110 replies to this topic

[Jeff Searle]

When the IPS Biennial in Costa Rica ended, my wife Andrea,our good friends Judy and Jim Glock and myself returned home for only a short period of 1 day and then caught another flight out of Miami for a 6 hour flight down to Peru. We just had enough time at home to get our dirty clothes cleaned and then repacked, mow the grass,go to the nursery and plant some newly acquired seeds from CR, check on our pets, eat a good meal and one good night of sleep back in our own bed.
We were on our way to stay at Inkaterra Reserva Amazonica in Tambopata, Peru. This reserve is 678,774 acres or 274,690 hectare in size. To get there, one must take a boat ride down the Madre de Dios River from the small town of Puerto Maldonado. This takes about 1 1/2 hours to get there. This rainforest offers a wealth of biodiversity of which some 480 different bird species have been recorded. Included are toucans, flycatchers, and macaws. Also you might get lucky and see one of many varities of monkey's, otters, tapirs, tamarins or one of four species of cats.
The weather was extreamly nice this time of the year, with overnight temp's around 70 degrees F. We had very little rain at all.

I will post pictures soon........

Jeff

[BS Man about Palms]

Tease.




Is Ryan gonna show you how?

[Jeff Searle]

Here we are after we just arrived at the Puerto Maldanado Airport.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

After we landed, I only then found out that if we had come the week before, this would have been our plane we would have arrived on. They just "retired" her for good.


Bo,

Any clues on what were looking at? Make, model, year, etc. Maybe some flight history.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

Ha, Ha, I was just kidding about the old plane. ( I'm sure a few of you believed me)

After a short ride to Inkaterra's office, and signed a few papers, we then drove down to the river bank to board our boat.
This is looking down with Judy Glock making her way there.

Jeff

[Jeff Searle]

Judy.....

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[Jeff Searle]

Judy and Andrea all ready to go.

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[Jeff Searle]

Of course, Jim and I, were ready too.

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[Kris]

Dear 007 Jeff

iam eagerly waiting for the stills,but little sad to see those tour images in thumbnails mode...but anyway iam shure will see lots of new things...

thanks & love,
Kris

[Jeff Searle]

Right next to our boat, I noticed this small crane unloading large planks of wood that had just come in.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

Another....

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[Jeff Searle]

A few moments after we landed, we walked a short distance to be greeted and found our way to the restaurant area. I believe the large palm on the right is Attalea butyracea.

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[Jeff Searle]

This is our beautiful bungalow that we stayed in. Complete with electric for only about 4 in the evening, bottle water, hot showers, and a ceiling fan above the beds.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

This was our twin beds, complete with mosquito netting, which we really didn't need.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

A layout of the grounds where most of the bungalows were situated. The grounds were kept very cleaned and well manicured. And every evening before it got dark, one of the employees would come to each bungalow and light the 6-7 lanterns that were provided.

Jeff

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[TikiRick]

More! What the hell happened after the lanters got lit??

[Jeff Searle]

More! What the hell happened after the lanters got lit??

It got dark,,,what do you think?

Jeff

[Jeff Searle]

This was a small, but old Phytelephas specie.

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[Jeff Searle]

The very silvery underside of an Astrocaryum murmuru leaf.

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[Jeff Searle]

And the trunk of the same showing the trunk covered in spines.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

Looking up into a tall Iriartea palm with damaged leaves from the local parrots.

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[palmazon]

Jeff - any more Cham. fragrans seed in the near future?

[Jeff Searle]

Jeff - any more Cham. fragrans seed in the near future?

Danny,

I'm not sure. I probably could get some if I asked my contact. But he probably would want to send a minimum of 1,000 seeds to make it worth while. At the moment, I still have plenty of plants and really don't need more. I guess if I had enough people that expressed interest, I could then buy some and just re-sell them.
As far as seeing them while down there for the biennial, we were not in the right locale and therefore didn't see any of them growing. BUT, we did see a new one for me, C. angustisecta, a real pretty one that has a beautiful pattern of white modeling throughout the trunk and up into the petioles. Extreamly nice.....and I would presume pretty rare in cultivation. There's a good pic. of it in Don Hodel's Chamaedorea book. This I was able to bring back a few seeds of and will have sml. plants in the near future.

Jeff

[realarch]

Thanks Jeff for the photos, hoping for a similar experience on a trip later on this year to the Ecuadorian rain forest, canoe trip and all. From all the descriptions in the literature it sounds very much like the logistics of your trip. I hope so anyway. How were the bugs? They just love me.

