Guest Photo Safari: Where the Wild Things Are

Recent guest Paul Rubio shares some of his breathtaking photography while traveling on the M/V Aqua. Paul’s lens work captures some of the gorgeous vistas and wildlife found in some of the most remote parts of the Peruvian Amazon.

Aqua Expeditions Hosts an Evening at Olives With Todd English

Last week, Aqua Expeditions hosted an intimate trade event for top agents in New York City in conjunction with PromPeru and Orient-Express Hotels at Todd English’s Olives restaurant. A recent guest and fan of the M/V Aqua, Todd himself created a special menu for the event and even made a special appearance; sharing anecdotes from his trip, posing for pictures and greeting guests.

Pictured: Jack Bloch (JB World of Travel), Chef Todd English, Jeffrey Kane (Jeffrey’s World of Travel), and Francesco Galli Zugaro (Aqua Expeditions).

Food Trip With Todd English’s Peru trip nominated for James Beard House Foundation Award.

Congratulations to Todd English for being nominated for a prestigious James Beard House Foundation Award!

Todd English and his crew from PBS’ Food Trip with Todd English recently spent several days with Aqua Expeditions’ Executive Chef, Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, exploring the Peruvian Amazon and its unique cuisine. The 30-minute piece they filmed in Iquitos and onboard the M/V Aqua — along with the 30-minute piece they filmed in Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley — secured the nomination for a 2010 James Beard Foundation Broadcast Media Award for Best Television Special.

The James Beard House Foundation will hold its annual gala event on May 2, 2010, in New York City to announce the 2010 award winners.

Good luck to Todd and his staff; or as we say in Spanish, “buena suerte!”

SPOTTED: Anaconda

Last week guests on board the M/V Aqua started their morning with an early excursion along the Yanayacu-Pucate River. King vulture, capuchin monkey, black caiman, and many other animals made themselves visible, but nothing caught our guests’ eye and interest as much as the anaconda below.

At 7:30AM some times a cup of coffee can’t wake you up the way an anaconda sighting can.

The Amazon…is hot, steamy, and wondrous. Where to begin?

Our recent guest, Margo, shares her experiences aboard the M/V Aqua.

On February 20, we boarded the Aqua in Iquitos, Peru, for seven days on the Amazon & its tributaries (Maranon, Pacaya, Ucayali, Yanuyacu……black or cocoa……).  Most of our time was spent on 8-passenger skiffs exploring the rain forest, but when we returned to the Aqua, we were pampered in air-conditioned comfort.  Yummy Peruvian food.  21-person crew for the 23 of us.

So what was it like?  It was magical.  Hundreds of pink dolphin & lots of gray ones.  We held baby caimen, caught piranhas, fed baby manatees with a milk bottle.  Monkeys-five different kinds- entertained us each day and sloths slept high in cecropia trees.  The rare sighting of an Amazon porcupine (they have prehensile tails!) even surprised our guides.

Birds there are incredible.  Splashes of primary colors and sounds that defy imagination.  The huatzil is a prehistoric turkey-peacock.  The horned screamer is a gigantic black & white guy with a call like a donkey.  The wondrous caracara sounds like a drop of water hitting a lake.  Colorful orapendulums weave hanging nests like old ladies’ boobs.  Parakeets & parrots squack noisily in huge groups.  Herons and tanagers amaze with their colors.  Hawks and terns amaze with their fishing techniques.  Macaws and toucans…….  Some of us identified over 140 different species and even I had well over 100.

We spent a few hours in a random village along a river.  Impossibly simple lives; what happens if they don’t catch fish?  The 70-yr-old shaman chose me to bless, an elaborate ritual involving much chanting and shaking of a clump of leaves.  (My cold symptoms vanished.)  We brought gifts to hand out to the children.  They sang and we did a rousing “You are my sunshine…” in return.

Our jungle walk turned into an adventure when our young local guide got us into dangerous swamps and then out on a log to traverse a 15 ft.-wide river.  Old hiking skills are good to retain.

