Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon

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Salix humboldtiana Willd.

“Our steamer was a wood-burner, so daily it would tie up at some tiny clearing in the otherwise unbroken forest where huge piles of cordwood awaited us…”

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Oxalis barrelieri

“These stops gave me the chance to go ashore where a few airy thatched houses, a dozen or so inhabitants, some chickens and pigs constituted the settlement. Everywhere the forest crowded the scanty clearings, hemming them in darkly.”

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Piper tingens Trel.

The first leg of Mexia's trip ended in Iquitos after 24 days on the river. “Repacking my equipment, I laid in 3 months’ supplies, and hiring 3 men, I embarked on one of those lanchas, which wandered up the much named river (now the Marañon)."

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Piper parana-puranum Trel.

After an excursion to Yurimaguas she set off again. “I gave the word, the men dug in their paddles, and we were off on the last leg of the journey west to the famous Pongo de Manseriche."

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Grias peruviana Miers

“Day by day the blue outline rose higher and grew clearer, the seemingly impassable barrier of the Sierra del Pongo. On the ninth day it towered above us, densely tree-clad.”

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Piper ponganum Trel.

“I established camp a few miles above the Pongo, at the mouth of the Rio Santiago. . .the rainy season began with unprecedented violence and the rivers rose and rose until the roar of the Pongo could be heard for miles.”

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Pyrrhobryum spiniforme (Hedw.) Mitt.

“For three months I camped there, collecting botanical specimens and making short excursions, always by canoe, except once, when I climbed to the crest of the Sierra del Pongo.”

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Rudgea mexiae Standl.

“We were effectively marooned by the deluges of rain and the flooded rivers; but if we were to get out some day, arrangements had to be made for it."

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Piper melendezense Trel.

"[We] constructed a large raft, binding the logs with tough lianas and raising on it a platform of palm bark. . . We loaded the raft with my precious collections of plants and birds and insects. . .and swung out of the Santiago into the Amazon.”

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Anemopaegma

“Thus for two weeks we floated down the Marañon, and my heart drew heavy as we drew near Iquitos, for my ideal journey on a raft was over.”

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Oxalis barrelieri

By Ynés E. J. Mexia, Leanna Feder

Mar 21 2019

At the age of 61, Ynés Mexía embarked on the adventure of a lifetime, traversing South America east to west via the Amazon River. Her love for exploration is palpable in her descriptions of traveling the river by boat, becoming marooned for 3 months in the Sierra del Pongo, and eventually constructing a raft out of balsa wood and lianas to return to Iquitos. The New York Botanical Garden is fortunate to have many of her collections from this time. They are presented here with excerpts from her essay “Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon.”

"This vision of the unspoiled wilderness drew me irresistibly, and from this tale of how I went and what I found you shall judge what there is of fact and what of fiction in the old stories." - Ynes Mexia

Three Thousand Miles up the Amazon

Salix humboldtiana Willd.

Oxalis barrelieri

Piper tingens Trel.

Piper parana-puranum Trel.

Grias peruviana Miers

Piper ponganum Trel.

Pyrrhobryum spiniforme (Hedw.) Mitt.

Rudgea mexiae Standl.

Piper melendezense Trel.

Anemopaegma

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