Welcome to Amazon Welcome to Hot

November 01-05

The flight from Rio to Manaus was a smooth one. We had an interesting connection through Sao Paulo to get on the flight to Manaus. Bussing from terminal to terminal when you don't know the language is challenging, but we managed. We had never flown over such huge swathes of forest area and as we approached Manaus, all we saw was a carpet of green. The amazon from the plane looked huge. This is where 20% of the world´s oxygen is generated.

We had booked a taxi to take us to the hostel.  The weather was really warm.  A local who had come to pick up a collegue from CISCO overheard our grumblings about the humidity, and welcomed us with ¨Welcome to Manaus, welcome to hot¨!! After checking in at the hostel, we went to the travel agency to book our tour for the next day.  After initial negotiations, we had to pay up for the tour.  This took me on an interesting chase with the tour operator, looking for ATMs that functioned. I was able to get out only half the cash and promised to pay the other half the next day.  Apparently, the next day was a holiday for " the day of the dead", and people had pulled all the money out of the ATMs.

After this, Nicole and I went on an unending quest to find lunch that afternoon.  Manaus is a heavily industrialized city.  Why the Brazilians chose to put this in the heart of the amazon is beyond me.  More on this later....

The ordeal to find luch turned into a nightmare. Most restaurants were either closed, or the food was very very unappetizing.  We finally managed to get some fruit juice, that held us together until evening.  Also, they make fresh plantain chips on the roadside in Manaus. We had some of these fresh hot chips. We then headed out to the grocery store to buy pasta.  Nicole made the best possible pasta in the tropics, which we had for dinner. We went to bed early, to get ready for the next day´s trip to the Jungle.  All this time, we had AC in our hostel room.  We were in for a real experience the next few days without the AC.

Amazon, Day1(Nov 2)

We got picked up at the hostel at about 8am.  We had  to travel 100km south of Manaus to go to a lodge in the amazon jungle. The first stop was at the amazon river which we had to cross on a small boat.  Here, we were shown the meeting of the two rivers, the Amazon and the Rio Negro.  For a few kilometers, the black Rio Negro and the brown Amazon flow side by side without mixing.  This is one of the weirdest sights.  Two rivers of different color flowing next to each other without mixing.  The two rivers have different pH, velocities and temperatures, which makes this possible. We actually dipped our hands in the water and could feel the water getting colder as we went from the Rio Negro to the Amazon. The river at this point looks like a huge lake, and we were surprised to see such big ships on the river...
After the boat crossing, we were picked up by a bus on the other bank and driven down south on the trans amazon highway.  The force of nature was evident, as we saw the damage to the road at several points due to floods. Even at the river bank, people were rebuilding a supermarket, which was swept away by the floods in the previous months.
The bus ride brought us to the banks of another tributary, where we were supposed to take a boat to get to the lodge.  Our boat was late, and we whiled our time by getting some drinks at the local store.  Finally our guide decided to hire a different boat and off we went. Here the drought was evident.  The amazon has hundreds of tributaries, channels and lakes around it.  During summer, they go dry and the water level goes low.  People who live on these smaller rivers are put into hardship, as access to water dwindles during this time of the year.  Its also bad for tourism, as you have to walk through the jungle and river access is diminished. So we were there in not such a great season.  The only benefit was that during the dry season, there are not many musquitoes and we were spared this torture.
After the last boat ride, we had to walk trought the forest plains for 30 minutes to get to the lodge.  During this walk, we could clearly see the water level on the trees from the flooding that happens during the rainy season. The water level in some cases was 30-40ft above the ground!!!! We also saw large bales of switchgrass deposited by the river on tops of trees.  It looked like someone had built a hut with tatched roof.!

Our lodge was a fairly decent place(for what you can get in such an extreme and hostile environment).  We deposited our bags and went to lunch in the canteen. After lunch, we got on the boat with a bunch of other tourists to go piranha fishing. To get to the fishing spot, we had to repeat the task of walking to the point where there was sufficient water in the river, and then taking a very slow boat ride.

Once we got to the ¨spot¨, we were given fishing poles and baits.  The piranha fish are very intelligent.  For the longest time, they kept eating the bait without getting caught in the hook.  Finally the fishers luck kicked in and our guide caught one.  Then others started catching some as well.  Nicole was the first one to catch the fish between us. The guides had shown us how we were supposed to remove the fish and release them back once we had caught them.  Of course we were very inept at this and had to keep calling the guides to do the release for us.  I did mage to hold the fish in my hands a couple of times.  They are very bony and slimey and also very snappy.... We saw the razor sharp teeth and it was actually quite scary.  Something you don´t want your fingers to get stuck in.

After piranha fishing, we sailed back to the lodge during the sunset.  This was one of the most beautiful scenaries I have seen, and Nicole got some brilliant pictures.  The ride back was also funny.  Some fish from the river kept jumping from the water and into the boat.  Maybe the sounds of the motor or our headlights were disturbing these creatures???  This created a very hilarious and ruckus situation on the boat, especially everytime the fish hit the women :). Finally at the end, a 2 footer jumped onto the lap of Luis, our guide and he kept it for dinner!

