Living in Peru : your everyday companion

One entrepreneur has set up a not-for-profit hotel chain in order to help preserve the wildlife and culture of Peru. Rory Ross is suitably impressed

Jose "Joey" Koechlin von Stein, a Peruvian entrepreneur, waved a paperback at me. "This book," he says, "took 25 years to compile." The cover features a picture of a tropical plant. "It contains descriptions of 1,266 species." Silence fell, as he let this nugget sink in. "For 30 years," he continued, "we have been collecting information on what is out there in the Amazonian rainforest, in order to understand how it relates to each other... and not only to preserve it, but also to provide jobs."

We were dining at Joey's villa, a beautiful, candlelit museum of Peruvian art, silverware and pre-Columbian artefacts in Monterrico, an upmarket suburb of Lima. Running an eye over Joey's mounted collections of Incan huacos (clay funereal figurines), stone carvings from the pre-Incan Chavin cult and wooden doors salvaged from the old presidential palace in Lima, I was not surprised to learn that his glamorous wife, Denise, is an interior designer.

Iquitos Times

At the stroke of midnight on the 21st of February, Australians Nathan Welch and Mark Kalch became just the 4th team in history to successfully navigate the Amazon River – the longest and one of the most dangerous rivers on the planet. Their six month expedition began from the Amazon's first drop of water high in the Peruvian Andes and finished 6870km away at the Atlantic Ocean off the Brazilian coastline.

Simon Calder
The Independent

Simon Calder experiences perfection on a freewheeling trip on the Amazon

Perfect green: that defines the amazingly narrow yet startling spectrum of the Amazon rainforest. And it also happens to define what I have right here. They are perfectly green, fresh and clean, and I am counting them out: 10, 20, 30, 40, 50. Five $10 bills, straight from the US Mint, and the perfect conclusion to a trip as close to ideal as you could ever wish for in travel. Here you are, Segundo – gracias y hasta la próxima.

Aboard the Río Amazonas, Segundo Mesia fulfils a range of roles: tour director, ensuring the merry band of tourists – mainly American – are kept informed, fed and entertained. He was born in Iquitos, one end of the usual voyage of this most unusual vessel.

The broken skeletons were scattered like random pottery shards, rediscovered where they had fallen centuries ago.

Were these ancient people cut down in some long-forgotten battle? Did European-introduced diseases cause their demise? Were they casualties of some apocalyptic reckoning at this great walled citadel?

The "cloud warriors" of ancient Peru are slowly offering up their secrets -- and more questions.

Recent digs at this majestic site, once a stronghold of the Chachapoya civilization, have turned up scores of skeletons and thousands of artifacts, shedding new light on these myth-shrouded early Americans and one of the most remarkable, if least understood, of Peru's pre-Columbian cultures.

The Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone teems with plants, insects, reptiles, amphibians, birds and mammals. There, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, in the southeastern corner of Peru, scientists have notched up records in biological bio-diversity. Thanks to backing from the Dutch Embassy, Conservation International and state natural resources entity Inrena have been able to launch a project to conserve eco-systems and ensure the sustainable use of natural resources in this stunning area.

Wedged between the departments of Madre de Dios and Puno, the Tambopata-Candamo reserved zone stretches across some 1.5 million hectares. To reach the area, there are good roads, river routes and constant air links. The zone borders the Bahuaja-Sonene Natural Park, an area which features three eco-systems: the yunga or cloud forest; the Amazon rainforest; and the palm-studded savanna, confirming the bewildering variety of existing eco-systems.

Have you enjoyed following Martin Strel´s Amazon Swim at www.amazonswim.com and would like to hear more? The whole background story with details is now available in the Book called "The Man Who Swam the Amazon".

3274 mile Swim on the Amazon River in 66 days, piranha, crocodiles, anaconda, river sharks, blistering and relentless sun, dangerous currents, river pirates and drug runners, and the insidious candirú.

A few months old story is drawn from the eloquent and evocative trip diaries of writer Matthew Mohlke, who, armed with buckets of blood to divert piranhas, guided Martin Strel down the World’s Deadliest River.

The Man Who Swam the Amazon Book is a gripping and inspirational story of perseverance, passion, and endurance what a human can do: a real-life odyssey of a rare and driven man.

The Candamo Reserve is in the far south of Puno Department at around 2,800 feet above sea level. Just getting there is an adventure in itself, requiring an almost epic 200-mile journey along winding rivers, negotiating waterfalls, rapids and waters teeming with rays and electric eels.

The forest surrounding the community is now a shadow of its former self. These days macaws fly by giving the village a wide berth and the larger fish are about as common as trees in an office complex. There is, nonetheless, a place where the jungle is as rich and bountiful as ever, where man is the rare species, and nature continues to reign as it has for millions of years. That place is Candamo and some call it the ‘last human-free jungle’.

