Put A Pin In It
Searching For Mrs
Conda First Name Ana
By Debbie Stone
This article has been published
previously by Way Beyond Borders
and the Woodinville Weekly and
republished with permission.
I
was a woman on a mission when
I set out on my Peruvian Amazon
riverboat adventure with
International Expeditions. Like
most of my fellow passengers,
visiting the Amazon was a bucketlist destination, one that promised
to be a significant and momentous
travel experience. My objective was
to learn firsthand about this unique
environment and its diverse wildlife,
as well as about the people who
inhabit its lush and verdant
rainforests. I had another goal,
though, which was to see an
anaconda snake. Odd, I admit, but
for some reason, this creature has
always held a curious allure for me,
after having heard tales of its
almost mythical proportions and
surreptitious existence. In the wild,
an anaconda spends most of its
time hanging out in rivers hunting
for food. A solitary snake, it is
somewhat shy and not easily seen,
due to being camouflaged in the
swamps and bogs in which it thrives.
The Amazon is the Anaconda’s home
and I knew this trip represented the
best opportunity for me to finally
come eye-to-eye with this
storied reptile.
The Amazon is by far the largest
river system in the world, containing
over two-thirds of all the unfrozen
fresh water on earth. There are over
1,100 tributaries within this system,
seventeen of which are over 1,000
miles long. The mouth may be 300
miles wide and up to 500 billion cubic
feet of water surge out to sea per
day. In
hours, the ow into the
Atlantic would sustain New York
City’s fresh water needs for nine
years. Such mind boggling facts can
be difficult to process and are usually
met with jaw-dropping amazement
from visitors to this legendary
destination.
The extensive waterways and
favorable climatic conditions of
the Amazon Basin have fostered the
greatest development of rainforest
to be found anywhere on this planet.
Over twenty percent of Earth’s
oxygen is produced in this area.
Though the exact number of plant
species existing in Amazonia is
unknown, over 25,000 have been
identified thus far, with new species
constantly being discovered.
As for wildlife, the place is a
veritable bird-lover’s utopia. Its rich
canopy of tropical vegetation is
home to an astounding percentage
of the world’s bird species. Each day,
when we left our mother ship, La
Estrella Amazonica, and went on
various naturalist-guided excursions
via skiffs, we were treated to the
sight of countless numbers of birds
of every color and size. Their musical
sounds created a melodic symphony
in the forest. And they possessed
delightfully descriptive-sounding
names such as wattled jacana,
laughing falcon, glittering-throated
emerald, spangled cotinga,
Amazonian umbrellabird, masked
crimson tanager and cobalt-winged
parakeet, among many others.
One of my favorites, the horned
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