The previous night had been one of the crew’s birthday and they had a party after we retired for the evening. You see, as long as you were drinking soda, beer, wine, and pisco, all the drinks on the boat were free. And we weren’t big drinkers, particularly no one drank beer. And as long as you don’t upset the gringos, who’s to know where the alcohol went? Here? There? So, the crew was very slow moving this morning. Unfortunately, that also coincided with Janis putting her foot down and making sure that the morning skiff left at 5 rather than 5:30. Because there were birds out there and we were missing them. (Also, we were headed someplace called Monkey Island and were told that the skiffs from the bigger sister boat that held 40 passengers and was booked out to the National Geographic Expeditions would be there as well. And you would want to be ahead of them rather than behind them.)
Have I mentioned that the trees are named very practical names. This is the paper tree which is a lightweight flooded forest tree. There’s also a firewood tree.
We had a lovely discussion about how when we write the book of our travels, it should be called “Kingfisher and Fruit Salad”. Because it’s the little annoyances that you remember, the colors of the journey, the birds that taunt you, and the moments where the fabulous things, like the local fruits, are mixed together in a way that are lesser than than the individual ingredients.
And while the whole getting up at 4:30 and beating the other boats to Monkey Island, all sounds like a fabulous plan. And we did in fact leave at 5 am. We ran into flocks of macaws and toucans, so we only made it to Monkey Island with the 4 other skiffs right behind us. And we didn’t get a very good explanation of what Monkey Island actually was because the minute we got there, the very hung over guide had to be let off at a dock next to it because he needed a bathroom. And the other two crew members with us, the skiff driver and the medic, spoke no English.
So, we’re drifting in the creek next to this island. And these beautiful, very clean looking monkeys came down to the trees next to the water. Which was immediately odd because all monkeys we’d seen at this point either ignored us or moved away from us. This is a part of the world where they hunt monkeys for food.
And it was odd that instead of seeing a family troop of monkeys, what we were seeing was a spider monkey, a squirrel monkey, a couple brown capuchin monkeys, a red howler monkey. All very familiar with each other, all grooming each other.
That’s not what you see in the wild normally.
At which point, the guide from one of the skiffs from the National Geographic boat pulled out a bunch of bananas and started handed them to the monkeys on the end of a long stick. And in a flash, it went from a I’m-observing-wildlife moment to a petting-zoo moment. And of course, one of the brown capuchin monkeys immediately leaped in that boat and grabbed the entire bunch of bananas for himself. He’s trapped, because if he goes back to shore with the bananas they’re going to taken away from him by the bigger monkeys, but he’s also in close proximity to the tourists because he’s in their boat and he doesn’t want them to take his bananas away either. He knows he’s stolen bananas.
Those of us in our skiff were completely appalled. Let me give 5 quick reasons this situation was bad.
- By feeding the monkeys, you make them less afraid of humans. You make them come toward humans rather than away and this is a place where they hunt monkeys for food. You encourage all kinds of unnatural behavior.
- Bananas are not a natural item in the Amazon rain forest, not a natural item in the monkey’s diet.
- The farmers do grow bananas here in plantations to sell downriver. If the monkeys develop a taste for bananas and seek out the banana plantations, the farmers are going to eliminate them as a pest.
- By bringing monkeys into close proximity of humans (and we’re talking six inches to a foot in the boat where the monkey has captured the bananas), you’ve put those people in danger because monkeys are really, really strong and they will hurt you.
- By bringing monkeys into close proximity of humans, you have exposed them to human diseases.
To sum up, let me say feeding wildlife, interfering with wildlife, shortened their life and their wildness.
Eventually, the brown capuchin monkey managed to get all the bananas down and returned to the island. The other skiffs motored off and we sat there hanging out with the monkeys.
Now the guide eventually staggered back down the dock and we headed back to the boat.
I have since I have returned Google’d the whole Monkey Island thang because it didn’t make any sense to me. How did these monkeys of different species end up together as a troop? Why was the guide so comfortable with feeding them? (I expected better of National Geographic.)
