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An Amazon Cruise to the Triple Frontier

Wednesday, February 6th, 2008

Giant anaconda on an Amazon cruise

The anaconda could have strangled and eaten the youngest child, in the wild. We were on the banks of the Amazon River photographing a scene out of the Garden of Eden. This was an Amazon Cruise to the Triple Frontier. We stopped at Los Boas to handle snakes, very impressive snakes. The Red-tailed boa was beautiful.

We helped eight Polish adventurers. Their Amazon Challenge was an expedition from the source of the Amazon River in the Andes Mountains to the mouth of the Amazon at the Atlantic Ocean. Our job was to get them from Iquitos Peru to the border of Brazil, Columbia, and Peru, Tres Fronteras.

Next stop was an island full of monkeys. The monkeys were afraid of the giant eagle figurehead on our boat, Dawn on the Amazon III. The fear lasted 5 minuets before their curiosity took over, and they ran, jumped, tumbled, and played all over us. We could not get closer to monkeys. The children were not sure being close was good. Neither was I. One Woolley Monkey, determined to be the photographer, tried to take my camera. Monkey prints on the lens.

I like to stop in Pevas. My artist friend Francisco Grippa draws his inspiration from living and painting practically in the jungle. I am not an expert but I think Grippa is great. So did our guests. They purchased four large paintings for $10,000.

We visited a tribe of Ocainas indigenous. One of the young women had a Black-headed parrot perched on her head. Her breasts were partially covered by a string of Paiche scales. She was very exotic.

Ocaina Indian Maiden on an Amazon cruise to the Triple Frontier

My favorite destination on this Amazon cruise is my secret fishing lake. I love that place. Some of my most memorable Amazon adventures are from there. It is where I held a baby Harpy Eagle in my hands, caught my first unforgettable Peacock Bass, lived and made friends in a primitive ribereño village for three weeks, learned more about the rainforest than any other place or time. We could not stay long. I did not want to leave, but I never do.

The triple frontier is not the place for me. On this Amazon cruise we lived on the boat for three days across the Amazon River from Leticia Columbia. It sounds better than it is. It is the Wild West, with too many cocaine smuggling pirates out of Columbia, which creates corruption and trouble.

This Amazon cruise from Iquitos Peru to the Triple Frontier covered 536.5 kilometers, one way.

To learn more of the details of this Amazon cruise to the Triple Frontier please read the full story on my Captains Blog.

I made my own version of the Amazon Challenge ten years ago. I never saw anything in Brazil that I liked as well as the upper Amazon watershed of Peru. The river gets too big. You can barely see the shore, not much wild life. Better to stay upstream in Peru.

I recommend an Amazon cruise to Pevas, and as far as my secret fishing hole. Spend as much time in those two places as possible, and then return back upstream to Iquitos. To learn how to build your own Amazon cruise please look at Dawn on the Amazon Tours and Cruises.

Adventure travel story and photos of an Amazon Cruise to the Triple Frontier by Bill Grimes. Let me know if I was interesting by subscribing to my RSS feed, following the two live links and/or leaving a comment…Thanks

Muerto (Death by Mosquitoes)

Tuesday, November 6th, 2007

“Es él muerto?” mosquito.gif

I jump out of my seat and gape at a Peruano man standing in his
canoe in the rain. I brush mosquitoes from my face. I thought mine
was the only boat around for miles, but here’s this man in a canoe
pointing to the front of my boat.

“Es él muerto?” he says again.

He looks worried. He’s standing in the rain in his canoe, pointing. It’s
not just any kind of rain, either. It’s rainforest rain. It’s coming down
harder and faster than you’ve ever seen rain. It’s thick. It has sound.
It’s coming down so hard, it hits the surface with such a splash, it’s
like it’s raining up. I look to the front of my boat, to Mark laying on
the fishing platform in his rain gear. Rain bouncing up off of him.

Where I am, in the relative dryness under the thatched roof by the
wheel, are a million mosquitoes, buzzing about their good fortune of
shelter and food. I’m doing my best to put mind over matter, to kind
of hum at a frequency sympathetic to theirs and confuse them enough
to stop the frenzy. I’ve always tried to make a point of ignoring them
and going about my business. It is not working.

There didn’t have to be mosquitoes. Really. It depends on the
water. Black, tannic acid, no mosquitoes. Clear sweet water, Deet
won’t do it. When we were back in Iquitos planning the trip, we knew
this, but we wanted to come here. We packed the boat, threw the
chickens on the roof, and took off. We meandered around
adventurously and wound up here, with a guy standing in the rain in
his canoe pointing to Mark, laying on the fishing platform in his
rain gear to escape the mosquito fest under the thatching.

“Hey, Mark,” I call. “What’s muerto mean?”

Mark sits up on the platform. “I don’t know. Dead, I think,” he says.
“Why?”

I look back out at the rain falling in an unbroken curtain, like looking
out from behind a waterfall, no sign of the Peruano man or the canoe.
“No reason,” I say. I brush at the mosquitoes.

Dawn on the Amazon