Exploring Amazonia : In Brazil and Peru, eco-tourists get breathtaking close to exotic wildlife-in relative comfort-at two rain-forest lodges

There are journeys of discovery that each of us feel compelled to make in our lives. One of mine has been to explore the rain forest. So it was literally the chance of a lifetime when I was invited to join a tour of the Peruvian rain forest last March. My interest was not only personal, but also professional.

I produce a weekly cable television series on the environment, and these days everyone is talking about the rain forest, mostly its destruction. The most quoted statistic: We are losing the world’s rain forests at the rate of a football field a second. This was a chance to go beyond statistics.

Our hosts would be the nature travel firm International Expeditions, which was sponsoring a first-time rain-forest workshop that would bring together 140 paying tourists and 22 of the world’s foremost experts on rain-forest ecology. We would be spending a week at two jungle lodges in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon, accessible only by boat.

The scientists donated their time, and the tourists, well, we came along as willing students. It was also a direct experiment in eco-tourism. This buzzword stands for a supposedly new kind of travel--designed to have a minimal impact on the environment, encourage public awareness of the natural world,and provide jobs and money to encourage local people to keep their environment in its natural state.

Will it work? Let’s just say that, after a week in this place, I would no longer feel disconnected from the statistics. I was about to be dazzled by one of the more extraordinary places I have ever seen--some would say the most extraordinary on earth.

Thinking of the Amazon, I imagined an exotic, mysterious and dangerous place. Certainly, it seemed to be a place very far away.

But the mysteries turned out to be surprisingly easy to get to. Only a four-hour plane ride from Miami and I found myself in Iquitos, a bustling city of 600,000 in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. This is a city that once reflected the fortunes of 19th-Century rubber barons. Even today, building facades of gleaming Spanish tile and ornate iron balconies are reminiscent of Iquitos’ salad days. But as a local bus took us from the airport to meet our boat, we passed streets lined, Tijuana-like, with sidewalk stalls that buy, sell and trade everything from watches to clothing to fruit to televisions.

But Iquitos is not a border town; it is literally a jungle oasis. The only way in or out is by airplane, or by the Amazon, which flows by the city from its headwaters high in the Andes to the west, and continues on to empty into the Atlantic, 2,000 miles to the east.

I got my first sight of the river at the docks in Iquitos. Like meeting a Hollywood legend, it leaves you speechless for a moment. This is, after all, the largest river in the world, so massive it holds one-third of the world’s freshwater.

It seemed more like an ocean. I could barely see the opposite riverbank. Even this far upriver, the Amazon is two miles wide.

Our eco-tour began with a two-hour trip downriver to the Explorama Lodge, our home for the next five days. Riding in open-air motorboats with thatch-covered canopies, we decided the legendary Amazon seemed more friendly than ominous. Children swam along the riverbanks, women were doing laundry and friends in canoes stopped to chat.

We passed river taxis with people lounging in hammocks, fighting for space among bunches of bananas. There were giant steamers carrying fresh-cut logs and, in between, small family canoes. I felt as if I was traveling the greatest highway on earth.

American anthropologist Peter Jensen came here 27 years ago to establish the lodge, one of two “jungle hotels” we would be staying at. As we ferried downriver, we could see that much of the land by the river had been cleared by individual families to grow bananas and raise cattle.

Overpopulation is the greatest threat to this part of the rain forest, Jensen told me. “The local people here need to have an incentive not to cut the forest down,” he said. A thriving tourist industry would provide much needed employment and an alternative to destroying the forest, he believes.

Explorama is tucked away down a small sheltered inlet, a sort of private driveway.

As we turned off the main waterway, , the jungle closed in around us. Enormous tree vines dangled along the water’s edge. Each vine and tree limb was connected, creating a solid wall of green.

With the roar of our motorboat silenced, the sounds of the forest came alive. Squawking macaws and the incessant hum of the katydids filled the air. Barefooted children stood at the water’s edge, waving. A pet spider monkey danced at their heels. Surrounded by more than 4,000 acres of rain forest, the lodge is a gathering of wood buildings on stilts extending at different angles into the jungle and connected by palm-covered walkways. The accommodations are Spartan: two to four beds in each room, a chest of drawers, wash basin and mosquito netting over each bed.

There is no electricity, no hot water and no windows--each room opens to a porch with a view of the forest. But I found this place surprisingly comfortable. It was 90 degrees, so who wants a hot shower? Kerosene lanterns were far more romantic than electric lights. Three meals a day were served buffet-style in a separate dining room. The food was plentiful and different enough to keep my interest: beans, rice, fresh salad, chicken, meat and “jungle spaghetti”--hearts of palm peeled in long strips. There was also the sweetest fish I have ever tasted, the freshwater Dorado. And there was enough cold Peruvian beer to wash it all down, at a dollar a bottle.

