Amazon Jungle High

As a middle school elementary science teacher I’d learned a lot about the levels of the rainforest as we studied the various biomes of the earth. We had even created a rainforest in our classroom one year with papier mache trees, hanging liana vines and cardboard toucans. I had also been to rainforests already in Panama, Belize, Costa Rica, Brazil, Ecuador and Peru. I had climbed a tower in the Amazonian basin of southeastern Peru, above the emergent layer and seen an immature harpy eagle in the treetops in the distance.

This day was to rival all of that – I was going to climb and walk one of the largest canopy walkways in the world and experience all four (or five, depending on who you’re asking) layers of a tropical rainforest. But let me first tell you about the adventure to just get there!

We had arrived in Iquitos the previous afternoon and embarked on a 25 mile journey down the Amazon River to our lodge, Ceiba Tops. This luxury lodge is owned by the Explorama Company, which is proudly celebrating its 60th Anniversary of exploration, research and tourism in the Amazon.

At 6:30 this morning, we set off down the Amazon to the small town of Indiana. The town was established in the 1940s when missionaries came to help with an outbreak of leprosy. First we boarded motorized tuk-tuks to first visit the local market, which was unusually quiet due to Mother’s Day. It was still an interesting experience, with many items of fresh fruits as well as meat and fish on display.

Due to lack of refrigeration here, most families must buy meats daily, or salt them. We then climbed aboard our tuk-tuks again for a 5 mile ride to connect with the Napo River, a major tributary of the Amazon that winds from here up to Ecuador.

Boarding another boat, we cruised another 45 minutes down the Napo River to arrive at the more rustic ExplorNapo Lodge. Luckily, the river waters were still high from the rainy season, which allowed us to board a smaller boat to travel down an enchanting narrow waterway filled with blue morpho butterflies to arrive at the Amazon Conservatory for Tropical Studies, also owned by Explorama. (A few weeks later and the waterways would have been too low, necessitating an hour-long trek through the steamy jungle to arrive at the Conservatory.) Current research projects here include a study of how mammals use the nearby mineral licks, as well as how subsistence hunting impacts local mammal populations.

From here, it was another 30 minute trek through the dense rainforest to reach the center’s Canopy Walkway. The original walkway was funded in 1992 as a way to study the previously inaccessible and unstudied rainforest canopy. It has expanded and changed over the years and now reaches a height of about 120 feet with 14 platforms connecting suspension bridges to form a walkway of over one-third mile.

We climbed from the forest floor, past the understory to the sub-canopy level in the first few platforms. Here the trees are smaller and beginning to climb to the canopy. We stayed in groups of 3 or 4 so as not to have too many people on a walkway at any time. This kept the bouncing and swaying to a minimum. Although well-constructed and inspected regularly, no one wanted to lose his or her balance and test it too much!

The longest walkway was at the sixth platform, in the midst of the canopy level.

At the end of it, we climbed up an additional level to survey the emergent level – above the canopy we could see the tallest trees in the area. Some of these were 150 feet high. It was an amazing view, and I literally felt like I was on top of the world.

Then we gradually descended through the remaining 7 platforms to again reach the forest floor. It was another hike of 25 minutes or so to return to the research center. While it was rather quiet both in the canopy and at the forest floor, we did see leaf-cutter ants, bullet ants, stick insects and a variety of butterflies as well as geckos and lizards.

Lunch was a local fish wrapped in ginger leaves with fried plantains, a salad of heart of palms and fresh local fruit for dessert.

We traced our steps and boat rides back to Ceiba Tops Lodge by mid-afternoon.