Expedition to Rio Las Piedras, Peru, September 2006

I met Rolando Vela, El Caballero de los Rios (The Gentleman of the Rivers), in 2005 during my short trip to the Tambopata-Candamo Reserved Zone.  Rolando’s business is chartering his boats to the few adventurous searching for the farthest wilderness in the Peruvian Amazon Basin, he has strong knowledge of all rivers in the Departamento Madre de Dios.  Rolando convinced me to organize an expedition to Rio las Piedras which winds in remote area wilderness well protected from tourist influence.  Rolando sailed the Rio las Piedras the year before with an European photographer and he told me that the area was excellent to find any sort of wildlife, with few unexplored cross-bow lakes and small tributaries which could be sailed during the dry season only by small boat because of the shallow waters.  Rolando built for me a small, narrow and shallow 20 foot skiff equipped with a 9.5 hp “peke-peke”, a stationary motor mounted on the stern with a long shaft and propeller; a noisy but very economical propulsion system, mostly used by natives.

I did not want to miss the chance to explore the small cross-bow lakes, for this reason I had purchased a small inflatable dinghy of 6.5 feet. This micro boat has been very handy for this purpose: it was small, light enough to carry around, a bit uncomfortable because of the size but enough to carry myself with some of my photo equipment!

We spent in the Rio Las Piedras three long weeks, powering up stream for some 150 miles all the way to the tributary Rio Lidia.  Human encounters have been extremely rare: few “castañeros” (Brazilian chestnut harvesters), very few loggers, the mass destruction of the mahogany is finally over, few “balseros” (barge handlers) with their long and narrow barges made out of the harvested timber tied together with ropes, drifting slowly with the river flow, a small community of native Indians, the Mashco Piros, from the village of Monte Salvado.

It was a very successful expedition, we encountered large variety of birds and wildlife; my images cannot get even close to the reality, it was a really deep dive into the wilderness!