Manaus: Part Two – “Up the Amazon Without a Paddle........”

Even though we had requested our second Amazon day tour to take place on Thursday, we were only confirmed late on Wednesday night when we had a message on reception to be ready for a pick-up at 8:30am the following morning. As it turned out, Christina and her boss Pedro, who leads the boat trip, had very graciously shifted a few other bookings around to make room in their schedule to run a Thursday trip, knowing that could not make any other date. How many other tour companies would have done this for us, I’m not so sure, but we were very grateful that they did.

Thursday morning was clear and bright as we waited in the hotel reception and it wasn’t long before Christine arrived and introduced us to Pedro, and before we knew it we were in the car heading across town. We had another chap on our tour called Robert who was also staying at the same hotel as we were, so including the guides there was 6 of us. We arrived a boat yard up river from Manaus city centre in a more industrial part of town, where they stored boat on an elaborate racking system. 4 levels tall and we waited until Pedro’s speedboat was un-racked and put in the river. After a short safety discussion and the putting on of life vests, we were off down the Rio Negro, under the impressive bridge and heading towards where the city centre meets the Grand River.

Our tour started with a bit of history of Manaus and the Amazon River, and pointing out the historic buildings, including the opera house we had visited the other day. We pulled up close to the Municipal Market and viewed the flood level markings for the river, which showed that the river was currently in flood and at its 3^rd highest level of all time, the highest level being about a foot higher that the current level, having been as recent at 2012. We were seeing the river at near its peak for the season, and we would see many waterlogged places as we progressed through our tour during the day. It wasn’t long before we were hooning down the Rio Negro at a fair pace for about half an hour, bouncing off of the waves, before we reach the next point of interest. The Amazon River formally starts just downstream from Manaus, where the dark cold waters of the Rio Negro meet the warmer muddy flowing waters of the Rio Solimoes. This spot is called the “Meeting of the Waters” and is impressive as the two bodies of water do not mix immediately due to

the different temperature and density of each river, forming a distinct line in the water between the muddy and clear waters, which flow merrily alongside each other for 12km before they mix together. Pedro brought the boat to a halt at the confluence and Yates & Christine jumped into the river for a swim, while Fiona & I stayed in the boat to take some photos. It was here at the great meeting place of the rivers and the beginning on the Amazon River where I donated my sunglasses to the river Gods. I had hooked them on to the front of my life vest and forgotten about them when I lent down to touch the water, only to see them drop into the water and slip beneath the surface before I could grab them. They now lie at the bottom of the Amazon in 50 metres of water, a fitting resting place I feel....

Next we went to a floating fish farm a few kilometres upstream in a small inlet to see meet of the rivers watery inhabitants. The farm consisted of a number of number of fish pens and buildings mounted on enormous logs which allowed them to float freely on the river, coping with the river regardless of it being in flood or not. Looking in the first pen we could see maybe 100 large fish, maybe a foot in length, swimming just below the surface. When Pedro started throwing in some food for them it was a veritable ‘feeding frenzy’, with the fish causing the water to boil as they seethed and writhed to snatch a tasty morsel. At the next pen we were given a very rudimentary fishing pole with a 4 foot length of thick string, to which was attached a large chunk of fish meat. The idea was to lower the bait in to the pen to tempt the fish inside to take a bite, and it wasn't long before a handful of very large fish were all making frenzied lunges for the dangling bait. These things were monsters, at least 5 foot long and as thick as a man’s thigh, and when they caught hold of the bait, it was all I could do to hold on to the rod in my hands. Blimey...! I'm even gladder I hadn't jumped in to the river for a swim

earlier with these things around.... Soon we were back under way along the fringes of the river with Christine & Pedro pointing out all sorts of wildlife and fauna of the area. With the river being so much in flood, there was very little land available for many of the local animals, who had retreated back into the forest or taken up residence high in the trees to wait it out. Even the giant water lilies struggled to keep above the surface with the additional volume of water, but we did manage to find some in a quiet clearing in the trees.  We stopped for lunch on a floating restaurant moored up to some trees a bit further down the river, which was literally miles from anywhere, but we had a fine buffet style lunch and could even by some beers. Yates availed himself of the native craft shop and brought possibly the moist menacing and evil looking knife I have ever seen, 8 inches long and complete with a Piranha jaw.

After lunch we travelled further up the river to the home of a local indian family that live on another of those floating shed arrangements, moored close to an inlet, that keep some indigenous animals as pets, including a couple of Sloths, a Boa Constrictor and a Cayman, a type of crocodile.  For ethical reasons Fiona & I were not keen to hold the animals, but Yates was game and the Sloths took a natural shine to him, clinging on to him like he was a tree. From there we went another cuple of km’s upstream where we turned off the main river to go deeper into the flooded forest, following a path which during the dry season is a hiking trail but was now covered in 9m of water, causing us to be literally in the tree canopy. It was an awesome experience to glide serenely through the trees, listening to the cries of the birds and looking out for spiders on the tree trunks. You could almost imagine yourself to be in a 1940’s Tarzan movie, except for the burble of the speedboat engine.

