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 3rd 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
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.
