7 Gringos and an Anteater

Last week we were joined in Iquitos by Jess’s parents Doug and Denise, their friends Stan and Elaine, and our friend Kate who wanted to escape the harsh North Carolina winter and share in our Amazon experience. We had just returned from a long weekend trip to the village of Santa Maria, (where we got to observe village politics at their finest), inherited a small pygmy anteater which reeked havoc on our bathroom, and attended a public presentation of the rapid biological assessment results for the area we are working to protect. So it was a bit of a rush to get everything together for a family visit. But we were excited to see familiar faces so we had plenty of energy to haul ourselves to the airport at 6 in the morning.
After letting the travelers have breakfast and a quick nap to recover from their long overnight stay in the fishy Lima airport, we spent the afternoon preparing to launch on a weeklong ecotour. (The most difficult challenge was finding rubber boots big enough for Gringo feet). On the recommendation of friends and workmates, we had already decided to go with a company named Muyuna, which appears to be very concerned with local conservation and seemed to provide a little more authentic experience than some of the other lodges (i.e. no pools or air-conditioning). We spent the afternoon playing with the anteater, who we nicknamed Squinny (he had an infected eye) before delivering him to Mrs. Gudrun Sperrar, the owner of the local butterfly sanctuary and animal orphanage.
The next morning we headed out on a six day ecotour adventure; it was our first experience with trips to the jungle where someone else had the responsibility of thinking about food, sleeping arrangements, and transportation, and we can see why that might be more popular. The trip to the lodge was our first real experience on the Amazon River (we’re usually on smaller, black-water tributary rivers), and it was very different. Other than being much wider and cloudier, it was also nearly completely surrounded by small houses and farms, and had lots of reeds along the edges, but no steep banks. We arrived at the lodge on the Yanayacu River (meaning “Black Water”, but the rising Amazon had clouded it with sediment) just in time for lunch in their screened-in dining room. Our cabins were all on stilts and connected by raised walkways for the high water season, although this week there was still bare ground underneath. Jess and I we were pleasantly surprised to find running water in the bathrooms (showers in the field! Holy cow!) and added our own hammocks to the porch, from which we were able to see more birds than we had in all of our previous time in Iquitos.
Beginning with a hike that afternoon, the next few days were packed with outdoor activities. We went bird watching along the river in the mornings, caiman and sloth spotting at night, piranha fishing, swimming with dolphins in the Amazon, canoeing through flooded forest, and capped it off with a night of camping. The rainy season began in earnest and a few activities were rained out, but honestly we were exhausted and it is the rainforest after all. Our one-&-a-half-lingual guide, Cliver, helped us spot a ton of animals that we never would have seen by ourselves. We spent some time relaxing in the hammocks and read some of our new books (yay!!!) and catching up chatting about the world back at home in Raleigh. At night the lodge and its walkways were beautifully lit by small kerosene lanterns. Despite the mosquitoes, it was a fantastic experience and gave us our first real taste of the diversity of the Peruvian rainforest when it’s not too heavily taxed by human demands.
After returning to Iquitos, we spent a morning exploring the Belen market with our friend Cesar to guide us again. We saw many of the same foods and animals as before and the Itaya River still hasn’t risen all the way, so we were able to walk around the lower areas to see the houses on stilts again. We were a little worried about the safety of 7 gringos walking together through a crowded market (or at least the safety of their stuff), but it all turned out well. On Thursday we also took the group to Pilpintuwasi, or “la casa de mariposas” (the house of the butterflies). Gudrun wasn’t there, but her husband Roblar Moreno gave us a great tour. We got an in-depth tour of the butterfly raising process, and we watched as he fed Pedro the jaguar, Lucas the Tapir, and a larger species of anteater. Oh, and I think there were some monkeys around. There was no sign of Squinny, although they assured us that he had been eating termites and was recovering in the large protected butterfly enclosure.
On Friday afternoon, the two couples departed, needing to get back for work and Sunday obligations. Kate stayed a day longer to explore the Iquitos nightlife and Camu Camu pisco-sours before departing on Saturday. Coincidentally, our main UNC biology advisor arrived just as everyone was leaving, so we were able to catch up with him before he went to the field for his research. Now that everyone has departed things are much quieter around the apartment and we’ve had to go back to work and live a little more like regular people again. But we are enjoying all the presents that everyone sent along (but send more chocolate malt-balls, we’re running dangerously low…).
To our visitors, Thank You for coming and we’re glad that no one got too seriously ill. We hope that everyone will enjoy the new pictures and videos we’ve posted (we had so many pictures we had to start a new Flickr website). We’re also hoping that some of our visitors will contribute some postings about their own impressions (hint hint) that we can put on the blog.