Feb 2008

Hello my fellow travellers. I am sure many of you are looking for a new travel experience. Let me share this adventure story about an Amazon cruise from Iquitos, down the Amazon River to Santa Rosa Peru, last stop before crossing over into Columbia and Brazil.

Fortunately for me, a family of Polish adventurers chose Dawn on the Amazon III to carry them on an Amazon cruise for one segment of their "Amazon Challenge". Their adventure began in the Andes Mountains of Peru, at a place considered by some, including the Geographic Society of Lima, to be the source of the Amazon River, and ended at the Atlantic Ocean, over 4,000 miles down stream.

They hired me to guide them to interesting, photogenic locations along our Amazon cruise to Santa Rosa. They were documenting the Amazon Challenge with professional quality photography and semi professional video equipment, with the idea of recording and promoting them selves, possibly for a book titled, you guessed it, The Amazon Challenge. They each bought two Dawn on the Amazon T-shirts to go with their several Amazon Challenge T-shirts. I hope at least one photo with my T-shirts makes it into the book.

We had a good time at a little place I know called Los Boas, photographing them holding a twenty foot anaconda, and a spectacular red-tailed boa, with a macaw on their shoulders. I am smiling thinking about that photo in their book.

Another good photo scene was Monkey Island, where semi-wild pet monkeys swing down out of the trees to get their pictures taken, and to smear fruit pulp on the cameras.

We saw fresh water pink river dolphins, fishermen casting nets, a beautiful dawn on the Amazon, and sunsets. They captured dozens of photos of tropical birds. An Amazon cruise presents countless opportunities to practice the photographer's art.

One of my favorite stops was the village of Pevas at the confluence of the Ampiyacu and Amazon Rivers. Our famous Amazon artist Francisco Grippa lives and works in Pevas. Francisco is a charming host, and entertained with great conversation while touring his gallery and studio. He has built an observation tower with an inspirational view of the surrounding jungle, river, and village.

A little farther downstream the Ocaina indigenous performed their traditional dances in costume, and showed us some of how they preserve their culture.

We entered a small river to stop at a ribereño village. Our guests enjoyed jumping from the observation deck into the river for a swim. The youngest boy must have jumped twenty five times.

Then we caught several small piranhas in the very same place we swam.

Then we set out for Santa Rosa. We wanted to arrive in time to take part in the Fiesta de la Confraternidad. We lived on the boat for three days, at Santa Rosa, crossing back and forth to play at the fiesta. It is a spectacular annual festival that presents the best of each countries ethno-culture, including dug out canoe races and other sports, folk-lore, cuisine, a beauty contest, art, music, dancing. The Brazilian beauty won.

The day after the grand finale we escorted our guests to Tabatinga Brazil, where they made plans to continue the Amazon Challenge. We went shopping for a few duty free items, took on some supplies and cast off for the second half of our Amazon cruise back upstream to Iquitos. When we arrived three days later we had covered 1073 kilometers.

There is so much I have not told you about our Amazon cruise to Santa Rosa and back. If you would like to read a more complete account of this adventure story, please click this link, An Amazon Cruise from Iquitos Peru to a Festival at the Frontier.

Dawn on the Amazon