two lakes, looking for a good place to record the pink dolphin sounds, but there were no dolphins in the lakes so we went on, until nearly dark and the third lake we saw dolphins when we pulled in but they seem to have been scared off by our sonar. The water temperature was 70 degrees at two meters deep.

Dave is happy hiking in the Amazon rainforest.

Anyway, there was barely time to swim and fish a little before supper which was fried fish nuggets breaded with quinua, and twice fried platanos, cucumber, fresh basil, and tomato salad, with homemade apple cinnamon juice. Usually we do not have an insect problem in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve, but that night we were attacked by a swarm of hard shelled biting insects that invaded every nook and cranny. The kitchen was the worst place.

This is the exoskeleton of a strange creature found and photographed on the jungle hike. The white tendrils seem to be roots growing through moss on the body.

Took a shower, I like the large bathrooms. More electrical problems, ran the generator all night. Fans did not work. No one is happy with the electrical system but it can’t be helped for now.

Poison Dart Frog in Allpahuaya Mishana National Reserve.

That reminded me of when Marmelita was guiding a group of guests in Dawn III, and the generator self destructed after only 4 hours on the river. She was still within cell phone range, called me, I bought a brand new generator exactly like the one that broke, had it delivered part way by road and speed boat, and had it installed while Marmelita took the group on a hike. The power was on when they returned from the hike and they did not even know we ever had any trouble, or that we nearly had to cancel their adventure and refund their money. Our guests were important, (all of our guests are important) and a financial and public relations disaster was avoided by quick decisive action. This electrical problem will be fixed as soon as possible.

The Third Day;

I was drinking great fresh brewed coffee at 5:15, right on schedule. I don’t know how Judy made it, but it was how I like.

We had planned to swim and fish before breakfast but it was raining, so I made a controversial executive decision and we pulled out to move upstream. It quit raining shortly and the grand kids wanted to swim. My mistake.

I ate another herbed omelet stuffed with the works that would have choked an anaconda. The others had eggs and bacon cooked to their special order, with fresh blended pineapple with the fiber filtered out, and a big bowl of tropical fruit.

I had a plan and we kept going, saw 4 more toucanets. The Tangarana trees were coming into full beautiful bloom.

An island of Tangarana trees in full bloom in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

We saw a few pink dolphins and shut the boat down to drift along side them, but the current was too strong to get a good recording. Started back up stream and pulled into Samito, where we frequently see pink dolphins, and have a place to swim. No luck with the dolphins but Shayla found some jungle crafts that she liked and helped the local economy by buying some. We moved out into the lake and had a nice swim, then took off looking for pink dolphins.

Dave has the honor of being the first member of the Amazon Explorers Club.

Judy cooked a great beef dish called Ossobuco with a big piece of beef bone full of marrow and a fantastic sauce, brown rice, and a crisp lettuce salad topped with ripe avocado. She spent hours working all morning on the Ossobuco but as luck would have it we were just starting to enjoy our meal when the call rang out…”Pink Dolphins Ahoy” Dave lost his appetite immediately and jumped up to get his recording devise ready and the dolphins put on such a show that no one, except me, could concentrate on the meal. I hardly looked up until I had sucked the marrow out of my bone. That attitude might help explain my expanding waistline.

We had our good luck. A pod of Pink Dolphins in a feeding frenzy out of the current. Dave got a great recording. The Pink Dolphins were working as a team charging into the shallow vegetation and using a boom sound to stun their prey. The water temperature was 70 degrees at two meters.

Dave is recording the pink dolphins with a hydrophone and digital recorder. Shayla is writing down GPS co-ordinates and time. Dylan is spotting the location of the individual pink dolphins making the sounds.

After the Dolphin show slowed down we motored downstream to Lagunas to donate more school supplies. We were surprised to learn they had 35 students, and that used up the rest of our supplies. They were extremely grateful.

Delivering school supplies to the village of Lagunas in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

We moved on down stream to tie up in Yarana Lake just in time for swimming and fishing before dark.

Dinner was the best meal young Dave and I have ever eaten. Herbed baked potatoes, baked sweet potatoes crusted with butter, baked chicken stuffed with peppers, and a sweet oatmeal milk drink that is a local favorite called avena, and a pudding made from quinua, milk, eggs….

