All about the Amazon

Its swank expedition-class yacht, Aqua Blu, may have got most of the press of late down in eastern Indonesia, but Aqua Expeditions made its reputation with bar-setting luxury river cruises on the Peruvian Amazon. This summer, founder and CEO Francesco Galli Zugaro and his team have returned to Aqua’s roots with the launch of Aqua Nera, a 20-suite river cruiser custom-built in Ho Chi Minh City and transported to Belém, in Brazil, whence she navigated 1,500 miles up the Amazon to Iquitos. A series of three-, four- and seven-night journeys are already underway; they’re making deep incursions into native rainforest on state-of-the-art tenders (exceptional access to wilderness having always been one of Aqua Expeditions’ USPs), where they’ve been birding and spotting all manner of animals: sloths, howler monkeys, pink dolphins, anaconda – and, as the water seasonally recedes and the riverbanks widen, no small number of jaguar (“It’s like Jurassic Park meets the Garden of Eden” was the caption on the video Galli Zugaro sent me this week, showing one of the huge cats having a lazy swim in a black-water tributary just a few metres from the foredeck).

Peruvian chef Pedro Miguel Schiaffino, who has long offered a unique Amazon-to-table food experience on sister boat Aria Amazon, has spearheaded a conservation project aimed at controlling illegal fishing of paiche, native to the Amazon and one of the largest freshwater fish in the world. To date, almost three dozen local fishermen who were previously working illegally have been organised and officially registered as Paiche Conservationists. All this on top of those large, sleek, photo-ready suites, several indoor and outdoor lounges, bars and cinema, a small gym, and 40 crew to look after 40 guests. aquaexpeditions.com, from $4,125 per person for a 3-night cruise