In this corner of Peru, the piranhas are toothsome in more ways than one.

You don’t have to be a tree-hugger to want to see the Amazon, the longest river in the world before it’s too late. Nor do you have to be particularly adventurous. Life at Yacumama Lodge, where I recently stayed, is sort of a Gilligan’s Island experience – no phone, no lights, no motorcar. The main building, where meals are served and daily excursions organized, has a generator, and the bathrooms have some solar electricity, but the sleeping cabins are illuminated by kerosene lanterns.

And you’ll certainly fare better if you travel with a good tour operator, as I did. I visited the rain forest with Salmon River Outfitters.

We spent one night in Iquitos; the next morning we headed to Yacumama Lodge, about 110 miles up the Amazon. I was impressed by my first view of the lodge up high on the banks. Yacumama loomed like royalty above the river.

After the rains come in, our Yagua Indian guide Gregorio Esteban Mosquera told us, the river rises high enough to lick at the front door of the lodge. For now, though, we had stairs to climb.

Manager Bonnie Wyatt greeted us in the spacious main building with shots of Seven Roots, a potent liqueur made from sugarcane and a combination of barks and roots. Yacumama may not offer much in the way of technology, but it does have its luxuries. You can take a hot shower and have your laundry done, something of a necessity after traipsing through the jungle in long pants and long-sleeved shirts (to protect against mosquitoes).

You can make yourself numb on Seven Roots, Cristal beer, or pisco sours, cocktails that taste like a cross between piña coladas and margaritas, and relax in a room where a multitude of string hammocks descend from a domed ceiling. And you can sit back in dining room chairs made from vines and stuff yourself on the abundant fare, served on lacquered mahogany tables.

Norman Walters, part owner of Yacumama Lodge and proud possessor of ecological mind and sound body, has lived on a houseboat in Staten Island, run organic farms in Hawaii, and played in a rock band in San Francisco. He began building Yacumama in 1992, and the lodge opened for business in ’94.

Rather than chop down the jungle so he could do construction, Walters chose to conserve it, a longer (but in his mind necessary) process. He designed the main lodge and the bungalows Peruvian-style, with thatched roofs, wood floors, screened walls, and wakapu poles holding things in place, and built walkways a few feet above the jungle floor.

Walters has taught his cooks to prepare Peruvian specialties for the American palate, meaning that vegetables are washed with purified water, and a fish dish is served every day at lunch, along with rice, beans, yucca and salad.

Dinners feature chicken or vegetarian recipes; one night we even had falafel, with peanut sauce substituting for tahini. And tropical fruits and fruit juices, including cocona, a relative of the tomato family, are available at most meals.

I did participate in one activity that I’m thrilled to have done and will probably never do again: a ride on the Canopy Skyline, a rope strung high above the ground. To rig it, Walters first had to construct a tower around a huge ficus tree. The tower, a tree house of the most sophisticated sort, comprises vertical ladders leading up to platforms, nine levels in all, and ascends all the way to the top of the tree – about 155 feet.

Professional riggers actually did the building, but not before Walters had shimmied up the tree freehand and, with Shephard’s help, had used a block-and tackle system to haul up lumber for the platform. These guys are some Boy Scouts.

Today the Canopy Skyline skims from the tower over the canopy of the rain forest and lands you on a ledge built into another tree. On our high-flying adventure, I found the adrenaline rush to be almost as good as a shot of Seven Roots. But the primary attraction in the jungle is, well, the jungle. The key word here is symbiosis. Anacondas burrow into the riverbanks and create ponds where spiny, six-foot Victoria lily pads can float like lazy Susans; frogs dig tunnels for ants, who in turn create astonishingly complex anthills.

Contact with the locals wasn’t limited to the 30 Peruvian members of the staff. On one boat trip we stopped for lunch at a plantation where yucca, breadfruit, rice and bananas were grown. Another time we attended market day at the nearby village of Puerto Miguel.

By bringing tourists to the market, Walters has fostered the villagers’ artisan skills, which they had almost lost when their crafts were not in demand. Now the women weave beautiful baskets and bags, the men carve gourds and make masks, and the children string beads, seeds, and palm fruit, known as natural ivory. I even found a folk painter or two.

The locals like to trade things for factory-made clothing, but they value American dollars (bring clean, unmarked bills) more. At the end of the trading session, some of them will even give away items in appreciation of your business. One woman came up to me and shoved a painted gourd into my hands. "Regalo," she said. Gift. The she introduced herself and kissed my cheek, the last thing I expected as a stranger in this strange, swampy land. And I don’t even speak Spanish.

The return to Iquitos and then to Miami was more difficult than I had imagined. Although there’s no real time change, my body had adjusted quickly to "jungle time" – going to bed when the sun went down, rising when the tiger heron squawked at 5 A.M. My early bedtime shouldn’t imply that I had gotten a lot of sleep, however. The jungle is such a loud, musical place, I found myself lying awake at night, wanting to conduct it: Take the frogs croaking as a beat, the monkey chatter as a counterpoint, the birds as sopranos with the tune. Then a caiman roar for a finale, like a cymbal crash.

But aside from being dependably noisy, the rain forest is not very predictable. Probably the only thing we can predict is that this region will continue to be exploited, and its resources will diminish. The folks at Yacumama Lodge are trying to reverse these trends by educating both their guests and the locals. The lodge also donates some of its profits to conservation efforts. Which means that just by signing on for a weeklong trip to the Peruvian Amazon and Yacumama Lodge, you’re playing a role in the preservation of the rain forest.

Who ever said saving the earth was all work and no play? Greenpeace should be this much fun.

Jen Karetnick is a food critic, poet, and teacher based in Miami Beach.