Amazon cruising: A Ride in the Wild

I always thought if I ever floated down the Amazon it’d be in a dugout canoe on a shoestring adventure. But when the editor of a magazine for country club members asked me to join a luxe cruise, of course I went and had a fabulous time. The local guides were the highlight – and if you view the photo gallery, please note that the caiman was handled gently and returned to the riverbank unharmed. Here’s an excerpt from my story for Private Clubs magazine – for the full story, :

“Vamos, cholo!” shouts our guide, Victor Coelho, to the skiff driver as we embark on an excursion down a remote stream in the Peruvian Amazon just after sunset. Soon, the skiff’s spotlight reveals a pair of gleaming crimson eyes in the undergrowth. Victor asks me to hold his legs as he goes belly down on the skiff’s bow, his arms reaching over the launch toward the riverbank.

With catlike reflexes, he pounces toward the shallows, where splashing and thrashing ensue. When Victor shouts and I pull back on his ankles, he leaps up, holding a yard-long creature above his head, its tail whipping furiously back and forth.

“Oh my God – it’s a black caiman,” he exclaims. “These are endangered – look at this!” Victor places one arm under the neck of the scaly creature, best described as a small alligator with teeth that could do some serious damage. “Want to hold it?” he asks. “Just put your hand under his neck and you’ll be fine.”

I recoil but then realize this could be a once-in-a-lifetime chance I shouldn’t pass up. I take the menacing-looking carnivorous reptile – following Victor’s handling instructions to a “T” – and pose for a snapshot, exultant that I didn’t let fear stop me from experiencing this transcendent moment. Victor then releases the caiman unharmed back into the wild.