The Amazon

I’ve arrived back in Manaus from my tour of the Amazon.  I have to admit is that I wimped out after three days of a four-day tour.  The trip was somewhat mixed, though I come away from it so happy that I did it.  The wildlife, the scenery… it was utterly spectacular and nothing like I’ve ever seen before.  But the downside was that this was a real, hardcore jungle experience – the heat and humidity made me feel exhausted and even sick and claustrophobic.  There were several times when I felt like I couldn’t escape (which I couldn’t) and I’d feel a creeping panic begin to overtake my brain.  And deep breathing only made me feel like I was trying to absorb oxygen through water, like I had gills that weren’t working right.  The first day, we experienced an inescapable downpour as we were in the middle of the river in our small boat.  All eight of us on the boat, whether we had rain jackets or not, were soaked to the bone for five hours straight.  My whole body was pruned from being soaked for all those hours by the intense rain. And the mosquitoes were plentiful and very, very hungry for blood… human blood… my blood.

So that’s the short of it. But in order to do the trip justice, let me describe it in more detail.

Day 1

I wait for almost three hours for my tour outfit to pick me up. Finally, I get the hostel to call the outfit and apparently, the boat is about to leave. They’ve forgotten about me. Within five minutes of the call, they arrive and speed like bays outta hell, swerving through traffic and passing everyone dangerously, trying to get me to the boat before it took off. We screech to a halt at the dock and as I climb on the boat I’m harassed for being late. Ahem.

This first boat takes our group and another out to the "Meeting of the Waters," which the junction of the Amazon and Rio Negro rivers.  The mineral content (and therefore the density), depth and temperature of these two rivers is distinctly different, so as you come to the meeting of the two, you see a noticeable difference, a specific line of demarcation. The Negro is black and the Amazon is milky mocha -- and you can feel the difference in temperature with your hand. It’s striking.

And here is where I really got just how big the Amazon River is. It’s not like looking at a river, it’s like looking at a lake. Its width is tremendous. Tankers come up the river and are dwarfed by its size.

After about 30 minutes in the speed boat that took us through the meeting point, we arrive at another dock and disembarked. Mean and filthy stalls vended frightening looking food items where the grease on the selections was so old looking it didn’t even glisten. It jut was flat and dull. The stores were also filthy and ramshackle. Sick, thin dogs and cats wandered through the “market”. And behind one of the markets was a muddy brown dirt road and some low looking slum houses, more than a few giant black vultures scavenging garbage, and a hobbled skeleton of an omnibus without wheels up on cement blocks. Everything about the scene was mangy and grey.

After 20 or so minutes here, eight of us gringos climbed on an old VW bus to take the next leg of the trip to get to our jungle lodge. The man at the wheel was ancient and small, crouched behind the wheel. We were packed like lemmings – too many of us to fit in this bus. No A/C and the heat was oppressive. Thankfully, I made it in the front seat so at least got some air. I felt for the gringos in the back who, I can only imagine, were barely able to breathe and likely were pouring sweat in the sticky climate of the rear of the bus.

We drove on a paved road for a while, then hit the clay road. Because of the recent rains, the road was like black ice. The clay was slick and large potholes crowded the “road” making the driver swerve and slide around. I white-knuckled it. And of course, we get to a point in the road where the guide says, “Here is where a bus flipped over just yesterday and many people were injured.” I didn’t want to know that. No one on the bus wanted to know that. This leg of the transport lasted about 40 minutes. I was already exhausted and it was still morning.

We arrive at our next point, got off the van and climbed on another boat. This long-tail was pretty pared down and took us another 15 minutes or so. We then got off that boat and got on yet another boat, smaller less powerful, and even less comfortable. This as the boat, I would learn, that we’d be on for the majority of the jungle/river tour.

Fundamentally, there are no roads this deep in the jungle. The “roads” are the waterways, which seem a bit like a street system, with main “streets” and side “streets” and “alleys.”

After another 35 minutes on this boat, we arrived at the jungle lodge, which in reality isn’t like a lodge in the way we know it in the States. The lodge is actually comprised of separate cabins made of wood slats, palm-thatched roofs, and windows created by mosquito screen. The main structure was slightly larger than the rest and contained the kitchen and communal dining area.

