Seven spectacular highlights of the world’s largest river

The almighty Amazon River flows from the heights of the snow-capped Andean Mountains and rushes through Peru, Brazil and Colombia before pouring into the Atlantic Ocean, 6400 kilometres away. The Peruvian section of the Amazon is easier to get to, with a huge diversity of wildlife and all sorts of boats to explore, from local ferries and cargo boats all the way up to the ultra-luxurious small ship, Aqua Nera.

1 Be amazed by the Amazon itself

The world’s largest river by volume of water with about 20 per cent of the globe’s total freshwater … and not a single bridge. It’s a stunning sight. Unlike Brazil and Ecuador, Peru is the source of the river, and it changes dramatically with the different seasons. In the dry, it’s between one and five kilometres wide, much narrower than in the other countries, but in the wet it can end up as broad as 50 kilometres in stretches. Cruising on the river, with those glorious sunrises and sunsets, gives the sensation of it being a living, powerful force, pulsating with wildlife and with Indigenous communities along its banks.

2 Wish on a pink dolphin

Pink dolphins seem as mythical as unicorns, but they do exist, and nowhere else in the world in as great a number – estimated at several thousand – as in the Peruvian Amazon. It’s such a thrill to suddenly spot one of the endangered mammals – which have, astonishingly, even bigger brains than humans – alone or in a small pod, and see the flash of a pink back or belly as they roll (they don’t leap like marine dolphins). Lots of legends have grown up around them – that they can shape-shift into handsome men at night and impregnate young women wandering too close. But maybe the myths help protect them …

3 Glide through a flooded forest

The Peruvian Amazon can rise 30 metres in the rainy season, and is also fed by melting Andean snow-caps. Its various water levels make it fascinating all year round. In the dry, visitors can go on long walks through the rainforest, marvelling at the cornucopia of creatures – furry, slimy or just plain scary – and in the wet, it’s almost ethereal, floating past thickets of treetops in an aquatic forest, until reaching not-so-dry land. Parts of Peru’s protected ecological wonderland, the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, are dubbed “the jungle of mirrors”; surrounded as they are by water reflecting both greenery and sky, it can be difficult to judge where the earth begins.

4 Join the big chill with a sloth

Amid all the wildlife on the river – including the fabulous macaws, hummingbirds, butterflies, caimans, piranhas, howler and spider monkeys, boas, anacondas and tarantulas – sloths are a favourite wonder. Just quietly hanging upside down from tree branches, they’re slow, gentle, ancient, and perfectly adapted to their environment, moving at minimal speed, a bit like koalas, to preserve energy. They can sleep 10 to 15 hours a day and only descend to the ground once a week. To scientists, they remain a marvellous mystery.

5 Visit an Indigenous village

There are more than 50 different Indigenous groups in the Peruvian Amazon, living in splendid isolation along the riverbanks, in homes often built largely from the mud, eating fish, using medicines made from rainforest plants, and with a culture centred on the water. The ship, Aqua Nera, stopped off in the tiny settlement of Lisboa with passengers greeted by local children, delighted with gifts of books, pens and paper … and mystified by toy koalas. It can be a rare privilege to experience such a richly traditional community.

6 Be intrigued by Iquitos

Iquitos is the jumping-off point into the Amazon, and what a place! It’s the largest city in the world to be inaccessible by road (only by boat or plane), and it has a fascinating history, with Jesuit missions in the 1700s, then rubber barons from the 1880s building some splendid landmarks. On the river are the stilted houses of Belen, where locals drop in on each other by canoe during the wet season. There is also a teeming market.

7 Be baffled by two rivers running side-by-side

It’s a natural phenomenon that beggars belief. Near Iquitos, at the confluence of the River Nanay and the Amazon, there’s a clear line between them, with the former black and the other light brown. The separation comes from the amount of sediment in each, the pace of the flow and their different temperatures. It’s similar to the division between the Rio Negro and the Amazon at Brazil’s Manaus, but more compact.

Aqua Expeditions’ small luxury ship, Aqua Nera, has 20 cabins and 40 crew on four- and eight-day itineraries from $US5130 ($7435) a person, based on double occupancy. Early booking discounts available. LATAM flies from Sydney to Santiago, with connections to Lima and then Iquitos.
See aquaexpeditions.com; latamairlines.com; peru.travel

The writer travelled as a guest of Aqua Expeditions. See aquaexpeditions.com