Living in Iquitos Peru

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.

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

G’Day to my new Bootsnall friends. I know a lot of you are looking for a new travel adventure to capture your imagination, and I think you would like to know more about the 10th annual Great River Amazon Raft Race, Sept 20th to Sept 22, 2008, held in Iquitos Peru. The Great River Amazon Raft Race is the longest raft race in the world, held on the largest river in the world. That captures my imagination right there, how about yours? If that is not enough, try this, the rafts must be constructed of balsa logs, tied together with jungle vines, and part of the deal is you have to build your own raft. Incredible.

The race starts over 118 miles upstream, at the village of Nauta, several miles beyond the beginning of the Amazon River and the finish line is down in the jungle city of Iquitos, the largest, most isolated city in the world, with no roads going anywhere. Iquitos is surrounded by jungle and rivers.

The race will take three days to complete, some say it will take three more days to heal up from. This is a difficult endurance contest. The motto is “The faint of heart need not apply”. That says a lot but does not tell the whole story. Every year male and female rafters up in their 70s sign up for the challenge. Most people probably feel like finishing is winning.

Everyone that has participated in past races form a small band of adventurers with great camaraderie. Those who have not attempted this challenge can not know what it feels like to have finished the longest raft race in the world on a primitive balsa raft, just like the indigenous used hundreds of years before, and still use today.

That is why I do not believe an international team will ever win the Great River Amazon Raft Race. How is a gringo team of athletic adventurers going to beat a team that was born and raised on a raft? A team that reads the current so naturally they do not even know they are reading it?

I hope some of you prove me wrong. I believe the only way to do that is to come to Iquitos a few weeks before the race, build a prototype balsa raft, and practice reading the river currents. I have spent a lot of time on the River and can share some of my hard earned lessons. If anyone is interested leave a comment below. Maybe we can get a team together and test our skills against the best balsa rafters in the world.

The Amazon Rafting Club are the organizers of the Great River Amazon Raft Race. You can check that blog at;

The Great River Amazon Raft Race Blog

There are already several comments on their official blog. This could be a good way for one or two adventurous paddlers to hook up with one or two others and form an international team.

Dawn on the Amazon

If your imagination has been tweaked by this story, please tell your friends about the Great River Amazon Raft Race, and leave a comment. I will be reporting back here with more details regularly about Living in Iquitos Peru. Please subscribe to the RSS feed at the top of this page. Thank you for your consideration. Best wishes, Bill

Digital art by my son, Matt Grimes

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