We settled in – all eight of us gringos in one cabin, with one tiny bathroom. Power functioned off of a generator from 6pm-10pm at night. Other than that, pitch darkness or sunlight.

By 2:30, we gathered at the boat, a low sided, narrow canoe with wooden seats and a long tail powering it. We climbed aboard and headed out. Within ten minutes the rains came. Each time I thought the downpour couldn’t get any heavier, it would. We kept going, though, and within ten more minutes, we were all soaked to the bone, rivulets pouring off our jackets, drops of rain hanging from our noses and chins. We stopped at a house floating on a platform to take shelter for a few minutes and see if the rains would let up. In the front half of the structure was a small “bar” and behind it were some bags of snacks and a small number of sundry items, including cold beer. Two very small pool tables, a small speaker stack, and an ancient looking entertainment center held a CD player and a TV. This, I gathered, was the local bar where you could meet up with friends on a Friday or Saturday night. In the back half of the house was the family’s living area. Both halves combined for a total of about 900 square feet. Everything seemed so spare and so aged. I imagine that the humidity and the river age things quickly, and the mold also does its job.

After waiting for the rain to stop for about an hour, our guide, Nay, decided that we were going to go out anyway, even if the rain hadn’t much abated. Back we went into the boat, the wet, wet boat. The rain never stopped that night, but it didn’t keep us from seeing some very cool things.

We headed to the fishing hole, the piranha fishing hole. Each of us got a long stick with a string and hook dangling from the end of it. We threaded raw pieces of beef on our hooks and dropped them in the water. Most of us caught at least one piranha, I however, did not, and gave up and just watched others collect their sharp-toothed loot. There are four species of piranha in the Amazon, most of which are edible. They do, indeed have razor-sharp teeth and they do indeed like blood. In fact, one of the gringos was trying to unhook his piranha from his hook and the fish snapped at his finger, slicing it open. I guess the fish was mad and wanted to at least go out with a fight.

My fellow gringos collected about 15 piranhas, which were going to be made into a piranha soup.

We left the piranha hole and as we moved up the river, we saw both black and grey dolphins breach to get air. The Amazon is one of only four places in the world that are home to fresh-water dolphins (the others being in Argentina, India, and Pakistan). These little guys are small! The black and greys measure around 1½ meters, maybe a bit more. And the pinks are about 2½ meters. Sadly, on this trip, I wouldn’t see any pinks,

The sun set and in the dark, we stopped at another floating house. No electricity, just a platform with walls and a roof and windows with mosquito screen over them. Two threadbare couches, a table made from plywood, plastic patio chairs, a TV, a stove. A dog furtively skulked in the dark, sniffing our legs and darting away. I stumbled to the WC, which was a toilet in a damp and dripping room, no toilet paper. The thought of the incredible luxury I live in jumped into my head. It looked like Grandma and Grandpa, Mom and Dad, and maybe three of four children lived here in this floating house.

Grandma graciously offered us chairs and us gringos chatted quietly by the light of a single candle, wondering if we were going to go back to the lodge, or ?

We trundled back to the boat after a few more minutes and I asked Nay, “Are we going to go back now?” My drenched and pruned body was starting to shiver. “No, we go to hunt for the caiman… another 40 minutes before we go back.”

OK, onward. Gathering all my strength to not whine and bitch in my head but instead have a good attitude no matter what, I sat back in the wet boat, cold and in the pitch dark. The longtail pushed us forward and Nay sat at the front of the boat with a handheld spotlight so he could catch the glow of the caiman’s eyes in the riverside reeds and grasses. At one point, we swerved, headed into a thicket and Nay snatched at something, which struggled and broke away. Caiman 1, Nay 0. 10 minutes later, in another spot, another snatch attempt. Thrashing, water splashing, a struggle, and success. Caiman 1, Nay 1.

The caiman is a type of alligator indigenous to South and Central America. The one trapped in Nay’s hands was about four feet from tip to tail. His yellow eyes beamed and his belly rose up and down quickly, telling me he was terrified. After a few minutes of all the gringos touching him (but not me), he began to go into distress and with that came a sad cry that sounded like a long duck quack. That may sound funny, but for me, it was really very sad and troubling. I wasn’t comfortable with how Nay was flippantly letting everyone, covered in bug repellant and sunscreen, touch him. Finally, he threw the caiman into the water and you could see how quickly he disappeared underneath the boat and further onto safety away from the gringos.