There’s no beach, golf or gambling here. What you do is explore a place that hasn’t changed much in several million years. If you are curious about the natural world, a walk through the rain forest is the best ride on earth. And I was with a very curious group of travelers. Before I could unpack my bags, we headed for the forest. There are clearly marked pathways from the lodge into the jungle. That was reassuring because, I soon discovered, the rain forest is like a hall of mirrors--every direction looks the same.

While no trip to the rain forest is for the faint-hearted, this was a trip for all ages. Members of our workshop ranged from 20 to 70. There were educators, retirees, photographers, painters and students.

We carried butterfly nets, cameras and note pads. I brought the most useful item of all, a rain poncho. It rains here about 250 days a year. Rain or not, the humidity made me feel slightly soggy most of the time. Then there’s the mud--it’s everywhere. I often found myself ankle-deep.

Dressing for success in the rain forest is a gamble: Shorts are cooler, but long pants are a shield from the mosquitos. Nevertheless, it was a losing battle against them. I tried spraying, swatting and running. But they were never bad enough to keep me from returning.

“You see incredible things here, but you have to work for it,” a friend told me. And work we did--hiking all day in search of birds, bats and bugs.

I saw butterflies sporting every color imaginable, from electric blue to a blinding yellow. There are 4,000 species in this forest. In fact, half of all the species on earth--animals, plants, insects--are found in the Amazon rain forest.

As we stepped over huge tree roots and maneuvered small streams, we spied a slow-moving sloth--the furry prehistoric creature that lives much of its life in a single tree, hanging upside down. There were spider monkeys and a gigantic night-blooming cactus flower the size of a honeydew melon.

But in the forest it’s the ants who are king of the hill. There are leaf-cutter ants, army ants (they only carry people to their doom in the movies) and three-inch black ants (one bite can put you in the hospital for three days).

When it rained, I ran for cover under the giant ceiba trees. The base of this tree is so enormous that a single root-like buttress is used to carve a family canoe. Tucked away in its deep crevices, I could easily stand straight up.

One workshop leader, botanist Al Gentry, seemed to embrace the spirit of this forest more than anyone else. A scientist from the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Gentry has explored some of the most remote parts of the rain forest. He told a story of narrowly escaping death in Ecuador when he was dropped by helicopter into a region where white men were not welcomed. Such adventures have moved Newsweek to call him the Indiana Jones of botany.

Gentry is in his mid-40s, but moves through the forest with the enthusiasm and energy of a 20-year-old. He spends months at a time in the jungle in search of new species, and he delighted in telling us war stories: “One time I was camping in the forest and when I woke up, my tent was gone. The ants ate it. Another time they ate my belt.” It was comforting to know I had a bunk bed to return to that evening.

Gentry’s goal was to prove to us that the forest is worth far more standing than cut down. First he pointed to the rubber tree (“better than synthetic rubber for making tires”), then to the Oncaria vine (“used to cure prostate cancer”), and finally to the fruit trees (“there are some here that would make someone rich if they were willing to harvest them”).

But it was Gentry’s highwire act that made the real impression. He climbed far up into the tree canopy--45 feet straight up, using only a small waist strap and iron claws on his feet. Gentry has spent weeks of his life in the rain-forest canopy. It’s in the treetops, he told us, where you will find the real action.

Hundreds of plants, animals and insects live on a single tree, never coming down. Gentry explained that the rain-forest soil is virtually barren--almost all the nutrients are in the foliage. That makes cutting down the rain forest doubly devastating because the soil can’t support long-term planting or grazing of cattle.

I felt envious of Gentry as I craned my neck skyward, only able to imagine what he was seeing in the treetops. But tourists may soon be able to join him in this biological wonderland.

Richard Ryle, president of International Expeditions, is sponsoring the building of a quarter-mile-long walkway--a suspension bridge--through the tree canopy. It is part of an overall plan to create a new study center here that will bring together scientists and tourists.

What we didn’t see were large animals. The jaguar, deer and large monkeys have been hunted for years and are scarce. But we did have a close encounter with a wild beast--of sorts. One afternoon, as we returned to the lodge, there was a rustle from the trees and suddenly a huge pig-like creature came racing at us from out of the jungle. I felt a mixture of fear and excitement as the bizarre creature with a long rubbery snout charged around us. It was a tapir, a relative of the rhinoceros, once hunted as a food source. Our intruder turned out to be a pet at the lodge, a sort of onery jungle mascot.

After a day of discovery and enchantment in the forest, I often fell exhausted into a hammock on the lodge veranda, serenaded by a gaggle of parrots.

While I waited to hear the call of the jungle drums--the dinner signal--many of the creatures in the rain forest were just waking up. Darkness is a call to action.

