Rain Forest Adventure Aboard a Splendid New Riverboat

Exploring the Peruvian Amazon, with its endless tributaries and dense rain forest, was virtually impossible until the launching of the M/V Aqua in 2007. The Aqua accommodates 24 passengers and is the first luxury expedition ship to ply these waters. In the course of a typical four-night cruise, she travels about 280 miles.

Currently, the Aqua is the only sizeable vessel on the Peruvian Amazon, though a larger sister ship, the M/V Aria, is scheduled to launch next April, with room for 32 passengers and additional amenities, including a fitness room and outdoor Jacuzzi.

The Aqua looks a little like a floating apartment building, but inside, it is genuinely luxurious.

We boarded the Aqua in Nauta, a port town 60 miles south of the regional capital, Iquitos. (Such is the scale of the Amazon — which has an outflow 11 times that of the Mississippi — that Iquitos can be reached from the Atlantic 2,200 miles away by oceangoing vessels of up to 9,000 tons.) The Aqua has three decks and is clad in a mix of gray steel and wood, topped by a jaunty white canopy. It looks a little like a floating apartment building, but inside, it is genuinely luxurious. Each of the 12 cabins has a panoramic window, and the jungle passes by like a wide-screen movie. The simple and elegant interiors come with white walls, wood floors and a wall of slate tiles separating the bedroom from the bath. The latter is compact but well-appointed, with a single vanity and rainfall shower. The Aqua has its own water processing plant, so there is always plenty of hot water. All of the public areas are air-conditioned, and there is a satellite phone for essential communication, but no television or Internet connectivity.

Meals are served in a dining room astern, which has a memorable view of the river. The menu is under the direction of star chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, owner of Lima’s acclaimed Malabar restaurant, whose nouveau Andean fare resulted in an invitation to become a featured chef at the James Beard House in New York. Fresh Peruvian dishes are paired with South American wines, and representative items might include heart of palm soup with avocado purée, tiger catfish ceviche, and a tiradito (a preparation similar to ceviche) of Amazon bass.

The Aqua’s principal destination is the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve, a 5 million-acre tract of jungle that is home to around 30,000 indigenous people and is visited by about 5,000 tourists annually. Each morning and afternoon, expeditions venture into the rain forest. Guests muster on the staging deck and are assigned to 24-foot aluminum skiffs, each manned by a trained pilot and a naturalist guide. These guides are the core of the Aqua experience. On our journey, there were three: Two had been raised in small Amazonian villages, and all proved to be amazingly well-informed. Although exotic to us, the rain forest is their backyard, so we were particularly impressed by their consistent enthusiasm as we cruised the waters or hiked along jungle trails.

As we toasted the guides and the crew, we reflected that the trip had exceeded all our hopes and expectations.

On such hikes, the guides frequently stopped to point out plants such as curare, notorious for the poison used in native blowguns; fantastically colored butterflies, including the giant blue morpho with its 3-inch wingspan; and birds such as toucans and brilliant blue-and-yellow macaws. On a night expedition along a dark tributary, we saw fishing bats skimming the river for prey and the glowing red eyes of a spectacled caiman—a 6-foot crocodilian reptile—watching us from water’s edge. About once a month, favored passengers glimpse a jaguar emerging from the jungle to drink.

The last evening of our cruise was especially memorable. We set out in search of the rare pink Amazon dolphin and soon found ourselves amid a pod of seven or eight animals. Generally, they surface only to breathe, but this group was unusually acrobatic. And they are indeed pink, the result of a diet of crustaceans. As the sun began to set, the pilots brought the skiffs together and broke out bottles of Champagne to mix Amazonian mimosas. As we toasted the guides and the crew, we reflected that the trip had exceeded all our hopes and expectations.

Aqua Expeditions Three-night Amazon Discovery Cruise, $2,250; four-night Amazon Explorer Cruise, $3,000; seven-night Amazon Expedition Cruise, $5,250 (rates are per person based on double occupancy; single supplement is 50 percent).