Forest and River Tour

So my river tour went really well. To be honest, I was kind of worried about it. I wasn’t worried at all until the night before when Lixin said it would be good if someone else was going with me for safety. Then my imagination started going … what if this guy took me out on a boat, took all my money, and left me in the middle of nowhere?? So I was kind of stressed. Also, I woke up Friday morning to a big storm. Jean Claude, my guide, called to make sure I was still okay with going out in the rain. He said it was safe but I was nervous. We decided to go to the docks and play it by ear. I almost couldn’t eat breakfast, that’s how nervous I was. So I thought, “You should either call Jean Claude and cancel or just stop worrying. Because the trip won’t be any fun if all you’re doing the whole time is worrying. You have no reason not to trust him – his company is legit and the only reviews I found of them online were good. So either suck it up or cancel.” I chose the former.

We got to the docks and most of the thunder and lightening had stopped. It wasn’t too windy so the water wasn’t all crazy. We met our boat driver, who goes by Herchita (?), which means little mouse because he was a kind of short and squat guy. We decided to go to the Ecological Park first. So we headed up the Rio Negro. The boat had a cover so we stayed dry as we cut across the kind of choppy water. Eventually, we entered a ‘small stream’ (its size was somewhere between that of a Coloradoan and Georgian river). It came from the Amazon and was a different color from the Rio Negro. The scenery was serene. The rain was pattering on the river, and the hills around it were very green. It was kind of like going through the estuaries on the Georgia coast, but with slightly more topography. Here and there were small wooden houses that were not in great shape, to say the least. The people have two methods of adjusting to the rising and falling waters between the wet and dry seasons. One option is to have their house float on the river. They use a combination of large logs and tires to keep it afloat. I can’t imagine living literally on a river; it is so different from what I’m used to! The second option is to build your house on a hill on wooden stilts. But Jean Clause said that even then, the waters often come up to people’s houses and they have to board up the windows and live in the attic. Crazy.



Anyway, we arrived at the Ecological Park and it was still raining pretty hard. So, we put on our rain jackets and headed out. From the docks, we walked up a wooden walkway that went through the forest. It was about 8 feet off the ground to avoid the flooding during the rainy season. We took a side trail to see a Samauma tree. They have very wide bases that are an architectural adaptation of the tree to being under water part of the year and withstanding strong winds during storms. Pretty impressive.
Next we arrived at a covered deck that overlooked a pond. There were large lily pads that bloom from delicate pink flowers and several kinds of large and small birds. I’m glad we were there so early because we were the only people there and it was very peaceful. I took a ton of pictures. Eventually, we also saw two alligators and a few monkeys running around on the other side of the pond. It was neat to see the monkeys walking upright.

I don’t know how long we stayed on the deck. I could have stayed all day. If you just take one glance at the forest, it seems kind of ordinary. It’s not like looking at the Rocky Mountains, where you are automatically amazed. But I think the more time you are there, the more you see and the more you appreciate it. That short time, maybe one or two hours, made me really want to come back to the Amazon forest. I was filled with a large sense of awe at the complexity of the ecosystem. It reminded me of the first time I saw the Grand Canyon. At the time, I was considering hiking into it the next day but was very apprehensive of the strenuous 18 mile hike. But as soon as I laid my eyes on it, I was first completely amazed, and second convinced that I absolutely had to explore it. That is how I felt Friday. A few hours didn’t do it justice. I want to get a chance to know the forest at least a little more intimately.





After leaving, we went back to the Rio Negro and stopped to see a rubber tree. I was thinking this wouldn’t be that exciting, but it turned out to be a fun stop. First, there wasn’t a dock where we stopped. It was just a spot that Herchita knows about. So we pulled up the boat next to the shore and got out into some intense mud! I had my chacos on and after about 15 steps there was an inch-thick layer of mud both on the bottom of my shoes and all around them. The shores were also pretty polluted. Jean Claude said most people don’t put trash into trash cans, they just throw it into the streets or streams and it eventually ends up in the river. Sad. Anyway, Herchita was walking barefoot through all the muck and led us into the trees. There were some pretty neat trees in there that I took a lot of pictures of because they had amazing root systems above ground. He showed us a rubber tree and cut a niche in it with his very large knife. Some white sap came out, which is the latex. Interesting, I didn’t really know where latex comes from, but there it is!

Next we went to a piraracu farm. These are some of the largest freshwater fish in the world. The “farm” was really just a guy’s house in the Rio Negro – about 100 yards off the banks. Next to the house is a floating boardwalk that surrounds a “tank”, which is apparently really deep and surrounded by nets that come down from the boardwalk. So we saw some of the pirarucu. They were, as promised, very large and very colorful. We stayed for a bit but it was not the highlight of the trip.


The next stop was the infamous Meeting of the Waters. This is where the Rio Negro (warm, ‘black’, acidic) meets the main branch of the Amazon (cooler, brown, nutrient-rich). You can see where these two rivers meet up from space. It was neat to see, but to me the best part of it was just being in the middle of this huge river. A couple of local guys rowed up next to us with a boat full of fish. It was just a little rowboat, but the bottom of it was covered in dead and dying fish. Yum – dinner!


So we looked at the water and then I decided to jump in! Definitely not recommended by my travel nurse, but I’ve talked to a few people in Manaus who swim at the beaches along the river. They are still alive, so … Also, not much lives in the Rio Negro and that is where I mostly swam because it’s warmer. I jumped in from the boat, which was fun. First I jumped into the Rio Negro. It was pretty warm. Jean Claude said that I should jump into the Negro first, then swim to the Amazon to feel the temperature difference, and Herchita would drive the boat along to meet me in the Amazon (by the way, we are only talking a distance of less than 25 yards, so this wasn’t a major swim). So I jumped in, woohoo!

And then Herchita started up the boat and I had a moment of sheer panic that they were going to drive away and leave me in the middle of the Amazon. It was choppy and not easy swimming, and the temperature difference was very noticeable and of course got me thinking about density. But I was not wanting to stick around in the river for too long – first because I don’t want fish swimming up my you-know-what, and second because I didn’t want to be left behind (not that any thing either of them had done would indicate that leaving me was their intention). I guess I would have gotten a ride from the locals. It would have been pretty bad. My silly over-active imagination!

So that was my trip. It was enjoyable, especially the Ecological Forest. Jean Claude was a good guide. He is not from Manaus, but it was nice that there were not difficulties with language. There were some questions I had that he couldn’t answer, but in general he was knowledgeable. It was nice to be able to call the shots and elect to stay the longest in the forest. I will gradually be putting more pictures on http://www.chrisandanna.shutterfly.com.