This is the beginning of high-water season in the Amazon rain forest. The rivers, streams, and lakes here will soon be about 23 feet higher than usual.
On a skiff with fellow passengers — we venture out twice a day — I see how residents prepare for the time when the Amazon will nearly reach their homes, which are built on stilts. The water will stay high for more than 90 days, so this is the time to gather fish for future meals. Once the water rises, the fish disperse. Along the banks, people camp out and we stop to say hello. Two brothers patiently string together their net, which has been torn by the sharp teeth of small-nosed piranhas. Their catch sits in a basin, preserved with salt. We fish, too, for piranhas — not to eat, but to see them up close.
Plantain and banana trees are abundant along the Amazon and a group of monkeys seem to be eyeing a pile of bananas a man has collected. Squirrel monkeys jump from tree to tree, but they won’t approach the bananas while humans are nearby. A pot of bananas boils over a makeshift fire so the fishermen can eat them soft and warm.
The boat passes fields where rice and watermelon are harvested, two staples of the Peruvian diet. Potatoes aren’t grown in this part of Peru but yucca is. The starchy root vegetable appears often as a side dish. One night, it is used in a dessert: fried yucca beignets filled with chocolate and aguaje (a fruit from the palm tree) ice cream. Another local delicacy, star fruit, is the main ingredient in a chutney served alongside a brochette of beef or chicken, and it is served again in a salad dressing and as juice at breakfast. Camu camu, which comes from a riverside tree, and cocona, an edible berry from a hardy plant, are used in drinks, sauces, and many dishes.