Tim

[bgl]

Jeff,
I hope there are more photos to come! I'm enjoying this thread. Always been fascinated by the Amazonas region, and it looks like you had a great trip.
That plane in Post #4 is an Antonov An-2. Designed, and initially built, in Russia this type first flew in 1947. Production was transferred to the PZL factory in Poland in the 1960s and production continued until the early 1990s, at which time more than 15,000 An-2s had been built, most of them in Poland. A few were completed as recently as 2002 and sold to Vietnam, so flying in one of these is a definite possibility if you're out in the boonies in some country like Vietnam or Russia, or even Peru. Quite a few were exported to Peru, but with no visible registration on the one you saw I can't provide a history for that particular airframe. Like almost all Soviet built aircraft, the An-2 is built like a truck and can take a lot of punishment. It's designed to fly into remote airports with gravel runways. Many thousand of them are still flying to this day.
Bo-Göran
PS - there are even a number of An-2s flying here in the USA. Most were imported after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Here's a somewhat unusual sight of An-2 with U.S. registration N87AN and still in Lithuanian Airlines colors, at Valdez, Alaska, a few years ago. Photo credit Airliners.net.

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[realarch]

Holy mackerel Bo! very impressive information. Jeff probably would have liked to have known that about the plane before the trip. I wouldn't be surprised if I'll be on the same type of aircraft. Have any idea how many are still flying.....looking for some reassurance here. I'll take pictures.

Jeff, were there a good variety of organized tours given by the lodge?
Tim

[Lefty]

... BUT, we did see a new one for me, C. angustisecta, ....This I was able to bring back a few seeds of and will have sml. plants in the near future.

Jeff

Jeff:

I'll trade you some Cyrtostachys. Nobody has Cyrtostachys.

[Jeff Searle]

Thanks Jeff for the photos, hoping for a similar experience on a trip later on this year to the Ecuadorian rain forest, canoe trip and all. From all the descriptions in the literature it sounds very much like the logistics of your trip. I hope so anyway. How were the bugs? They just love me.

Tim

Tim,
As far as bugs goes, their definitely outhere if you know what I mean. Besides snakes, spiders would be something to watch out for. And all throughout the trip, we came across millions of leaf-cutter ants going across the trails. So yes, do be aware of your surroundings, and you'll be find.

To answer your other question in regrds to organized tours and stuff, yes, our lodge was very organized and had tours every day going in a different direction. Our guides were exceptional too.

Jeff

[Jeff Searle]

Bo,

Thanks for the good and interesting information. I knew I could count on you. As soon as we got off our plane and looked over and saw this one sitting there, I instantly thought of you. See, you were in Peru and didn't even know it!Thanks,

Jeff

[Jeff Searle]

A closer look at a Iriartea with seeds and an un-openned spike coming behind.

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[Jeff Searle]

Carlos was our guide for the 3 days. A great guide who knew his stuff really well.

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[Jeff Searle]

One of many parrots that would come into our lodge every afternoon and allow us to photograph them.

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[Jeff Searle]

In the forest next to our bungalows, we found a handfull of a rare Chamaedorea growing. C. angustisecta. It typically has this lime green/almost white mottled color running through it's trunk and petioles. I should have a better pic. of this plant a little later.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

A close-up of the flower spike, but no seeds.

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[realarch]

Thanks for the info Jeff, although the rain forest is what it is, not going to worry about it. Glad the 'Palms of the America's' is a relatively small handbook, I'm sure I'll be flipping pages the whole trip. Can hardly wait for the experience.

Tim

[Jeff Searle]

Don and Heather Martin who are from the San Diego area.

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[Jeff Searle]

Here's Judy Glock leading the way. As a group, we had to climb this steep inline or go down very slowly everytime we used the boat.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

Andrea, Heather with Judy in the background at the beginning of park.

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[Jeff Searle]

Day #2

We were told the night before that we would be going by boat to Lake Sandoval the next morning. This is part of Tambopata National Park. We would get a wake up "knock" on our bungalows at 5:00 am, have breakfast and leave on the boat by 6:00am. It was approx. 30 minutes down the river. And here's the entrance to the park.

Jeff

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[Jeff Searle]

From the park entrance, we walked probably around 30-45 minutes to reach the edge of the lake where the canoes were waiting for us. On the way, we came across this one and only purple flowering vine, of which no one knew the name.

Jeff

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