H.J. Ruiz – Avian101

After our tour around the Belen village we were ready to go farther downriver and look at the heart of the matter. The tribes that live inside the “Matto Grosso” (Portuguese for “Great Tangle”) of the amazonic jungle. Us and our group went on board of a mid size covered boat. Along with our guide and the crew that run the boat. Our guide was a man from Iquitos but descendant from a ‘Campa’ tribe. He managed to speak a good English, Spanish, Portuguese and their native dialect. He was well versed and had good knowledge about the rainforest, the river and the people we were about to visit ing the jungle village. The Campa people are very friendly and have been the very first tribe that established a friendship with the civilized world. There’re many tribes in the vast jungle but not all are friendly.

We departed from Iquitos to navigate East on the Amazon river

While navigating the Amazon river we experienced the torrential downpours that can hit you any time when water-heavy clouds appear appear in the sky. The river’s water turns chocolate color because of the mud. After a few minutes the sun comes out again and the humid heat envelopes you again. Vegetation is abundant, when seen from the sky the jungle is like a green sea as far as you can see in the horizon and the river is like a giant brown snake undulated and endless.

The storm clouds are approaching rapidly, rain is imminent!

After the storm the sky opens up again into a bright day, the river has changed color to brown.

We saw pink dolphins in those waters, they followed the boat for a while, their snouts are longer and they can actually turn their heads like we do. The local people have myths about the dolphins that were once people that were cursed and converted to what they are now.

Here and there you see flocks of birds flying high, also the “charapas” (large water turtles) by the edge of the river. After about 5 hours of navigating we got to a dock where we unloaded all our gear and went for a hike through a sugar cane field. The boat crew and guide helped carrying our stuff. After a healthy walk (Our legs were num by the hours of sitting during the boat ride) We reached a smaller river approximately 50 feet wide sided by walls of large trees and dense vegetation. There, at a small pier we split into 2 groups and boarded 2 longe motorized wooden boats in shape like canoes with a flat bottom, these were our transport to reach our final destination… Our camp.

We touched land and unloaded our gear.

We transfered to smaller boats and to smaller river, going to our camp.

 All photographs are © H.J. Ruiz -Avian 101