As far as I was able to tell, Monkey Island is a monkey rehabilitation center for monkeys that have been found hurt or sick or separated from their parents. It’s actually a well-known day trip from Iquitos in a fast skiff where people come to spend a couple days and hang out petting and interacting with the monkeys. It’s played up as a good cause that tourists can come and overspend on the accommodations without knowing that if you’re really doing rescue and rehabilitation you don’t ever hold the animals or let them become accustom to you. I believe that the Monkey Island we saw were the monkeys that had been released from this facility but not integrated with a troop of their own species, so they still hung around because, look, the skiffs arrive every morning with bananas…
The worst part is that if you Google all this and read through it, several people warn that Monkey Island has become so well-known that if you wander down to the dock in Iquitos and ask for Monkey Island, you could be taken to another facility where monkeys are kept chained in small cages because, hey, they already have your money, right? And you did see monkeys.
We were all a little shell-shocked and outraged by Monkey Island, but you know, we got some fabulous shots of monkeys, particularly red howler monkeys that we’d seen nowhere else. Later the guide told us that if we’d had one more day, we could have made it to the spot on the river where we could have seen wild howler monkeys, but there was just not enough time to get there. I’ve heard howler monkeys in the jungle, in Guatemala, and even earlier on this Amazon trip, but I’ve never really gotten a good glimpse of them.
They’d been mysterious and unknown, but now I can say I’ve seen one, kinda in the wild. Certainly no bars or cages.
We headed back to the boat and the boat headed downstream to the confluence of the Amazon.
The moment where the Río Marañón and Rio Ucayali merge and become the Amazon. We are 4000 miles upstream from the Atlantic Ocean and even here it is huge, wide and hurrying.
The barges carry heavy items — construction equipment, cars, air conditioners. The last leg of a long journey from Lima, 20 hours by road to Yurimaguas, where cargo is loaded on a 2-3 days by boat.
The activity for the afternoon was a stop in the town of San Francisco. The boat tied up to the shore to wait out the noon heat and the rain that had settled in.
We woke up from our post-lunch nap to see the villagers patiently squatting on the shore watching us.
We were taken by the hand up the hill to the village where they proudly showed us their homes and their dried beans and how they squeeze sugar cane for juice. We’d been told that a local had a baby sloth that we could see and hold if we wanted. Which put us on edge, still a little shell-shocked by Monkey Island. We were reassured that it wasn’t anything like that, the man had found the baby sloth after the mother had been killed by a jaguar and rescued it and intended to return it to the wild when it was grown.
Ok, baby sloths are adorable. I don’t know why we don’t all have one. It was all wet because it had been up in the tree during the rain and it looked like the happiest creature on the planet.
It moved in slow motion, like it was stoned.
Really. We should all be that happy.
They took us inside the school and played and danced for us.
If you’ve been with me to South Pacific, you will know that’s it very important that you get up and dance with them.
Photo by Carol Moffatt
Except that you know that it was 90°F with 100% humidity, so I’m wondering how long this hot Zumba class is going to last before I go down with heat stroke.
The guide lined up a few more children who sang and recited poetry (in Spanish) in exchange for candy. He introduced the 3 girl dancers whom I was surprised to hear were in high school because they seemed so young. And when he had they tell us what they wanted to be when they graduated — a lawyer, a nurse, a world traveller — it was hard not to get a little choked up because, you know, sweetie, I want that for you. I want you to be educated and strong, I want you to travel the world. But you are living in a backwater of the Amazon. Two years from now, you will be married with a child and wearing socks to protect your hands while you scoop out the catfish that your husband has caught today on the river and you need to get ready to ship downriver to Iquitos. I am your kingfisher. The quick glimpse you saw of what life could be before it closed down on you and became drudgery.
I hope I’m wrong. I hope these girls’ dreams come true.
We bought a few of the village handicrafts (because you do). This village specialized in small woven animals. I bought a bird and a monkey and a pink dolphin. And we headed back to the ship.
It was our last full day on the river. Tomorrow we started the long journey back home.