Save this story Save Story Save this story It’s around 6:30 p.m., and I’m cruising up an Amazon tributary under a twilight sky, streaks of fluffy pink and purple clouds just about visible behind the dense jungle trees on either side. At the prow of the skiff, our guide Helen holds a torch above her head; as we slice through a thick layer of water lettuce on the river’s surface, the spotlight turns it a shade of neon green. Then, we pull into the coffee-black waters of an oxbow lake, the motor is switched off, and we begin to glide silently, the suffocatingly still air heavy with the humid scent of damp leaf mulch. The beam of the torch sweeps further away over the tangled undergrowth, and finally, we spot our prize: a pair of twinkling red eyes. We’ve found a caiman.
Photo: Getty Images Nudging ever closer with gentle whirrs of the engine, we watch its scaly snout hover above the surface before slipping back into the murky depths. (It’s the largest predator in the Amazon basin, though it’s far from the first bucket-list wildlife I’ve spotted on my trip so far.) Then, just as we’re preparing to head back, the heavens open. We frantically pull on our waterproof ponchos as sheets of warm tropical rain lash the boat and forks of lightning illuminate the surrounding canopy—a humbling, visceral reminder of the ferocious power of Mother Nature out here on the river. (Again: definitely not the first time on the trip I’ve felt this.)
Aerial view over a tropical forest with a river in the amazon rainforest JarnoVerdonk I’ve headed to the deepest depths of the Peruvian Amazon—from my home in London, it required three flights, a two-hour coach ride, and a transfer boat—to experience Pure Amazon , the sleek new luxury riverboat from Abercrombie & Kent that explores the region’s vast Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve. Joining me for the adventure is my friend Olivia, and we’ve committed to the bit: during our stopover in Lima the day before, we both painted our nails different shades of jungle green—though admittedly, this is roughly the extent of our practical wilderness preparation.
Not that we needed extensive preparation, it turns out: thanks to Abercrombie & Kent’s white-glove service, the entire journey has been as smooth as a well-poured pisco sour, from touching down in Lima to our pickup in the ramshackle jungle metropolis of Iquitos to our arrival at the timber-and-rattan lounge in Nauta, where cold iced teas on trays awaited.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent After trying on our ponchos and knee-high rubber boots for size at the lounge, we boarded a skiff at twilight to skim across the wide, inky expanse of the river to our home for the next few days. Framed by heavy storm-stirred clouds, the vessel materialized out of the gathering dark: a sleek, double-decker craft glowing entirely from within, casting an amber light across the water. (As the ship’s interior designer, the Lima-based architect Adriana Granato, later explained, the lighting was kept deliberately subtle to minimize disruption to nocturnal fauna, lending the boat, in her evocative words, “a mysterious presence.”)
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent Stepping inside, the transition from wild frontier to civilized five-star sanctuary was so dramatic as to be a little jarring: one moment we were in the sweltering darkness outside, and the next we were being handed chilled, lemongrass-scented towels, our mud-flecked luggage magically whisked away to our rooms. Following a brisk, informative briefing over welcome drinks in the cozy open-plan lounge—then a knockout first dinner (but more on that front shortly)—we headed straight to bed, only pausing to draw the heavy blackout curtains against the late-night stirrings of the jungle.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent The next morning, waking early and drawing back the curtains to take in the space in full daylight, I was able to fully register the room I’d slept in. What a room (and a view) it was: Outside my floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the waters of the river and dense, trailing riverbank flora drifted past. Inside, the suite was bathed in dappled morning light, with warm local capirona timber lining the walls and the low-slung headboard and earthy handwoven textiles created by Indigenous artisans adorning the custom cushions—a world away from the dark, colonial-era clichés of traditional riverboats. “While you’re on the boat, I want you to feel like you’re in a natural environment, though one that necessarily contrasts strongly with the wildness outside,” Granato tells me later. To achieve that harmony, she treated materials like local mahogany, Peruvian travertine, and Amazonian quartzite as “site-specific works of art” that tell the geological and cultural story of the river. The space was so serene I could have happily spent the entire day wallowing in my bathrobe and watching the rainforest roll by. But that wasn’t really why we were here, of course.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent So off we went for a morning adventure, winding up the Amazon’s labyrinthine side channels like Klaus Kinski in Fitzcarraldo with binoculars glued to our faces as we scanned the treetops for flashes of colorful plumage—spotting everything from neon-bright macaws to prehistoric-looking hoatzins and yellow-rumped caciques. Eventually, after spotting a three-toed sloth and a troupe of squirrel monkeys, we anchored in a quiet backwater to try our hand at piranha fishing with simple wooden rods baited with chunks of raw beef. Within minutes, Olivia was yanking razor-toothed terrors out of the water at an alarming clip, thoroughly in her element. (My own attempts were less successful: I managed to catch just one lethargic baby fish, who looked more embarrassed to be caught than I was to catch it.) We threw our captives back, though one was repurposed as a mid-morning snack for a hawk perched in a dead tree nearby: our guide whistled, launched the fish into the open air, and we watched the bird sweep down in a blur of chestnut wings to snatch it cleanly from the river’s surface. Having worked up an appetite of our own, we then returned to the boat for lunch, where a DIY ceviche station loaded with market-fresh river fish, fiery rocoto chilies, and sweet potato awaited.