Finally, we headed back to camp. Dinner and lights out.

Day 2

After a night of rain, the morning was clear! Overnight, I had finally dried out and was looking forward to a dry day. Starving! Every day I was there, for very meal, I was starving. I think that, even though we didn’t exert ourselves an inordinate amount, the heat was so extreme that I think our bodies were burning a lot of calories just trying to keep us cooled down.

Breakfast was fried everything: fried bananas, fried balls of cornmeal, fried pastry. Some fruit, too, thank god, and coffee. If you know me, you know that back home, I’m hypersensitive to caffeine, but here, for some reason, I can’t seem to get going without it. I think the penetrating oppressive heat all day and all night just steals my energy, and coffee gives me just the little push I need to actually feel a bit awake. Go figure.

After breakfast, we geared up with long sleeves, long pants, hiking shoes, and covered in repellant, which told me we were going to go somewhere in land that was ruled by mosquitoes. We were going sloth spotting and that meant disembarking from the boat on a tiny island in the middle of the river covered in wet, spongy ground, surrounded by water and weeds and grasses and still water. The monsters started after us as soon as we pulled onto land. Swarms, clouds of them, whining in my ears, hovering maddeningly in front of my eyes, threatening to suck my blood with their tiny needles, and maybe carrying something deadly. Aaarrrggghhh! All of us gringos were flapping our arms around every few seconds to get them off, get them off! But we kept walking further anyway. No luck spotting the sloth on this island after 45 minutes. On the boat and on to another island. After 40 more minutes, Nay spotted one.

These guides are amazing. As you can probably guess, most all of the creatures in the jungle have some way to hide, to blend in and protect themselves from detection, either to escape predators’ notice or to better prey on other creatures. So that Nay could see this sloth was amazing. After pointing for five minutes and describing exactly where the sloth was in the treetops, I finally noticed a shape, just exactly the same color as the tree – a mottled brown with white spots. Our longtail captain started up a tree close to the sloth. And after some stalking, he grabbed the sloth by the back and tore it from the tree to dangerously carry it down to the ground. Here, every stupid gringo held it by the back, passing it around and petting it. I was sick and angry and sad. I’m not an animal expert, but I can’t imagine this wasn’t anything but traumatic for this gentle creature, unable to defend itself. Not to mention all the chemicals people were wearing to repel the mosquitoes coming off on the animal’s fur. I imagined its eyes, sad, as it was passed from person to person. I wanted to yell and tell them to not be idiots and put the sloth back where it belonged.

Finally, the captain put the sloth back into a tree and it slowly climbed away from us back to its place of safety, high in the treetops. I admit, I was hoping that the sloth would poop on one of the gringos’ heads as a “screw you.” No such luck.

Through the rest of the day, I switched crews to another guide (Nay was taking most of my group back to the mainland) and another group of gringos (two of which were horrible, loud, arrogant American tourists who made me embarrassed to have a US passport). We saw another sloth (though this guide left him in the tree) a bunch of iguanas sunning themselves in the tree canopy or that saw us coming and dropped from the trees into the water to quickly swim away and make their escape, and one large and striking butterfly with bright shimmering indigo wings rimmed in the blackest black.

Since it was a swelteringly hot sunny day, I also had the chance to sit lazily in the boat, my butt going numb from the hard wooden seat, and really appreciate how stunningly beautiful the Amazon was. Majestic trees reaching high into the sky. White trees with lacey, fluttering, pale emerald leaves. Every shade of green – pale jade to dark forest. Ebony river, glassy, warm and deep. The sky so blue it was almost violet. Large fluffy white clouds intermingled with wispy, feathery clouds. The sounds of crickets, frogs, monkeys, all singing, talking. And then came the sunset.

Like many other times in this blog, I struggle to find the poetry to express something mystical and indescribable. The colors… flaming shades of fuchsia, orange, gold, yellow, pink. The river still and perfectly reflective to create two sunsets, one in the sky and its sister in the river. The reflected horizon of the hills making a stunning Rorschach of butterflies, hourglasses, and other shapes and patterns created by your own mind. Each moment bringing a new sunset as it shifted and evolved, and finally darkened to welcome the night jungle. It was beautiful.

