April 27 – On the River.

It’s 3pm and we’re near the confluence of the Ucayalli and Maranon Rivers.

I love the word confluence - the coming together of 2 forces to create an even greater one. The Amazon is thousands of smaller rivers and tributaries coming together to create a crescendo that truly epitomizes the meeting of those collective forces.

The boat anchors near the mouth of a small tributary and dolphins are all around us; small grey river dolphins (approx 4 ft long) and the bigger, more exotic, pink dolphins (up to 9 ft).


The greys are more playful and acrobatic than their larger, colourful rivermates. They are putting on a show for us – in pairs, but somehow elusive enough (or fast enough) to avoid getting caught midair on film (oops, not film – digits, maybe? Pixels? Bits/bytes? – what do we use to replace the word “film” now (or “fil-um” for my photography friend Garth))??

Unbeknownst to us, on the other side of the boat, we had guests. A river family had pulled alongside in their dugout canoes to show us their wares for sale – these kids are so wonderful and so proud of their creations. It’s impossible to resist. After buying more bracelets and other beaded work we set off in the skiff to explore the river bank and then up the tributary. I wish I had a photo of Bill’s beaded chicken! :)

Suddenly, we w ere witness to the most powerful force on earth – Mother Nature! Without warning, almost without awareness, we happened upon a wanton force of natur e that shows no mercy, no forgiveness and no recourse.

The Amazon is at near-record high water levels and the force of the flow of that water takes it to grounds that haven’t been exposed to the river before. The scene was peaceful. We were following a hawk along the shore and we stopped where it landed.

Over the side of the boat, a very large spider floated on the froth.

Suddenly a tree fell. A 30 ft tree simply fell over and landed in the river. At first we wondered/assumed that someone on shore had felled the tree but that theory was quickly dismissed as that tree suddenly resurrected itself to full height in the water … and was immediately sucked down into the vortex of the eddy/rip tide current! Not a minute later another tree fell … top first into the river … 2 minutes later it was resurrected and sucked into oblivion as well. We watched as tree after tree was ripped from the shore and devoured by the river.


30 years to grow and 30 seconds to disappear completely. Utterly amazing!

We were transfixed by the force and phenomenon and it took a few minutes for it to sink in that we were close for comfort to the danger that this wonder held. I was so mesmerized that I completely forgot that my camera could take video and I missed capturing the whole episode.

Continuing up the tributary we were again met by friendly waving hands of the village people along the shores and a never-ending array of colorful and rackety birds. Every river journey is packed with incredible river people and a glimpse into their lives that leaves me changed more and more every day. On the river.

On this day we happened upon a family burning a dugout canoe to stretch it. They were happy to talk with us about the process, the time it takes to create one and the actual value of it (should they want to sell it). It takes days of work to prepare the hollowed tree for river-readiness and safety but the market value would be about 80 soles ($25 USD). On the river.

Further up the tributary we encountered another family. A man and his daughter trimming their banana plantation. From a canoe. The once walkable trails are now only navigable by canoe. The man was waist-deep in the river and was trimming banana trees and harvesting the low-hanging bunches and trimming up the water-logged dead leaves. His 4-year old daughter was paddling the canoe and eyeing us with inquisitive wariness.

He lost his wife 4 yrs ago to cholera but he said “don’t worry about me, I have a new one now”. Life goes on. On the river.