High water season on the Amazon and much of the rain forest is flooded.  Our skiffs explored secret spots that took my breath away, light filtering thru the canopy, trees reflecting in still black water.  Giant water lilies & sea lettuce cover entire lakes.  At one point, our skiffs strained in unison to move floating islands of vegetation so that we could get thru.  (Coming back after dark was a little trickier.)

Speaking of after dark, I loved that part.  Our guide playing his light along the fringes of the river, spotting night birds & fishing bats, the red eyes of the caiman.  All that I had hoped for.

The trip was too much nature for Dale, but I was sorry he wasn’t along to enjoy the people—22 of the world’s best (& me).  When you are together for a week, you expect a little mediocrity to emerge.  Absolutely none here.  Harry & Rosemary put together a winning team, as usual.

In the end, I told the crew in my shaky Spanish that the river lives in our hearts.  It certainly does.

~ Margo

Picture Perfect: Romantic Sunsets Aboard the M/V Aqua

Without a doubt, the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve creates some of the most stunning sunsets imaginable. Magentas, indigos, violets, soft, buttery yellows, passionate reds…colors you would have thought only existed as “possibilities” on a color wheel, suddenly take center stage in the vast Peruvian sky.

 Come experience this for yourself! Start planning your next “lover’s getaway” with the person you want to snuggle up with while sipping on Pisco Sours and floating down the mighty Amazon.

 Take a peek at a couple of sunsets some of our guests captured recently:

Aqua Expeditions Added to Travel+Leisure Worlds Best Awards Survey 2010

Each year, readers of Travel+Leisure, the top travel magazine in the US, choose from among the world’s top hotels, resorts, spas, cruise lines, airlines, travel companies and destinations, to determine the winners of the World’s Best Awards.  This is the first year that Aqua Expeditions is included on the prestigious readers’ ballots.

Readers who cast votes in the readers’ poll at www.tlworldsbest.com through March 31, 2010, are also entered to win a $10,000 dream trip to the destination of their choice.  Results of the survey will be announced in the August 2011 issue of Travel+Leisure magazine. Log on to the site and vote for us!

Community Outreach Update: Aqua Expeditions Makes House Calls

“Diving” straight into the new role, Community Outreach Manager, Juan Diaz Alvan, ventured into little-visited communities this past December with M/V Aqua’s paramedic, Winston Pinedo. The duo, at times accompanied by Aqua Expeditions guests, offered medical attention to members of the Huaisi, Hatum Poza, Lago Prado and Tibiplaya II Zona communities – mostly pregnant women and children.

In addition to offering medical services, the Aqua Expeditions group also led a plastic waste cleaning campaign with the help of children from the Lago Prado community; organized a small Christmas Eve event Tibiplaya II Zona; and lead a responsible shopping expeditions with M/V Aqua guests to the Huaisi community, known for using only primary materials existing around the community — no feathers, animal teeth, snake skins, etc.

Aqua Expeditions Welcomes Juan Diaz Alvan as Its New Community Outreach Manager

Aqua Expeditions has a strong commitment to identifying and helping to meet the needs of local communities in the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve, where it operates the M/V Aqua. To underscore that commitment, Founder and Chief Executive Officer Francesco Galli-Zugaro appointed Juan Díaz Alván to the newly created position of Community Outreach Manager.

Mr. Díaz Alván is a biologist who specializes both in working with communities in protected areas, as well as in the study of Amazon birds. He will manage relationship-building between Aqua Expeditions and 14 local riverside communities, and will also work with the leadership of the Pacaya Samiria National Reserve and other institutions related to tourism and environmental conservation in Amazonia. He is a graduate of Universidad Nacional de la Amazonía Peruana (UNAP).

Welcome aboard, Juan!

Aqua Expeditions Hosts Oscar the Top Dog During World Woof Community Service Tour

Aqua Expeditions hosted Oscar the Top Dog on a 3-day expedition aboard the M/V Aqua last month during the first-ever “World Woof” global community service tour. A non-profit global initiative, the World Woof Tour featured Oscar the Top Dog making stops in 35 countries in an effort to inspire dog adoption across the globe. The tour included Oscar and his crew visiting rural areas in Africa, Thailand, Russia, Nepal and China, and finishing aboard the M/V Aqua with stops in communities along the Amazon River.