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent That afternoon brought an altogether more nerve-wracking rite of passage: swimming in the Amazon itself. Having spent the morning coming face-to-face with piranhas—and being well-versed in the presence of caimans and stingrays—leaping into waters the color of English breakfast tea required a certain suspension of survival instincts. (Our guides assured us the vibrations of the boat kept danger at bay, a comforting theory we chose to accept with blind, unquestioning faith.) Nor was it especially glamorous, as we bobbed around in bulky lifejackets strapped securely over our bikinis and swimming trunks like toddlers. But as the boat drifted nearby under a vast, cloudless sky, a pod of pink river dolphins broke the glassy, reflective surface just yards away, their rosy dorsal fins glistening in the late-afternoon sun. The fear instantly gave way to awe.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent Back onboard, the food flowing from the compact galley rivaled our brief taste of Lima’s celebrated dining scene. Dinners are served in a panoramic dining room where the crew anticipated an empty glass before you did, and each plate felt like a love letter to the Amazon’s natural larder. One evening paired crisp cassava-and-smoked-pork croquettes with a bright, Nikkei-style paiche tartare crowned with crackled fish skin; another brought slow-cooked duck braised in fermented tucupi alongside wild yuca purée, capped off by a Peruvian coffee tiramisu dusted in bitter copoazú cocoa. Every meal was a culinary expedition of its own.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent Beyond the wildlife and creature comforts, however, the soul of the journey lay in its connection to the river’s communities. One morning, we stepped ashore at Nueva Arica, a tiny ribereño village of timber stilt houses perched high above the waterline, where residents harvest medicinal bark and live entirely to the rhythm of the seasonal floods. Later, we visited an Indigenous Kukama community supported by A&K Philanthropy, receiving woven bracelets before taking part in a traditional shamanic blessing—complete with a pungent tobacco-smoke cleansing ritual for which Olivia was the first—and only—person in our group to enthusiastically volunteer. It mirrored the design ethos back on the boat, where Granato collaborated directly with female collectives like BENEAI and artists like Deysi Ramírez to incorporate sacred kené geometric designs into cushions and wall hangings. “We didn’t want to extract their culture for decoration,” Granato noted. “We wanted to weave the spiritual essence of the Amazon into the very fabric of the vessel.”
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent Before we knew it, it was time to continue our journey back downstream. On our final afternoon, we pulled into the muddy bank for a trek deep into the rainforest, our guides hacking a path with machetes. We paused at the base of a colossal, centuries-old kapok tree whose roots towered above us like the flying buttresses of a Gothic cathedral. High in the branches overhead, a troop of long-limbed spider monkeys swung through the canopy, one pausing mid-leap to peer down and flash its behind at us with impeccable comedic timing. And as we emerged back at the river’s edge and headed back to the boat, a group of kids from a nearby village were taking turns clambering up a leaning tree trunk and somersaulting into the water with shrieks of laughter. Watching their fearlessness in an environment that outsiders so often frame as hostile or intimidating was another small revelation—a joyous example of how human life continues to flourish in this wildest of places.
Photo: Getty Images But for all the sweeping existential reflections the Amazon prompted (and there were many—from a midnight stargazing session considering the enormity of the cosmos, to the spiral of mortal panic I’d briefly had while swimming), my personal highlight came in a moment the afternoon before we disembarked: spotting a pair of endangered giant river otters slinking through the muddy undergrowth right by the water’s edge. Growing up to six feet long and notoriously elusive due to decades of habitat loss and poaching, seeing these charismatic creatures in the wild is a rarity that even our seasoned naturalists were excited by.
Photo: Courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent After saying our farewells and taking a bumpy ride back to Iquitos airport, I watched through the cabin window as our flight climbed above Iquitos, the endless carpet of the rainforest and its coiled ribbons of water slowly disappeared beneath the clouds. Already, the past few days felt like a surreal (and very sweaty) fever dream. Glancing down at my hands, the jungle-green polish from Lima was hopelessly chipped, ruined by river mud and rain. It was the only tangible trace of the Amazon I had left, and I was in no rush to wash it off.
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Source: Lifestyle
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