The people at Rainforest expeditions asked us to write up a "review" of the fishing experiences that we had on the Tambopata. . . here´s what I put together. . .

To a variety of people at Rainforest Adventures,

My wife, Leigh Needleman, and I (Andrew Frishman) just spent a fabulous week at Posada Amazonas and Refugio Amazonas with Gerson as our guide. When we spoke with someone in the Cusco office about the different options for activities during our stay, we expressed interest in the ¨Chambira Fishing¨ activity. We didn´t know what a Chambira was, but we knew that the tributaries of the Amazon have an incredible diversity of fish and we knew that we wanted to try to see some of them. We also enjoy fishing. She asked us if we were familiar with trout, and I answered "yes", she then said that Chambira were similar to trout. (I leave that up to you to decide. . . http://members.aol.com/corvest/Perou-peche-chambira-payara.htm or http://www.dnr.state.md.us/fisheries/art2000/2brooktrout2cr.jpg . .. . personally I would say that Chambira are more like barracuda http://www.jcpoiret.com/bapw/images/tourisme/gabon/barracuda.jpg) but anyway. . . I digress.) However, on the way up into the reserve we saw the skull of a chambira, and the teeth on it bore no resemblance to any trout that I have ever seen.

Luckily, over the course of our trip we actually had 4 opportunities to fish, and were successful each time, although we never saw a chambira (Gerson and one of the staff with us saw one inspect the bait and almost caught one, but we did not get to see it) Anyway, I want to focus on the fact that we very much enjoyed the fishing trip(s). The first two times were at small lakes where we caught a few different species of beautiful small piranhas as well as a species of cichlid fish. We also spent part of one afternoon fishing in the river just across from Refugio where we caught several small catfish as well as some zapamama and anchiovetas or sardinetas. The highlight of the fishing trips was certainly the trip that we took up river with Agustin Mishacha (so sorry I don´t know the spelling of his name?) We stopped at a narrow channel where we tried a variety of methods to catch a chambira. The day was beautiful, the scenery resplendent, but the fish were not biting. I suppose that is why they call it "fishing" and not "catching". We still had a great time. With the help of Gerson and Agustin we caught a rather large (+6 kilo) catfish which we ate for dinner, and had a very good time finding jaguar tracks on the river bank, seeing some small baitfish jump (that may have been chased by chambira?), and generally enjoying the day.

In summary, we had a great time fishing in the Tambopata. . .

Anyway, thanks again, not only for the fishing, but all of the other wonderful experiences we had with Rainforest Expeditions, we will highly recommend you to friends and family,
Sincerely,Andrew Frishman (and Leigh Needleman)andrewfrishman@gmail.com

Water systems in Cusco

10 September 2006

We´d been wondering about water systems in Cusco... last night we ran into a British PhD student doing her doctorate in Engineering and specifically about the water systems here in Cusco. So today we visited Kate at her laboratory, a room attached to a professor´s house that he has converted into a physical chemistry lab. We met Professor Cumpa and chatted with him about the various issues of water purity entering people´s homes and then purification after the water leaves the homes. The take-home message is that sewage is not purified, dumped back into the river, and then used downstream as fertilizer for crops. Yum. As he does, we will be avoiding all vegetables that are not peeled first - no lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.

We have been invited to visit Professor Cumpa´s laboratory at the university (UNSAAC-Cusco) tomorrow. Should be an interesting insight into education in Peru.

LN-AF

Amazonian Rainforest

3-9 September 2006

We created our own trip to the rainforest with a company called Rainforest Expeditions. http://www.perunature.com/ We had one guide, Gerson, for 7 days and we stayed at two separate lodges (Posada and Refugio). There´s too much to be said about these 7 days so in summary: 2 canopy tower trips, 3 lakes, countless river trips, 4 fishing expeditions, 3 catfish (one 15 pounder, 2 half pounders), 2 pirahnya eaten and many caught, about 100 peccary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peccary, 4 species of macaw, about 100 bird species, tens of butterfly and moth species, 2 claylicks, 1 gecko (in our shower), zillions of leaf-cutter ants, hundreds of termites, several lizard species, many capybara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capibara, countless spiders, many toucans, 2 praying mantids, many bats, 10 species of frogs, 5 species of monkeys, one farm, one shaman, and one enormous moon.

Day Trip to Macchu Pichu

2 September 2006

We awoke at 5:15 to catch the train to Aguas Calientes. . . Gorgeous ride through the Andes. As we arrived at Aguas Calientes, Andrew turned to me and said "let´s pull a NY", which to him meant run to the door get off first and beat the crowds. So we ran out the front door of the train hardly waiting for it to stop. Plowed through the local market and we were the first to hop on the bus which took us straight (okay, zig-zagged at nauseating heights) up the mountain to the entrance of Macchu Pichu. We had heard from many to immediately climb HuaynuPichu, which is the giant mountain that overlooks MP. (You can see it in the background of the MP picture above). So we heeded this sage advise, and immediately climbed a very steep mountain...as if we weren´t already high enough. Sure enough, the view of MP is incredible from HP (see pictures). I climbed 3/4 of the way and stopped at a very comfortable view, while Andrew continued on up to the peak - which he explained as a cross between bouldering and hanging on to his life by the skin of his fingernails - I was happy to have stopped with a magnificent view and my heart still intact. Macchu Pichu is an incredible ruin - so much is still standing and the views are breathtaking. . . its reputation speaks for itself.