The Amazon River, surrounding nearly half of the territory of Peru, is the mightiest river in the world, flanked by vast stretches of pristine rainforest. The rainforest canopy shelters the richest and most diverse ecosystem on Earth, making it the perfect place for an Amazon River cruise. The Amazon River is the second longest river in the world after the Nile. It is 4,080 miles long and runs from the Andes Mountains in Peru through Brazil to the Atlantic Ocean. It contains more water than any other river in the world- more than the Mississippi, the Nile and the Yangtze combined. At its widest point it can be over 200 miles wide and inland, it is often seven miles wide.
The Amazon River basin is the home of so many animals- especially "extreme" creatures, like catfish which, in the U.S., grow up to 40 lbs., but in Brazil have been measured up to 200 lbs. There is also the anaconda, the largest snake in the world and the piranha, the most ferocious fish in the world. The Amazon River has 2,000 different species of fish, an extreme number for any given area. The Amazon rainforest covers over 1.2 billion acres representing two-fifths of the enormous South American continent and is found in nine South American countries: Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and the three Guyanas. With 2.5 million square miles of rainforest, the Amazon Rainforest represents 54 percent of the total rainforests left on the planet.