We then took a long and speedy ride up river, passing Manaus in the far distance on the other bank, and slipped under the southern end of the Rio Negro Bridge, travelling at speed for the best part of an hour. Again we moved away from the main body of the river through an inlet and a couple of other tributaries, before arriving at the site of the famous pink Amazon Dolphins, or Boto. Here we unloaded on to a platform where we could see the local ranger feeding the dolphins with fish, and Fiona & Yates changed into their swimwear to join him in the water, while I stayed up top with the camera. It was not long before the strange looking long-nosed pink dolphins were swimming around the group in the water waiting for some food from the ranger. Much fun was had by the swimmers as the dolphins swam up against and between them, much to Fiona’s alarm on occasion, as they jockeyed for position to get a free fishy morsel. They would occasionally make a lunge for a piece of fish and come right out of the water, exposing their unique pinkish-grey skin and show their bodies and fins that have been adapted for living in the river. It was a unique experience to be able to swim and be up close with these rare fresh water cousins of the dolphins we see in the ocean, something that could not be done anywhere else in the world. The rangers have a strict quota of fish that they are allowed to give the dolphins and once that ran out, the animals were less interested in swimming with humans.

The final stop off of the day was at a tribal village of some Amazonian Indians that had moved downstream from close to the Bolivian boarder to be able to make use of Manaus’s healthcare and education facilities and for their young. They had been given a piece of land on the riverbank upstream from Manaus where they built their communal village and supplemented their income with doing short ceremonial dancing and selling crafts to the tourists. This might sound a bit contrived and just for show, but believe you me, these guys were living their real Amazonian existence and carrying on with their normal everyday lives of hunting and gathering, just doing it a thousand km’s further downstream from their native homelands. We were invited into their main communal hut where they performed short snippets from their traditional dance ceremonies of ‘Welcome’, which according to Christine would normal last for a week..! As is normal at these sorts of things, we all ended up being invited to dance with the tribe, and Fiona, Yates & I merrily joined in. Overall I thought it was a very interesting chance to meet a real Indian tribe and even just for a few

minutes, gain an understanding of what it must be like to live like them.  Yates added to his ever growing collection of native crafts by buying a blow-pipe and darts and a couple of native necklaces, and I reckon that the US customs don’t know what they have to look forward too. When it was time to leave, it felt sad to be leaving these people that had so little but seemed to be full of life and vitality. As the sun started to set over the Amazon, we sped back towards Manaus at top speed, swerving in an out of mangroves and tributaries it what seemed more like a scene from a James Bond Movie than a day out on the Amazon. Just as we arrived back at the boat yard where we had started the days journey some 10 hours previously, the sun was setting directly over the river in a ball of wild red fire. What a fitting end to an absolutely fantastic day.

We had been very lucky to have Pedro and Christina of Amazon Eco Adventures rearrange their schedule to fit us in to their one day tour Amazon River tour. Not only are they excellent hosts and very knowledgeable guides, but they live and breathe the sort of philosophy that you would expect from a tour operator dedicated to the protection and promotion of ecologically sustainable tourism. Everything about the day, from the hotel pick-up to the evening drop-off was professional, and more importantly, fun and informative. Using a comfortable & modern speedboat means that you can fit in a lot in a 10 hour day, and we experienced several different sights and encounters during our day, all of which took us out of normal everyday existence and put us fully into the world of the Amazon and its people. For me the Dolphin swimming was the most amazing of all the things we did on the day, and I didn't even get in the water. I know it seems unlikely, but if you find yourself in Manaus with some time on your hands, and want to get a flavour of what it feels like to be living in or around the great Amazon river, I could recommend this tour highly enough. These guys truly put the "Amazing" in the Amazon..............

After being dropped at our hotel, and freshening up a little, we were too tired

to go to far and ended up in a Pizza joint in the next-door mall, where I ate far too much Pizza than was good for me. After that, I was only good for one thing and that was bed. The next day was our last full day in Manaus as we would be flying out in the early morning to start the long trip back home. We spent it mainly just relaxing by the pool, packing up our bags for one last time, and tooling round the shopping centre doing a little shopping before we left.  Later that evening we went out for a last meal in Brazil, and more importantly, a last Caiprahinia, before we left this beautiful, varied and spectacular country. I think each of us in our own way, had fallen in love with Brazil and would happily say that it had surprised and impressed us, so much so that coming back would not be out of the question. From the very start of the planning for this trip, nearly every piece of advice I read and researched had warned me against the dangers of street crime and poverty in Brazil, and in some small way that tainted how I imagined and planned the trip. We were now sitting in a small restaurant in a city in the Amazon, having travelled the length and breadth of this vast land, partied in bars from Sao Paulo to Fortaleza, been carried along in crowds as part of the world greatest football competition, met some fantastic people along the way, all without even one second of worry or concern over our safety or feeling in any danger whatsoever. Those that continue to propagate fear and worry to those travelling to and around Brazil are doing that country a massive disservice.

This is where we would part company with Yates as we need to take an earlier flight back to Sao Paulo to make our connecting flight to Chile, and he made his way back to the USA. This marks the end of the 6^th World Cup Tournament that we have attended together, and there was much talk of Russia and beyond in those last few days, and I am looking forward to our next adventure. Yates and I are no longer the young men we were when we started this epic tradition with almost 25 years having past since we met, and yet even though our lives take different paths and we have different values, dreams and ambitions, we still share a passion for experiencing the World Cup together. We spend six weeks in each other’s company every four years and going to the games and having a drink or two is still as much fun as it has ever been and I already can’t wait for the next time we catch up.... Thanks Yates.... It would not be the same with you....!