It started with a longing to see Machu Picchu, as do most excursions to Peru. I had a dark Mel Gibson Inca warrior vision. Then came buzz about Lima as a world-class restaurant city from trusted mouths. Travel writers we met on a luxurious junket to Istanbul singled out Cuzco and the Sacred Valley as musts. Having failed to work in a Brazilian Amazon cruise after the Paladar Food and Wine festival in Sao Paulo this past June, I thought we could tack on a few days afloat in the Peruvian rain forest. With respect for high altitude issues, I decided the Road Food Warrior and I should start low, even though one point of our summer getaways is to find winter somewhere and escape Manhattan’s torrid August. We would be briefly tropical. The Amazon has only two seasons we were told: rainy and dry (which can also be rainy).
The sous chef sets out Amazon summer rolls alongside fried wontons on the lunch buffet. Photo: Steven Richter
It was as lush as promised. Tented deck and vast king-size bed faced a sweep of window in our air-conditioned suite. Photo-perfect lunchtime buffets and napkins folded to look like water lilies. Dolphins flirting with our skiff, a colony of squirrel monkeys leaping through trees as if choreographed by Michael Bennett, mimosas at sunset with plantain chips on the river just before the guide captured a small alligator, Brazilian nut soup and deep-fried yucca beignet with ice cream made from the Vitamin A-rich palm fruit, aguaje.
To think we almost didn’t go. Days before we were to leave, our Amazon voyage was cancelled. Bandits had robbed Aqua Expeditions floating hotel – again – just ten days after we were assured a first robbery was an aberration and military gunboats were now patrolling the waters. News reports said the armed raiders had overpowered police guards on deck and emptied safes, taking cash, jewelry, cameras, phones, and even clothes, leaving passengers bound and gagged. “That part isn’t true,” our travel guru said. Most passengers on our trip had opted out.
The next day she called again: “The cruise is on if you’re willing. Another couple insists on going. The government has promised there will be armed patrols following the boat at all times.” I can’t say I wasn’t anxious, but I had images of Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow. I’d been bound but never gagged. I wished I were younger. So we would be four passengers instead of the usual 24, and Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, Lima’s dynamic champion of jungle products and Aqua’s consulting chef, would be on board too, as well as a staff of 22.
The first robbery had not discouraged the Road Food Warrior and me. But the second made it look like a trend. “I can’t afford to lose three cameras on the first day of our trip,” said Steven. And according to our friend Harry, an old rainforest hand, we needed to watch out also for panthers, snakes, tarantulas and malaria. “Get a tarantula whistle,” Harry advised. “It makes tarantulas run the other way.”
Local river snails stuffed with sweet pepper salsa against the grassy shore. Photo: Steven Richter
I didn’t know what to worry about first. I packed anticipating bandits. I’d never gone anywhere without jewelry. I decided I would sacrifice my favorite chiffon skirt but not my computer, my snakeskin clutch, or my red ballet flats. (Warmer clothes for winter chills and rock climbing shoes got packed separately to leave in storage at Lima’s Country Club Hotel.)
Lobster on avocado with a new friend at Cala overlooking Lima's beach. Photo: Steven Richter
We’d both slept the entire eight-hour flight on LAN’s stretch-out-drop-down beds in business class, but after we’d repacked and showered, we grabbed an hour snooze with time for lunch before the afternoon plane to Iquitos. Lunch on the outdoor terrace of Cala was as astonishing for Iván Kissac’s exquisitely presented and flavored food as it was for its setting – on the ocean, where we could watch the surfers. Smoked king fish in cilantro cream with sweet potato. Vacuum-cooked langoustines over slices of molten avocado. Slow cooked egg on a river shrimp cake. Tiramisu of lúcuma, a favorite Peruvian fruit with a delicate almost elusive flavor – egg fruit in English. To me it has a custard taste, mildly eggy, faintly vanilla, with a drop of something citric.
Cala's slow-cooked egg and river shrimp on squash puree. Photo: Steven Richter
By the time we landed in Iquitos, Steven decided to bet against a third strike and took his new camera on board. We left credit cards, passports and most of our cash in the Aqua office along with my favorite pashmina.