When I came back from my shower at 9:00pm the fans had already stopped. I made one of my best decisions and slept in a hammock on the observation deck and enjoyed the jungle night sounds. There was a bird or animal that I had never heard that called nearby from 1:30 to 2:30 mixed with a few hoots from the dusky titi monkeys and a flock of nighthawks calling tahuayo, tahuayo…Ohhhh I was happy to be back on the river and in the rainforest.

Day Four;

Coffee at 5:10am, at least three troups of Duski Titi’s started hooting back and forth in earnest around at 5:55, and kept it up till we left at 9:00 after breakfast, swimming, fishing and recording more pink dolphins. The water temperature was 68 degrees at two meters.

I stuck with my omelet, no imagination, others went with pancakes, Dylan ordered one hard boiled egg and two pieces of bacon. Fresh mandarin orange juice. 5 types of fruit. The passion fruit yogurt was a big hit.

Dave and Dylan playing on a balsa raft at the village of Lagunas in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve.

We hurried downstream toward Iquitos. Stopped at a white sand beach that had emerged because the water was going down while we were upstream. The current was too dangerous to swim so we ate lunch, soup, chicken, olive rice, washed down with fresh squeezed lime juice. Then we moved to a safer place and swam close to the pink dolphins for half an hour and on to port at Iquitos where we tied up at 4:00pm. Plenty of time to make it to the airport for the 7:20 flight.

Conclusion;

I can only speak for me, I had a great experience and thoroughly enjoyed myself. What about you? Does this sound like an adventure you would want to do?

Here Is What Happened On Our Amazon River Boat Cruise

Bill Grimes, Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises

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Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve Revisited

A guest post by Gart van Gennip

Our loyal readers will probably say; “What? Again? We went to Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve just last month! There are so many interesting places to visit in the Peruvian Amazon rainforest!” And yes, they are right. But if you thought that every trip to the same area is the same as the one before, you would be wrong!

One example is our very unusual encounter with a tayra. The tayra is also known as the weird cat in Central America. It is an omnivorous animal from the weasel family. Tayras have an appearance similar to weasels and martens, growing to a size of about 60 cm, not including a 45 cm long tail.  Tayras are expert climbers, and can leap from treetop to treetop when pursued. They can also run fast and swim well. Tayras will eat most anything, hunting rodents and invertebrates, and climbing trees to get eggs, fruit, and honey.

Tayra, looking at us, looking at it

Tayras are playful and easily tamed. Indigenous people, who often refer to the tayra as “cabeza del viejo”, or old man’s head, due to their wrinkled facial skin, have kept them as household pets to control vermin. It soon spotted us too, and came down the tree trunks to take a closer look, as if to say; “Now you know what it feels like, you tourists!”

And so it was from day one; it seemed like an entirely different trip. Traveling up the Nanay River, we soon spotted a group of squirrel monkeys, enjoying an early lunch in a giant fruit tree. And not much further up-river, we came across a group of capuchin monkeys as well. Meanwhile, we had already spotted a large number of birds, some of which weren’t even included in the book we brought along to help us identify the animals we saw. There were kingfishers, the ever entertaining yellow-rumped caciques, different types of egrets and herons, turkey vultures and black vultures, hawks and falcons, caracaras, woodpeckers, parrots, anis great and small, hummingbirds and aracaris, blue-gray and masked crimson tanagers; the list is just too long for this article.

But during our jungle walks in places like Mishana and Llanchama, we also saw a number of frogs, lizards, spiders, dragonflies, and one of the largest butterflies I have ever seen. Our guide was very knowledgeable and seemed excited about this opportunity to tell us about his neck of the woods.

I was amazed at how much he knew about the plants and trees; a knowledge that seemed to go far beyond what one might expect from a simple farmer. He knew the names of every tree, bush, plant and vine we came across and was able to tell us their practical purpose, or what kind of medical application certain plants were used for. We even tasted a variety of fruits, nuts, and even sap from a tree that was used as medication for children’s ailments. It tasted sweet!

We left Mishana at sunset and were treated to another incredible display of nature. The river was as smooth as a mirror, perfectly reflecting the surrounding forest and the marvelous clouds sailing along in the sky. It was awesome to realize that we were probably the only ones there to enjoy this display of divine splendor, which would soon vanish, never to be seen in quite the same shapes and colors again.

