John and I flew Tuesday morning from Lima to Iquitos, in the north of Peru, to join a four-night cruise on the Amazon. We were on the Delfin III, as recommended by Christie and Brian, a couple we met on our first Antarctic cruise. It was everything they said it would be.
Since it is high-water season there, we were able to explore smaller canals by skiff. We saw wonderful birds, several kinds of monkeys, a Pygmy marmoset (!!!!), sloths (eight in one day!!!), and the famous pink dolphins and their less-showy cousins, the gray dolphins. Needless to say, John and I were both in wildlife heaven. We also visited a small village and met some of the kids at their school, and we did a couple of hikes. It poured rain on us one day, but it didn’t dampen our spirits too much, and it cleared up in the afternoon (after we got out of the skiff, of course!).
Two scientists were on-board to talk about conservation efforts for the pink and gray dolphins, a lovely married couple. We participated in a dolphin count with them one afternoon on the bow of the boat. A woman from the cruise line was also on this trip, and we enjoyed hearing about her work with the communities to replant heritage crops on their land. After we got off the boat Saturday morning, we stopped at an interesting business on the way to the airport. A local guy is working with families in the area to commercially produce honey from the stingless bees found in the forest – it was super interesting.
The boat was lovely. We had the fanciest cabin – it had a panoramic 180 degree view off the front of the boat. The food was amazing, too, and they source most of their ingredients locally. The best part was the other folks we met – we really clicked with three other couples on the boat. With only 18 passengers (including the scientists), the other people can really make or break the trip, and we got very lucky. There were also four Mexicans we enjoyed a lot, too – a middle-aged son with his father and two uncles.
Our last night in Lima, we took three of John’s old employees out to dinner, along with their wives. He used to work with them in the early 2000s, before we joined the foreign service. It was a wonderful reunion at the same restaurant they used to go to back in the day. You could tell it meant a lot to them to see John again.
We had a long trip home! We got off the boat at 8:30 Saturday morning, and didn’t get to our house until mid-afternoon Sunday. We took advantage of a long layover back in Lima to get a shower and a nap at the airport hotel, so that made things a little nicer – but it’s still a long trip! We were glad to finally walk into the house, although it was heartbreaking not to see little Flavia waiting for us when we returned. John and I talked about how we still expect to see her.