Day2 (Nov3)

The next day morning, we visited a local family. Our guide described the process for obtaining manioc flour from the root of the manioc plant. Very hazardous. Apparently, my guide and his family were involved with this and his dad lost his eyesight due to the high alcohol content. Now things are better with mechanization. We also went to a local church and dance hall. People here live of the land and life is fairly easy as long as you prepared to deal with extreme weather.

By day 2 one thing had become clear. We had bought quick dry clothes for this part of the trip and they were completely useless. Our skin all of a sudden had become extra active and we were wet all day long. We must have lost quite some weight here, because all the water we were drinking just kept pouring out.

We returned to the lodge for lunch. That afternoon we had rain. At about 3.30 in the afternoon the rain stopped and we ventured out. This was in our opinion, the best part of the trip. We entered the heart of the rainforest jungle. Here our guides took us through various forms of dense vegetation often pointing out plants that are used by the natives for cures.

We had one crazy experience. There is a palm tree in the jungle which produces a fruit. It almost looks like an almond. It has a very hard shell and a very hard fruit inside that tastes like dried coconut(cobbari in Kannada). It is extremely hard to get the hard fruit part out. But there is a worm that goes into the hard shell and eats the fruit and occupies its place. Now the worm is softer to remove and tastes just like the coconut!!!!!
I tried one and it was really like the coconut flesh you eat after drinking tender coconut water. Unfortunately Nicole got a bad worm :(. !!!
We also saw a giant cycad tree with very flat bits of trunk jutting out. The natives use this part as a drum to indicate location if they get lost.

Last but not least, we saw and petted a tarantula. We walked back to the hostel in the dark.

All along our walks, in small streams and waterways, we would always saw small caymans( crocodiles). At night they were visible by their glowing eyes juting out of the water. There were plenty of birds as well, which we had never seen before.

On day two evening, we got aquatinted with a few of the fellow tourists.

Day3 (Nov4th)

day 3 was supposed to be a chill day. We repeated walk through the woods and boat ride to get to one of the tributaries. At this point, the boat ride was getting to me. Moving slowly in low waters in the hot sun is not much fun. We finally stopped off on the river bank to go look for a sloth. After hiking a couple of hours, we came across another tour group who had spotted and captured the sloth. We all got to hold the little guy. It felt like holding a teddy who moved so slowly. Just had to be careful to kelp hands out of reach of his long sharp nails.

When we released the sloth, he raced back up the tree. But that racing back was only for 5 steps. After that, like some autopilot button had kicked in, he moved up slowly( very very slowly).

Post sloth, we went to another local house on a boat. The locals here chop down huge trunks which they season in the river, and build floating houses on to of these. If the river level rises, your house just floats up instead of being washed out. We had lunch at this house and played around with the local kids on the beach.

After this, some of the tourists left and Nicole and I made our way back to the lodge with the guides .
In the afternoon When everyone was resting, I ventured out around the lodge, and spotted an Agouti. This is a very large rodent almost the size of a large hare.

That evening, we were taken out by the guides in the dark to the closest tributary. Here Luis did something crazy. He stripped off to his shorts, jumped into the marsh and caught a 2 foot cayman( crocodile) !!!! Both Nicole and I had a chance to hold it .

Luis explained to us about the cayman habitat and how to check for a healthy pup. The one we had caught had thick flesh at the base of his tail. This was a good indication that the pup was healthy and would make it out well…

Day 4 ( Nov 5)
Day four was a half day business for us. We left the lodge with a different set of tourists to look for a giant cycad tree. Just before we left, we spotted red beaked tucans which had flown into the lodge. There was some effort to climb the tree with the natural vines hanging off the branches. None of us could do as well as Luis who practically scaled up to 50 ft.
On the way back from the tree, we cut the motor for the boat and were lucky to see a few pink dolphins. No pictures though. On the walk back to the lodge we spotted howling monkeys and trails left by leaf cutter ants, which almost look like mini ant highways. All in all day four was when we saw the most fauna.

We had a different guide who accompanied us back to Manaus in the afternoon. We cleaned up in our hostel after our return and left for the airport at 12 am. We had a 3 am flight to Salvador Bahia.

Now my rant…

Having been in the amazon for 4 days and having see it from air, gave us both a fair sense of the biodiversity, and largeness of this area. It is mind boggling that 20% of the worlds oxygen comes from this place. It was even scarier that Manaus is so heavily industrialized. It is a major hub for making cellphones… employs 30% of the local population. The markets of Manaus are filled with very accessory you can think of for a cell phone. On the way back from the jungle, we even passed by the Foxconn plant… I asked the local if they had any water treatment plants for the waste and did not get a satisfactory reply. If only people knew what DMSO and TMAH were. Plus PetroBras runs oil tankers on the amazon… ufff. No easy solutions here, the boat we used to get around the waters used gas… someday we will have to rekon with the need for another cellphone model and 20% of worlds oxygen supply.