Peru’s Amazonia: A River Runs Through It

Story and photography by
Nancy & Eric Anderson 

 

The basin drained by the Amazon River, (at 4,080 miles, second only in length to the Nile), covers 2,722,000 square miles, an area 10 times the size of Texas and nearly as large as the continental United States. Such numbers suggest Amazonia might be remote and inaccessible. Maybe so if you go the Rambo way up-river across Brazil but the approach from the Peru side is a comfortable, soft adventure thanks to the airline that's now the most dependable air carrier in South America: LAN CHILE and its expanding regional network that includes LAN PERU. It's only 5 to 8 hours from Miami, New York or Los Angeles to Lima, Peru's capital, and LAN PERU takes only an hour and a half to drop you off at Puerto Maldonado, a funky little town of 50,000 souls on the Madre de Dios River, one of the1000 tributaries that feed the Amazon. Most of the year, Peru is on East Coast time which helps to make the flight even more acceptable. LAN flights in Economy from the United States are superior in comfort and services to what we get in domestic Economy. But the Airbus planes in LAN Economy come with personalized video screens and a choice of entertainment such as movies that passengers start and stop at will.

Inkaterra, a Peruvian company whose passion, obsession almost, is protecting the environment (it works with National Geographic on many projects) collects passengers at the airport and takes them nine miles in a long boat down the Mother of God river to its Reserva Amazonia Inkaterra, a private estate on 25,000 acres. Inkaterra has been promoting responsible tourism in Peru for 30 years. The resort has 38 private cabanas and three suites all built from local native materials. The cabanas have verandas with hammocks, twin beds with mosquito netting and bathrooms with filtered water. Solar panels are being developed to heat the water for showers.

The guest book reveals what American guests think of all this. Says one," A great adventure." Another writes: "An incredible experience in a magical, special place." One New Yorker, leaving as others arrive, tells them, "It's not luxury. But it's heavenly," and adds plaintively, "Why does one never have enough time in Paradise?"

Boat excursions run downriver daily to Monkey Island where Inkaterra is bringing back families of endangered monkeys to a rain forest; twilight walks are easily arranged in the virgin forest that abuts the reservation, and visits can be set up for a local farm, the Japipi Butterfly Farm or to a facility being built by National Geographic and Inkaterra to study and help protect the rain forest. And you can go out on the river at night to help find, collect and tag young Caiman crocodiles, then release back into the river those most widely distributed species in the Alligatoridae family. Yes you'll see them.

There's a lot to see in Peru. Lima, a bustling city where the billboards for Coca Cola compete with ones for Inka Cola, is best savored after the Amazonia trip. There are many hotels. Sheraton, for example, has one downtown but Lima is too spread out to be a walking city. Better to relax in a hot tub at the luxurious Country Club Hotel and get the concierge to arrange a car and driver for the day (it's cheaper than a car rental) to show you the sights. Visit the Huaca Pucllana ongoing archaeological dig of a 400 AD Pre-Columbian temple in the residential district of Miraflores and have a spicy lunch at the restaurant there.

Make a point of visiting the catacombs of the 17th Century Franciscan Monastery in the main plaza. About 25,000 persons were interred there until the city cemetery opened in 1808. Secret passages run between the catacombs and the former offices of the Holy Inquisition.

Which may account for the plethora of bones laid out in macabre geometrical patterns doctors never see in medical school.  And so perished the Incas.