Nauta, Peru

We checked out of the Wyndham Costa del Sol hotel at 8am and walked across the bridge to the airport to catch our LATAM Airlines domestic flight to Iquitos, Peru.
Lima airport is filled with horrendous crowds of people. As is typical in many foreign airports it’s impossible to figure out which line you’re supposed to be in and where it starts and ends. Sensing the lost look on our faces, a nicely dressed little Peruvian man jumped in to help. He whisked us back outside the airport and down to a different entry door and marched us right up to a check-in counter. At this point we’re thinking “Wow, this airport provides great service”. He didn’t speak any English and I speak next to no Spanish, but we were getting by quite well, I thought, with sign language. After we got our boarding passes he proceeded to walk us to the escalator for departures. At that point he started indicating that we owed him $20USD/person for his service. Jim had already tipped him $20 at the counter thinking that we were done with his services. As we’re handing him another $20 bill airport security dashed over and chased him off. Quite funny actually. But, to be honest, it was well worth the money not to have to stand in a line for hours! And the little guy made a nice chunk of money off of us (at least by Peruvian standards).
LATAM airplane has the skinniest seating I have ever seen. Even as short as I am, I can barely move my legs. Jim’s legs are totally squashed up into his chest. Our plan to book every other seat in the row and hope for a free middle seat didn’t work out sadly. It’s a packed airplane today!

Neycer, the leader of our Aqua Expeditions crew greeted us at the Iquitos airport upon landing. We made our way to a bus for the 62 mile ride to Nauta. I think there are about 16 of us heading to the Aria. We munched on plantain chips and Sublime chocolate bars.
Senor Dabid is our driver. Neycer gives us a little educational talk as we drive away from town.
Iquitos-means “isolated city” (which is truly is as the only access there is via plane) and has a population of 600,000. Iquitos is a full 2300 miles from the ocean. The only road is 62 miles long and is dotted with chicken and cattle ranches. The main mode of transportation is the TukTuk. There are about 60,000 of them in the city.

Along the drive there are beautiful Hibiscus, Palm trees and Banana trees and the landscape is lush and green.
There are chickens roaming all over–gives a whole new meaning to Free Range chickens
Dark clouds are lingering on the horizon and we drive through an occasional rain downpour.

Finally we arrived in the city of Nauta (now-ta) which means clay pot. Locals in this are are mostly farmers and fisherman.

As we exit the bus we are greeted by 3 high school students playing musical instruments and 5 other students performing ceremonial dances. They continue to entertain us while we enjoy a wonderful lunch of pork salad, regional fruit and ice cream.

At 4pm we took our first skiff outing down the Marañón river to view the confluence of the Ucayali River and Marañón River with the main channel of the Amazon. The water definitely reflects a café au lait color. We had hoped to view the pink river dolphins but alas only had 1 brief sighting on our adventure. They have very poor vision and rely on sonar instincts for navigation. However, we did come across a troop of little monkeys in trees along a narrow channel off of the main body of water. We also sighted several Fork Tailed Flycatcher birds.

Once on board the Aria, we settled into our suites and then gathered in the ship’s lounge and enjoyed tropical drinks during an orientation lecture and introduction to the nature guides and staff. Then we had a mandatory routine safety drill. The suites are awesome and have one full wall of window looking out into the Amazon tropics and river.

For dinner, we gathered for a meal of Amazonian cuisine created by Executive Chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino. The main course was Peica fish sourced from the Amazon. Delicious!

We set sail during dinner under a deluge of rainfall. Tonight is Aria Amazon’s 10th Birthday so we sang Happy Birthday and the chef had made a giant birthday cake. Fred Brown, one of the owner’s who is onboard with us, gave a brief speech and a toast.

Crew Members:
Roland
George-little guy with a very robust voice
Julianna-cruise director

AMAZON FACTS
The Amazon River is located in South America. It runs through Guyana, Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia and Peru.
The length of the Amazon River is approximately 4000 miles, which is the equivalentof the distance from NYC to Rome.
During the wet season, the Amazon River can reach over 120 miles in width. During dry season, it may be as little as 6.8 miles wide.
There are no bridges that cross the Amazon, mostly because there is no need, the majority of the Amazon River runs through rainforests rather than roads or cities.
The largest city along the Amazon River is Manaus. Located in Brazil it is home to over 1.7 million people.
There are over 3000 known species of fish that live in the Amazon River, with more constantly being discovered. Anacondas lurk in the shallow waters of the Amazon Basin. They are one of the largest snakes in the world and occasionally attack larger animals such as goats that get to close the water.
The Amazon River is also home to the piranha. Being carnivores, piranhas are known to attack in groups, preying on livestock that strays into the water.

Fred Brown, Chief Financial Officer
Fred Brown is joint founder & co-owner of
Aqua Expeditions.
As a British Chartered Accountant, he brings a rare and valuable combination of experience with enterprises of all sizes in areas such as top management, corporate governance, business planning & projections, internal accounting controls & human resources. His career includes audit, accounting, tax, human resources, business advisory services & general management with Deloitte & Touche in Peru, Ecuador, and the United States. Having retired as Managing Partner for Ecuador and Partner-in-Charge of Consulting Services for the Andean Region, he served as Independent Director and President of the Audit Committee for PRONACA, a leading $1 billion agribusiness.Brown has brought this international experience & accounting expertise to the financial operations of Aqua Expeditions, from initial planning & start-up through to our current expansion on the Mekong with operations in Singapore, Cambodia & Vietnam.He currently divides most of his time between Singapore & Peru.