“It is said that at the beginning of time all things were people, like us. The stars lived on the Earth, leading a life of sloth and promiscuity, and lusting after the females of other creatures. Eventually, the gods decided to put a stop to this unseemly behaviour and condemned the stars to an eternal punishment that would stand as an example to others. The gods banished the female stars to the dark heavens, from where they have been shining down on the forests ever since. The male stars were left behind on Earth to inhabit the jungles and endure a life of loneliness without the solace of their companions. This too is how fireflies were born; it is said that now, whenever a shooting star appears in the sky, all the fireflies tear off after it hoping to be reunited with their loved one, who has broken free from the sky to be reunited with them once more.”

In today’s cynical world myths and beliefs like these may seem fragile and vulnerable. Nevertheless, they are as firmly entrenched in indian cosmology as the hardest hardwood or the largest river boulder. These myths represent the oral tradition of the Amazonian peoples and explain their identities and relationships with their gods and ancestors. Thanks to this tradition, men like Mañuco and Mishaja learned from their fathers how turtles are man’s friend, watching over him and protecting him from the dreaded eels; how certain vines can quench a walker’s thirst; and that the cry of the toucan announces impending rain.

It is nearly 10 p.m. and the campfire does its utmost to penetrate the darkness blanketing the central clearing of Infierno, a native village three hours by canoe from Puerto Maldonado. Sitting cross-legged around the campfire a dozen men, women and children listen rapt to Mishaja’s stories. They have heard them all hundreds of times, but each night is like the first time. And with every telling, the storyteller introduces at whim new twists and embellishments that keep his audience on their toes and in stitches for hours.

Mishaja, whose Christian name is Agustín, belongs to a community of nearly sixty Ese’Eja indians who still live in the jungles of south-east Peru. They, along with many other ethnic Amazonian peoples, see the very existence of their traditions, customs and people increasingly threatened by modern society as it relentlessly imposes its own rhythms on their lives.

By A.J. Rivera

If you missed out on the beginning of the race click here.

The second day we set out with clearing skies. Before the girls arrived I borrowed an axe and a machete and hewed away at the balsa in hopes of streamlining it a little more. Unlike the previous night, that evening we had been provided a wonderful meal of fish casserole with spaghetti noodles, so we had a little more energy in the morning. The foreign teams were allowed to go first because they required more time.

In the early morning we watched as the Peruvian teams passed us. By mid morning we were cramped. Sonja squirmed every few seconds but Claudine sat poised like a lotus flower in meditation, while Linda and I shifted our bodies periodically in attempts to find a comfortable spot, but we could fine none. The skies cleared and the sun began to scorch our skin. We bathed in sunblock, but the perspiration and the riverwater quickly washed it away. We drank water, but before long the sun had heated the fluid so the lukewarm liquid stopped quenching our thirst. The more we drank the more we had to urinate, and in the Rio Amazonas you dare not pee in the water for the Candirú:

“This fish is feared to attack humans and swim into an orifice (the vagina, anus, or even the penis—and deep into the urethra). Because of spines protruding from the fish, it is almost impossible to remove except through surgery. The fish locates its host by following a water flow to its source and thus urinating while bathing increases the chance of a candirú homing in on a human urethra.” --Wikipedia

By A.J. Rivera

Made it back from the Rio Amazonas Raft Race; what an adventure, this makes Survivor seem like child’s play, but packed into four intense days. Twenty-four teams compete in two categories, domestic and foreign. Claudine turned out to be thirty-two, a doctor from Zurich, Switzerland. We met at the Yellow-Rose Café. We were sitting alone on the sidewalk tables enjoying a cool morning drink when we struck up a conversation. As it is when traveling, we quickly made the decision to enter the Great River Amazon Raft Race 2007. While I took care of the registration, Claudine struck up a conversation with a tall young German girl that in many ways reminded me of my daughter. Sonja from Güttingen, Germany became our third team member of the four person balsa-raft. We needed one more person.

The following day we took a bus to meet up with the rest of the foreign team members and support crew who had left the previous day on a boat. In the town center of Nauta, the municipality held a commencement ceremony. Before the governor, mayor, and town of Nauta, I was called to help raise the Peruvian flag while the band played the national anthem. After the ceremony, I was drawn to the conversation of fast paced, slow drawl, southern belle. She spoke of having a house in Iquitos, and teaching Spanish on line for a Community College in Natchez, Mississippi.

“Do you own the “Gringa House?” I asked.

“How do you know about the Gringa House?” Puzzled she countered.

“I am A.J.” Introducing myself. “We corresponded about a room.”

“Aei. Jei.” She screamed and hugged me before I could finish. Like two old friends that had just found each other after a long separation, we quickly bonded and kept each other laughing. A little persuasion and Linda became our fourth member. With Linda at fifty-seven and me at fifty-five, we became the oldest team members to enter the 2007 race.