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On October 2nd of 2002 I embarked on what was to be the greatest trip of my life. The Merriam Clan invited me along with them to The Peruvian Amazon Jungle. I went there expecting to find a lot of incredible and brilliant wildlife, gigantic trees, thick vines, heavy shade, lots of bugs, dense rain, and few people. What I found instead was little wildlife (thanks to the tree-killers), secondary forest (meaning smaller trees), a lot of sunshine (because of the smaller trees), not much rain (it was the dry season), and a LOT of people.

In fact, it was the people that really made this trip so special. They were so friendly and happy, even in their situation of poverty and sometimes medical despair. They were eager to be in our pictures and quick to give us a smile, even though their was a language barrier. When offered gifts of T-shirts, they often responded by giving us beautiful hand-crafted items that we shall no doubt treasure for many years to come.

I found that our guides (Raul and Bacilio) are two of the best people I have ever met. They had extensive knowledge of their homeland, spoke fluent English, were always offering a helping hand, and had a good rapport with the local people. In short they made us feel very welcome as if we were at home. They were truly the best guides I have ever had through my many years and hundreds of thousands of miles of travel.

The Merriam family made up almost 1/2 of the group. I found that the rest of the group was very unique and there were some really neat people around all the time. Each person had something unique to add to the experience. I was especially impressed with Frank, a 71 year old gentleman who could climb trees and vines like he wasn't a day over 10!

My only disappointment was with the gentleman who put the trip together. Although it was my first time on an "escorted" trip, I had certain expectations. My vision was that he would handle all of the luggage, offer extensive assistance to the elderly people in our group, and in general be a big help. What I found was that he always rushed to have the best seat to himself, blocked our views of things quite frequently to video tape, was reluctant to have our luggage moved for fear of tipping the porters, and generally didn't help the elderly folks at all. Luckily Bill, Jack, Carmen, and myself were pretty good about this. He frequently blocked our view of things while trying to take pictures, yet he accused a member of our group of exactly the same thing!

What I found particularly interesting was that he seemed to have taken it upon himself to inform the other members of the group and our guides ahead of time that Bill and I were a "homosexual couple." I don't know where he got this information from, and it is not true, but I had a couple of people tell me that that is what he told them. When he was telling me about the rest of the group he didn't mention any heterosexuals, heh heh. Go figure!!!

So.... If you decide to go on a trip like this, I'd skip N.E.W. Tours and just meet up directly with the good folks from Explorama in Iquitos. They will take very good care of you, I promise!

I hope you enjoy the pics. Out of 1,050 pics taken, I have posted about 800 or so of them here for your enjoyment. All pictures are copyrighted. Please contact me for information on any type of reproduction whatsoever.

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