Back to camp, dinner and to bed.

Day 3

I woke up, showered and walked to the edge of the river. I sat silently and drank in the sight of the morning dew, sparking like tiny diamonds in this new day’s sunlight. I let the hymn of the waking jungle flow into me.

I decided yesterday that today would be my last day and so was as present as possible to fill myself up with the Amazon.

We set out in the canoe and quickly broke off from the main waterway into a small side waterway, covered in foliage. Our guide began bushwacking our way through with his sharp, heavy machete. After 20 minutes of making our way via this shallow, standing water to land’s edge we sat… and waited.

Both our longtail captain and our guide began whistling in this distinct pattern, who-who-who-whooo—whooo-whoooooo. Soon came a return of the same sound and pattern. Capuchin monkey. This amazing “discussion” kept on for about 15 minutes. And during that time, our guide noticed it was just one monkey returning the call. He explained that capuchins can actually get malaria (as well as other diseases) and that, when that happens, the monkey leaves their tribe to go off on their own. He said that the monkey actually attempts to kill itself (though he didn’t explain how) and if they’re unsuccessful, they get sick and die. Our poor capuchin was on its own so must be sick. I thought of how some animals feel, like you and me. Sadness, distress, anxiety, fear, contentment, loneliness. And I felt sad for our capuchin. Nature is not good or bad, but it can seem to us cruel as well as beautiful and awesome.

We left the area without seeing our capuchin.

We headed back to camp. I sat with our guide outside the kitchen and helped him pick acai berries from the branches he collected yesterday. He got a big stock pot and a large glass bottle and then dumped all the berries into the pot. We took turned pounding the acai berries with the end of the bottle to release the acai juice. He added some water so that the juice looked like thick purple milk. The acai paste was mixed with more water and then the whole lot was sent though a colander so that we ended up with a thinner acai juice. I tried it plain and it tasted like a bit like a sweet, floral wood. But how you’re supposed to drink it is with lots of milk and sugar -- and if you’re really into a treat, you take the sugared, milky juice and freeze that for a cold treat. Really, really yummy and apparently very different than the acai in the US, which I plan to try when I get home.

One more story… about our guide. One year ago, he was trekking with a group of gringos in the jungle. His shoes were busted so he decided to trek in his flip flops that day. The vegetation on the floor of the jungle was thick enough so that he didn’t notice the poisonous snake. He was bitten, and 15 minutes later, fell unconscious. He has no idea how they got him to a doctor or how long it took, but he was close to death. Fortunately, over time, he recovered. But, one year later, his snake bite resurfaced and grew infected. He had surgery in December, but as of now, the bite area is still healing and he has to dress it every morning and every evening. That’s seriously frightening, I gotta say. Also, I described to him the snake that I almost stepped on while I was hiking on Isla Grande. From my previous blog post, you know that for my own sanity, I decided that it wasn’t poisonous. But according to him, it was poisonous. I didn’t have a chance to write the name of my snake down, but it’s enough to know it was toxic and that I missed my date with death on that day.

Right before lunch, four capuchins came into camp via the tree canopy. Black and rust fur, curious, quick, they swooped in and stole away some bananas that our guide left out for them. I have this fantastic pic (that needs a little cropping so isn’t posted here) of a wily capuchin staring straight into the lens while he grabs all he can carry back into the jungle. I (heart) monkeys.

After a huge lunch, I bundled up my pack and we headed back to the mainland. This time, it was me trapped in the back of the VW bus, I just about passed out several times from the heat and from huffing gas fumes from the barrels of diesel right behind me stored inside the bus. I was happy, but grey and exhausted when I humped it up the stairs to my hostel in Manaus.

I showered and asked the guy at the front desk where I could eat somewhere healthy. In true Brazilian style, he said there was an Italian place close by. That kills me. Brazilians consider Italian food healthy.

Now, it’s 6pm on Friday, 25 March. I have to get ready for a concert of Brazilian music at the famous Teatro Amazonas Opera House tonight. More on that later.