On several evenings after dinner, I followed Smithsonian biologist Don Wilson into the forest in search of bats. Sporting a miner’s light on his head, Wilson strung fine mesh nets across the forest pathway we used during the day. During our stay, Wilson caught 20 different species of bats.

If one isn’t in the mood for nocturnal critters, there are other options. You can dance the night away at the Explorama bar, where local musicians strum guitars by the warm glow of evening lanterns, backed up by the harmony of the tree frogs.

By midweek we were off on a new adventure 43 miles down the Amazon and up the Napo River, one of the largest tributaries of the Amazon. We were on our way to Jensen’s Napo Camp, another lodge in the forest, a more remote version of the Explorama. But this one turned out be be more like a giant, open-air treehouse. On our way, I searched for the pink river dolphin. Legend has it that if a young girl sees a river dolphin she will become pregnant. I was told that many young girls do their washing facing away from the river for fear of seeing a dolphin. One river family told me that a neighbor girl was impregnated by a dolphin, and that she had to go to Iquitos to “get rid of the dolphin” baby. It seems that here, as elsewhere, folklore helps ease the trials of life.

The dolphin are are descendants of their saltwater brethren. Geologists believe the Amazon once extended to the Pacific Ocean, but was cut off when the earth’s crust exploded to create the Andes. The dolphins in the river were trapped, eventually adapting to freshwater. I kept my binoculars handy, but the dolphin eluded us.

At the Napo, we slept dormitory-style on individual mattresses on the floor. Privacy came from the mosquito netting that covered each mattress. This is as close as you are going to get to camping in the rain forest and still find a shower and a hot meal . . . and no ants chewing at your bedding.

The forest around the camp is forest that has never been logged. Here we teamed up with local guides and they took us on a one-day trek to a black-water lake, whose color comes from tannins and decaying vegetation. It was here that I saw one of the most extraordinary birds I’d ever seen, the turkey-sized hoatzin. It’s red eyes are surrounded by bright blue skin and a scraggly crest of thin feathers. It lumbers from tree to tree nd eats mostly leaves. Hunted almost to extinction, it is so unusual that it is its own species.

The long day in the jungle at Napo camp gave way to the most peaceful night’s sleep I had on the entire trip. Jensen seems to have mastered the art of providing the exotic along with the comfortable. I never felt unsafe here.

There was little on this trip to remind me I was a tourist, but there was a jungle gift shop. On our last day we returned to the Explorama Lodge. I decided to join the group going to a nearby village of the Yagua indians, one of many indigenous Amazon tribes.

The Yagua, their strong-boned faces lined with red coloring from the achoite tree, wore traditional long grass skirts and headdresses. It was in the faces of the Yagua that I most felt the ancientness of this forest. They were proud, and distant.

They have set up a barter system here: Necklaces, canoe paddles and blowguns are traded for T-shirts. And there is entertainment. Two Yagua men offered a blow-dart demonstration that was impressive. They hit the bulls-eye on a thin wooden post 50 yards away. Not all was for show since the blowguns are used for hunting (bullets are expensive).

Like tourists everywhere, we crowded the stalls, bargained and took pictures. But we knew enough to leave behind the jaguar paws and monkey heads, which are endangered animals and illegal to bring back into the United States.

I felt awkward and self-conscious. It was hard to believe trading my T-shirts, socks and old tennis shoes was the way to protect this culture. But Peter Jensen argues that without the tourist trade, many of the Yagua would be forced to leave their traditional villages.

As we traveled back to Iquitos, the rain forest passed by in a blur of green. I only had the chance to explore what we already know about this place. I wondered what else is hidden here. Al Gentry’s words came back to me: “Clearly the surface of the moon is better known than the canopy of the rain forest.”

GUIDEBOOK

Peru Rain Forests

Getting there: Aerolineas and Varig both offer nonstop service from LAX to Lima, an eight-hour flight. With advance purchase, a typical 21-day excursion fare is $995 round trip. Varig flies from LAX to Lima three times weekly; Aerolineas flies once a week. Call Aerolineas at (800) 333-0276. Call Varig at (800) 468-2744. Both Fawcett Airlines and Areo Peru fly from Lima to Iquitos for about $70 one way.

Explorama Lodge: A one-week stay is $670 per person, including meals and guided excursions. For reservations, call Selective Hotel Reservations at (800) 223-6764.

Rain forest workshops: International Expeditions sponsors its next workshop March 21, 1992. The cost is $1,498, including air fare from Miami, lodging, meals, instructors and guided activities. Write One Environs Park, Helena, Ala. 35080, or call (205) 428-1700.

For more information: Contact the Peru Tourist Office, 1000 Brickell Ave., Miami, Fla. 33131, (305) 374-0023.