Final day in the Amazon

 Sunday, November 13, 2022

This morning we visited the village of Amazonas, a community of 350 people with its own primary and secondary schools, and a number of joint projects with the NGO Minga-Peru. We saw demonstrations about local cuisine (heavily reliant on yuca, plantain and local fish), and how they squeeze sugar cane to get a sugary juice that can be drunk as is, used in cooking, to make rum or boiled down to molasses. We also learned about the natural fibers and how they create the dyes used to color the fibers which they use in their woven handicrafts.  A couple of the villagers talked about (via a translator) their projects to improve agriculture, for example creating fish ponds to raise higher quality fish for consumption and sale than is readily available in their section of the rivers.  They also run leadership training courses to empower women.  They produce a radio program that reaches 120,000 rural people in the Amazon region, providing education and information about health and other topics. During the pandemic the radio station also broadcast school content for the children. 

About 10:00 we sailed to the confluence of the Ucayali and Maranon rivers, which in Peru is considered the start of the actual Amazon River (Brazil thinks the Amazon starts at the next confluence, with the Negro River, which just happens to be across the Brazilian border). The captain rang the ships bell and we toasted and gazed south from the bow toward the Atlantic, which is still a couple of thousand miles away. 

On our way back to the Iquitos airport, we drove through another rainstorm, which cleared before we needed to be outdoors. At the edge of Iquitos, we stopped at an animal rescue center. Their animals are mostly rescued from poachers or from the pet trade, and include macaws, parrots, anteaters, fresh water manatees, turtles, sloths and the giant Pische fish. They have successfully raised and released 20 manatees to the Pacaya-Samiria reserve over the past 12 years, and are raising funds to try to acquire a prosthesis for a young giant anteater whose front leg was broken by poachers.  The baby 3-toed sloth was adorable. Her parents were killed, so the reserve has given her a teddy bear to snuggle with. 

Today was a bit oppressive in terms of heat and humidity. This was graphically demonstrated by the fog poring from the AC vents in the airplane. It will feel good to get back to more temperate weather in Lima, but it will feel odd to awaken to concrete rather than greenery in the morning. 

Pictured: fibers and dyes, an example of the finished weaving, local food demonstration, sugar cane squeezing, oriole blackbird