Sunset in Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve

The next morning greeted us with a beautiful sunrise, along with the sound of monkeys at breakfast coming from across the river. But monkeys weren’t the only creatures around for breakfast; during the night a snake had crawled into the boat. I was chatting away with our guest for the week, when a slight movement caught my eye and I spotted it, slowly crawling along, as snakes do. The captain soon caught it, even though it put up quite a fight. Whether it was or wasn’t poisonous remains a topic of debate; even the experts couldn’t agree. But we were able to set it free, and both the snake and we were unharmed.

Edson captured the snake, and then released it.

We set off in our canoe to meet the monkeys at 5.30 AM and were not disappointed. Slowly paddling underneath the canopy, they put up quite a spectacle in the treetops. One of them even fell out of a tree and landed in the water below, making a huge splash. Who knew this was even possible? Screaming in frustration, it ran back up the tree.

But the monkeys moved along quickly and soon disappeared from view. But then there is so much more to see. Butterflies, more than you can count. Especially the blue morpho is always an instant hit. It is unclear what the purpose of such a colorful set of wings may be, as it is easier to spot than a christmas tree in a graveyard. Its wings are of the most incredible fluorescent blue you can imagine, hardly a good camouflage, which cannot help its chances of survival, until it lands, closes it’s wings, and practically disappears.

Almost invisible and one of the masters of disguise just happened to fall into our canoe, when a branch of a tree scraped across it. Something that looked like a fair-sized twig, all of a sudden tried to run off and find a safe spot to hide: a walking stick, or stick insect, of about 6 inches in length. These are amazing, harmless creatures that can barely be distinguished from a dry twig. Even the way the head is attached to the body looks exactly like a piece of dry wood.

Walking Stick Insect

We decided to put our friend on a tree trunk, but this did not meet the approval of its tenants; about thirty medium-sized bats, which had been taking a nap hanging from the bark, all of a sudden took off and started circling around our heads, before disappearing into the jungle. But they soon returned, to see if those rude intruders were still there.

Another fabulous sunset and sunrise later, we were traveling further up the Nanay, when the vessel’s chef Judith, herself not foreign to jungle life, spotted a slight movement up in a tree. We would have missed it, if she hadn’t had such sharp eyes. What appeared like either an old termite nest, or a dead fur ball, turned out to be a two-toed sloth. Our calls and whistles could not persuade it to move, but softly poking the tree it was hanging on did, and it slowly started to flee. It gave us a cranky look, as it moved into the next tree, and we decided to leave it in peace.

Two Toed Sloth

We arrived in Lagunas, a peaceful, friendly village, but decided not to stay. There was a decent trail through the jungle to the next village, although the extremely high water levels had also affected this part of our trip, and we had to wade about 30 yards through a pond to get to one of the bridges in the area. A genuine ‘bridge to nowhere’!

But Samito, the village on the other side, was a truly lovely place. Quite large for a river town, with some 2,000 inhabitants, most of which appeared to be under twenty years old. Kids were playing football, basketball, or swimming and diving in the river, people sitting on their porches, or strolling along the concrete walkways; life sure seems sweet! It’s almost like every day is a holiday. Children who spotted my camera excitedly started to show off their diving skills.

Children showing off their diving skills

We came by the community center and found an artisan workshop in progress. Women were learning how to dye dried grass and weave it into baskets, handbags and lots of other useful things. We discovered that a foreign NGO (non-governmental organization) is sponsoring this activity and comes once a month to buy up all the newly woven products. It allows the community to support itself in an eco-friendly way.

Dyeing and weaving the bark from the Chambira Palm tree

That evening brought the only rain shower of our trip and we spent a relaxing evening enjoying the noise of the rain on the water and on the roof of the boat. Yes, enjoying, just as we enjoyed four wonderful sunrises and sunsets. Our last day took us back to Iquitos, where we stopped at Amazon Animal Orphanage and Pilpintuwasi Butterfly Farm, paid the Bora Village a visit and ended our journey at the confluence of the Nanay and Amazon Rivers, where we witnessed a spectacular display of pink and grey river dolphins, frolicking in the surf.

Allpahuayo Mishana National Reserve Revisited

If you enjoyed reading this article by Gart van Gennip you will want to read Allpahuayo Mishana: It ain’t Disneyland, A Trip into Pacaya Samiria Reserve, and Save the Rainforest, The First Battery Recycling Program in Iquitos Peru.

Gart is also the publisher of Ikitos .com.

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