Welcome to the Amazon!

Update 2

AmazonQuest is an interactive expedition developed by Classroom Connect. For five weeks a team of scientists and explorers will examine one of the most unique and most threatened environments on Earth: the Amazon River basin.

Cormorants swim in the Río Azul.

THE AMAZON RAIN FOREST -- The thunder started early this morning. I laid in my tent with one eye open, saw a clear sky, groaned, and went back to sleep. Soon after, I heard John approach. "Sorry to wake you up, Emily," he said, "but you have to see this."

It was 6:24 a.m. I crawled out of my tent and saw a dozen white-eyed parakeets feeding on the red cliffs across the river from our campsite. The air was cool and moist, and the sounds of the waking forest echoed through the humid stillness: The parakeets' squawks joined the russet-backed oropendula bird's metallic pings. Tamarins hooted somewhere deep in the forest. Cricket chirps came from every direction. Vultures soared overhead. And, of course, mosquitoes started feeding on my already welted legs. Our first morning in the Amazon Rainforest had begun.

During the weeks before AmazonQuest, I was looking forward to assessing the health of the Peruvian Amazon, like a doctor checking-up a patient. I had read about deforestation, oil pipelines, and illegal hunting in un-policed reserves. I expected to see scary signs of imminent decline -- downed trees, ugly development. But ever since we arrived yesterday morning, the rainforest has provided plenty of encouraging surprises.

VIDEO View the team's daily movie feature on the AmazonQuest site Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   EXTRA INFORMATION AmazonQuest  from Classroom Connect     AmazonQuest Get more on AmazonQuest from the scrollbox below MORE REPORTS Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Day 11 Day 12 Day 13 Day 14 Day 15 Day 16 Day 17 Day 18 Day 19 Day 20 Day 21 Day 22 Day 23

The first surprise came the moment I stuck my head out the helicopter window to look down on the rainforest from above. Lumpy hills of green stretched as far as I could see. Each tree seemed a different shade of green, polka-dotted by the occasional red, purple, or orange. Rivers weaved their way through the tangled brush. The whole scene was a beautiful sight.

We are in the Amarakaeri Reserve Zone, an area that Peru's President Alejandro Toledo is considering for promotion to a full-blown reserve. That step up would protect the region from any outside settlement or commercial development. Under the new definition, only local communities could use the land in small-scale, forest-friendly ways. Conservation biologists like Charles Munn, one of our online experts who has worked in this area for decades, say that turning the reserve zone into a reserve is essential for protecting the area's plants and animals. Scientists have claimed that nearby Manu National Park has the highest biodiversity of anywhere on earth. But Dr. Munn thinks the Amarakaeri zone may top even Manu in species variety, because fewer people live inside the reserve zone.

Over the next week or two, we'll be gathering as much evidence as we can to present to Toledo to illustrate the natural richness of life here. We've been here for only a day and a half, but already our guide Oscar has seen an extremely rare species of macaw. And I've seen an impressive list of wildlife, including eagles, cormorants, a tapir, a peccary, a purple beetle, a caiman, and butterflies whose wing colors span the rainbow.

Emily is on the lookout for wildlife.

This expedition won't be easy, I'm realizing quickly. River travel has been slow going. It's the dry season so the water level is low, and we spend more time dragging the boats than we do paddling. I'm also facing some challenges of my own. My legs are swollen with bug bites that I scratch all night long, and the itchy pain comes in excruciating waves. I'm trying to concentrate as I write this inside a humid tent next to four other people whose pruny feet smell as bad as they look. It is 11:11 p.m. and I have a long list of scientific measurements to make, but every time I move to go outside, the rain starts up again or Dan suggests I completely rewrite my piece. We have a midnight deadline, creeping closer and closer.

Such is life in the Amazon Rainforest.

Wishing for sharper fingernails,

Emily Sohn