This seven-night journey on Aqua Nera, which cruises through the world’s mightiest river, takes you through some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet
“Will we see jaguars?” It was the question on our minds, and the first one asked during a briefing session before setting sail along the world’s mightiest river. “Extremely unlikely,” came the reply from Billy Chujutalli, a locally born and raised naturalist guide, who had only seen the elusive big cats once in the wild, despite living in proximity to their natural habitat.
Over the next seven nights, with expectations managed, we go on to encounter myriad other fantastical flora and fauna, ranging from the beautiful and unusual to the scary and prehistoric, as we journey through some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. The cruise aboard our luxury vessel the Aqua Nera starts and ends at Iquitos, a bustling city of half a million people in the middle of nowhere.
Accessible only by air or water, it’s the gateway to the Peruvian Amazon. Our destination is the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a Unesco-designated tropical wetland, where the Ucayali and Marañón rivers meet to form the headstream of the Amazon river.
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Casting off at dusk, it’s not until morning that I can appreciate the mystical realm we’ve entered: a wide, flat, mud-brown and deceptively calm expanse of waterway flanked by rainforest and farmland as far as the eye can see. We set off early in a skiff to explore a tributary. Raucous parrots and caracara—a species of long-legged raptor—greet us as vultures circle and kingfishers swoop past in a flash of colour. Birdlife is so plentiful, it’s hard to know where to look. Eagle-eyed Chujutalli signals for the launch to stop and points towards the jungle. It takes time to spot, but camouflaged among the foliage is a three-toed sloth. These cartoonish creatures spend most of their lives sleeping in the treetops, so we’re lucky to see one moving, albeit at a glacial pace.
That afternoon, we venture further upstream, with palm, fig, kapok and rubber trees closing in around us. As the sun sets, swirls of orange, pink and purple dissolve into ripples of inky water while hundreds of cormorants settle on branches to roost. Macaws and toucans squawk, monkeys screech and a chorus of frogs pipe up. With the aid of torches, we search for caiman, a cousin of the alligator, their glinting eyes a giveaway among the reeds. Speeding back to our boat, the absolute blackness of the jungle swallows up beams of light, and what feels like rain splattering on my face turns out to be a torrent of insects pursued by bats.
One time, I’m standing on the edge of a skiff, staring at the black water before me. Beneath the surface lurk piranha. I know, because moments ago, I was yanking them out with a makeshift rod. But the day is hot and humid, so, with a mix of trepidation and excitement, I dive in, nervous the fearsome fish might exact revenge on me, yet thrilled to be cooling off in the legendary river.