From the mountain ridge, the descent to Yurimaguas was quite a ride--one we were to become familiar with over the next several days. We would drive out from Tarapoto (400 m), immediately start climbing through the montane forest, drive through the forest over the pass (ca. 1050 m) and eventually make a descent into the flatlands of the Amazonian basin (200 m). Yurimaguas was still about an hour away by car. Each day we could drive to a side road that allowed us to explore a new area, or stop along the main road to study an area--or even a clump of plants--that attracted our interest. At the end of the day, we would retrace our path over the main road back to Tarapoto.

The closer you get to Yurimaguas the more the land along the sides of the road has been converted from forest to various forms of agricultural production. Near the city, only a few trees remain and epiphytes are scarce. All along the main road, from the lower montane forest below the mountain ridge near Tarapoto, to the pastures near Yurimauguas we would occasionally see big clumps of Neoregelia eleutheropetala in the small trees that are left standing in pastures. The people are friendly and helpful and they will even bring you a ladder if they see you want to climb a tree to get a better look at the epiphytes (Fig. 17). We collected a very compact form of N. eleutheropetala (Fig. 18) on a side road 28 km west of Yurimaguas, from a clump that was exposed to full sun and, as a result, very nicely colored. More details on this plant and the collection, along with a discussion of the variability reported within the species, can be seen in an earlier issue of the Journal of the Bromeliad Society (Gouda 2016).

The small village of Yurimaguas is at about 150 m elevation along the Rio Huallaga, which comes from the south, all the way from Tingo Maria on the Amazon side of the Peruvian Andes and is one of the tributaries of the Amazon river. We visited one of the large boats that travel back and forth to Iquitos--a trip that takes 3 days each way--and were entertained by the small fresh water dolphins that jumped from the water surface when you whistled. Rio Huallaga is heading to the northeast as it passes Yurimaguas and soon merges with the much larger Rio Maranon. Near Iquitos, Rio Maranon merges with...