We are very fortunate to have experienced the Peruvian Amazon on a week-long cruise aboard the Amazon Star, a modern and new 139 ft long cruise ship. We flew into Lima and then after a day's rest onto Iquitos, a land-locked city about an hour and a half by air northeast of Lima. There the 26 passengers including the expedition leader boarded the Amazon Star to start our adventure. We went during the wet season. During this season, the Amazon River can rise 28+ feet every year mainly from snow and glacier melt in the Andes and rainfall. The river can flood rainforests 30-40 miles inland from the main channel. This flooding allowed us to visit areas in the rainforests that are accessible only on foot in the dry season. During the cruise, we had the expert commentary of two well-educated naturalists who helped identify the numerous species of flora and fauna we would encounter and to try to help us understand the beauty and complexity of this remote part of the world. We left Iquitos sailing to the confluence of the Ucayali and Maranon Rivers, the main tributaries of the Amazon. Initially, we sailed 320 miles southwest up the Ucayali River to near Bretana exploring smaller tributaries along the way in one of the two skiffs towed by the main ship. Much of our adventures were into the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. This 20,000 sq km reserve is extremely biodiverse and home to a limited number of native peoples. These people are allowed to harvest wildlife and flora from the reserve for their personal use and income generation, but under strict controls to ensure sustainability.
From Bretana we sailed downstream again exploring tributaries until we arrived at the confluence where we began to sail about 20 miles upstream on the Maranon River to Nauta. Using the skiffs, the naturalists and skiff drivers we explored about 180 miles of tributaries by the end of the trip. So by the end of the cruise we had navigated about 860 miles of the upper Amazon and its fascinating tributaries. All in all, an amazing trip to be able to experience this still mostly primitive and pristine part of the world before civilization makes its mark on the region forever. Thank you to the University of Texas Flying Longhorns and International Expeditions for providing such an amazing experience.