“Would they really take a pashmina?” I asked one of the half dozen or so young Aqua crew in hospital green t-shirts collecting our baggage at the airport and loading us on the bus that would take us to the dock.
“Yes,” she said, rather too matter-of-factly I thought.
Fresh water prawns in local leaves and chicken rice tamale wraps. Photo: Steven Richter
She introduced us to our companions. Whit was tall and thin with perfect posture. Jill looked English or even Southern with long ropes of silver hair wrapped around her head. Americans just arrived from a conference in Chile. “Just give us guns,” they had told the Aqua bookers. “We’re both good shots and we’ll take care of any bandits.” I liked them already.
That was fortunate, since we were just the four of us around a small table three times a day – buffet breakfast (French toast, omelet, eggs benedict), buffet lunch (deep-fried won tons, pickled daikon, penne pesto), a la carte dinner (Brazilian nut soup, beef tenderloin brochette with star-fruit chutney, deep fried yucca beignet) – as well as in off-boat excursions. At every meal, another leaf unfolded. They were global diplomats, experienced adventurers, big time bird watchers, open and adoring, romantic, even…yes, even Obama stalwarts.
I can’t imagine what these children think of us wandering through their village. Photo: Steven Richter
In the same spirit many New Yorkers always carried at least $20 in “mugger money” during the dangerous 60s and 70s, we tucked two hundred dollars in Peruvian solas inside our cabin safe – no sense being killed by bandits in a rage at finding nothing.
Attached to our boat, as promised, was a naval gunboat, machine gun mounted on its bow. Occasionally it would scoot off to confront a passing canoe or tug to advertise its presence. We checked daily to be sure it was still there as we sat down for breakfast. Now my fear was that if the bandits dared strike again, we’d all by killed.
The piranhas were biting and Steven hooked one as did everyone else.
I have my Wildlife Checklist with a record of what we saw in our daily excursions with guides Usiel and Ricardo in an aluminum boat. We watched pink and silver dolphins leaping all around us and moved south with the guides making bird and monkey sounds, though Jill was often ahead of them with yet another bird, determined to spot a three-toed sloth and monkeys: Mustached tamarin monkeys, Red Howlers, tiny squirrel monkeys. Vultures, woodpeckers, giant hawks and eagles might get my attention but basically I’m drawn to roasted squab stuffed with foie gras, Peking duck, thrush mousse and crunchy ortolans you eat whole except for the beak.
Still, Jill and Ricardo’s excitement at sighting a black-fronted nunbird, an Amazon kingfisher, or a masked crimson tanager was contagious. I was not among those who actually spied the cobalt-winged parakeet. I was happier to see locals rowing by in flat wooden boats, laundry hanging in a small village, children selling birds fashioned from a stone, two berries and some wood. Everyone who went fishing caught a piranha, then threw it back into the river. We drank mimosas from champagne flutes with plantain chips at sunset, then slowly putt-putted along the shore with a spotlight hoping to see monkeys or a panther. Usiel captured a caiman lizard, holding its snout tight shut while he lectured and checked to see if it had a two-pronged penis – no, it was female.
On our last night the guides announced they were a band too, Usiel on the Inca drum, Ricardo on maracas, the room porter, Tomas, on guitar. They sang “Can’t Help Falling in Love with You” And “When the Saints Come Marching In.” I had a pisco sour (I could drink since I’d stopped taking Malarone the first day after Ricardo swore we would not encounter any malaria mosquitoes where we were going.)
That night the entire crew, 20 of them all in full uniform, gathered to say goodbye at dinner. (They left two men at the controls and the Peruvian sharp shooters playing cards.) I realized how much the company had riding on this three day voyage. Not merely Aqua Expeditions and other Amazon cruises, but possibly tourism in Peru. There needed to be a five star voyage with no threat of bandits. Whit and Jill had made it happen. And Steven and I needed to be there to tell the story.
Aqua Expeditions. Two in a suite from $2100 per person for three days, to $2800 for four days and $4900 for seven days. 1 866 603 3687.