Welcome to the Jungle
“Don’t touch anything,” warned Edwin emphatically, our guide into the Amazon jungle for the next four days.
Normally, this would have been problematic for me. I can hardly make it out of a BestBuy without playing with 50 different gadgets before leaving. But this was different - Edwin wasn’t messing around. Born in a small village deep in Peruvian Amazon, Edwin was a native to the rainforests and legitimate wilderness expert. After all, it was his way of life. He spoke 3 tribal languages, had family members killed by jungle snakes, bore steak knife-sized scars from touching a wrong leaf once, and regularly took National Geographic survivalists and filmmakers on multi-week expeditions into the Amazon with nothing but a mosquito net and machete. In other words, he was a certified badass. If there was ever a moment to tell your overeager inner child to shut up and listen, it was now.
You will never find Edwin without his machete
Anushka and I started our Amazon adventure in Iquitos, the gateway city into the vast rainforests of the Peru’s Pacaya Samiria National Reserve. A two hour boat ride up the Amazon River brought us to our ecolodge, Maniti Expeditions, where the reality of jungle life hit us quickly.
Boat ride from Iquitos to our home in the Amazon for 4 days
I can safely say that the Amazon has been the most uncomfortable experience of our entire trip.
First, it’s the simple things. The humidity clings to your skin like a wet blanket. Knee-deep mud sucks your boots off after a few steps (going during rainy season was bad timing on our part). You get only 3 hours of electricity a day. Giant tarantulas surprise you in the outdoor bathrooms. And the mosquitoes...are bad. Moments into our arrival at the lodge we saw a few people leaving with legs painted bright red, like a bad sunburn, from mosquito bites. Talk about foreshadowing. Over the following days, swarms of mosquitoes the size of half your index finger became our daily companions, from breakfast to boat to bed. On our final night camping near a swampy lookout point, the air was literally palpable with them, a sandstorm of insect hell that followed our every move. We luckily avoided the worst of it by showering ourselves in DEET and by bundling up in impenetrable rain gear daily, even though it meant we were walking saunas in the heat.
Rain gear ✔️ Headlamp ✔️ Boots ✔️ Mental prep for the mosquitoes ❌
Second, almost everything in the rainforest can harm or kill you. Those were also Edwin’s words, not mine. Steps away from our campsite during a hike he pointed out a nest of the world’s second most deadliest spiders, patches of poisonous mushrooms and spikes on palm trees long enough to impale your entire body. It was like walking into an impossibly hard video game, and the only way to pass the level is to learn by trial and error, trial and error, trial and possible disaster. In Edwin’s case, he possessed the accumulated knowledge of generations before him along with 50 years of personal experience surviving life in the rainforest. You felt those instincts on display when spending time with him - he just saw the jungle differently than we ever could. For example, during a canoe trip on the blackest of nights, he paused the boat and hushed us quickly after spotting the glowing red eyes of a large black caiman 800 meters ahead of us. He tried pointing it out 3 times to us, but we failed to see anything at all. Thankfully neither of us was navigating. During another day hike he pointed out a seemingly innocuous tree that looked identical to the others around it. One tap with his machete and out exploded a flood of red fire ants, angry guardians of the tree that will hospitalize you trying to protect their home turf. Later on he made the mistake of touching one of these trees for a fraction of a second too long. Before you could blink, a few fire ants sprang onto him. But Edwin was just as quick. In what felt like a demonstration of his seriousness, he immediately ripped off his jacket and shirt to shake off any ants before they got to him. Can’t be careful enough in this jungle.
Sharp and pointy things everywhere you look
But that doesn’t mean we didn’t enjoy the Amazon or that it should be avoided on your travel list. Far from it actually. Being so far beyond your comfort zone in the jungle ecosystem, I felt, was both awakening and humbling. Your senses are heightened from the omnipresent danger of the unknown - every noise, every plant, every step thrusts you into the “now” and raises your awareness of the moment. What new information could it bring you? Will it help or will it hurt? You actually start to notice the present acutely. And when you’re not battling mosquitoes or avoiding mud traps, those simple moments of noticing your surroundings become remarkable. Like the complex orchestra of a jungle night lulling you to sleep, and the slow crescendo of the rainforest waking you up with the sunrise. Or the silent dances and leaps of spider monkeys above you on the canopies, a morning play on the highest stage. Or the swift current of the Amazon River, a mesmerizing conveyor belt shipping organic debris and leaving no time for its slower tributaries to catch up. I didn’t expect to have bouts of mindfulness in the middle of the Amazon, but it ended up being one of the joys of our jungle adventure.
The Amazon has its amazing moments
The Amazon is also so full of life. In the wild we saw everything from prehistoric birds to piranhas to the elusive pink river dolphin - they are literally Pepto-Bismol pink. We also visited a rehabilitation center where we met dozens of playful monkeys, toucans, turtles, and a hilarious sloth that made everyone’s day. The diversity of plant life is equally spectacular (never thought I’d be this excited about plants), where some of the Amazon’s best medical miracles are hiding in plain sight. Edwin showed us tree bark that oozes iodine-like sap, had us drink fresh water from tree roots, and pointed out berries that even help with birth control - basically an all-natural pharmacy. With so much life around you competing, thriving and surviving, it’s hard not to be awed and feel like you’re just one small piece in Mother Nature’s grand design.
The pink river dolphin, matamata turtle, a toucan, and a sloth that looks like a computer programmer from the 80s
Now, I would be amiss to end our Amazon story without describing our best encounter in the rainforest - our other trekking mates at the lodge. The characters we spent time with over those four days are something out of a reality TV show, one that failed miserably trying to appeal to international audiences because it leaned into every stereotype way too hard. The memories have us laughing to this day.
A recap of the cast...
The Italians: A mixed group of 6 20-somethings who were insanely hot. So hot that they wore Gucci into the rainforest only to take it off constantly, confusing the group into thinking Roman statues had made their way into the Amazon. They made the Belgians’ lives miserable by posing non-stop for the “instagramma!”
The Belgians: A trio of chatty 30-something friends with PhDs and jobs that don’t mix with bullshit well. Those poor souls got paired with the Italians on their excursions and came back every lunch in absolute bewilderment and borderline rage about the group’s nonstop photo antics. Their hilarious gossip united much of the lodge together.
The New Yorkers: A diverse mix of young 20-somethings out of an outtake of Broad City. They spent most of their time dazed and contemplating life after their overnight ayahuasca benders.
The Chilean-Russian Couple: Their love story is an unlikely one that takes two extremely mature, worldly, courageous people to overcome that cultural chasm. They were fun and overall amazing people that we spent a lot of time with.
The Brazilians: A charismatic couple in their 60s on their second marriage enjoying life. Moved to America briefly years ago but the bars and clubs closed too early for them. Natives from Rio, they used a map app daily that tracked the latest street violence, not traffic, anytime they drove in the city. Even a few grandchildren in, his wife hated wearing clothes and carried the confidence of Brazil’s Next Top Model.
Alaska Dan - Oh Dan. A 70-something year old hunter from the deep Alaskan wilderness who wants to Make America Great Again. And remind you constantly that he’s from Alaska. Although our ideologies couldn’t have been more different, Dan clung onto us as we were the only other Americans not recovering from an ayahuasca trip. It was endearing actually, but Anushka, along with most of the group, might have lost it when he mentioned he “didn’t believe in science too much because that evolution stuff is really old.”
Like Edwin said, the Amazon is pretty wild.
