The Amazon Brazil
Exploring
Tuesday, April 22 2008
Two rivers coming together.
From Julia: We
awoke to the sound of the rainforest coming in through the open windows of
our hut.
I need to add here that they are screened, and we had the
added anti-insect protection of a mosquito net above the bed. After the
usual delicious tropical fruit for breakfast we set off for a day on the
river. We cruised down the Rio Negro, past Manaus to a point called the
meeting of the rivers, which is where two different enormous rivers of
differing color and temperature (the Negro and the Solemoes) merge to form
the even more enormous Amazon River in Brazil. We didn"t know what to
expect, and weren"t expecting too much from waters merging. But it was an
incredible sight, with one river like black coffee and the other like milk
swirling together.
Meeting of the Waters
A little village girl at another village we visited on our journey.
We
saw river dolphins in the river. The sky was filled with vultures, and
magnificent clouds. It's been our experience that when you book a tour on
vacation that there's usually some optional extras. today's was to go
exploring in a speed boat instead of returning on the double-decker rather
large river boat we"d headed out in. Luckily for us, we opted to go for it
this time and after a scrumptious Brazilian lunch we set off in a smaller
faster boat.
The small boat enabled us to take a different route home.
We cruised many side tributaries of the Amazon. This gave us up-close and
personal views of the jungle and many animals. Plus, the most unusual thing
for me was seeing the many houseboats distributed along our way. I was not
aware that so many people lived on the Amazon River.
A sloth we encountered on our travels.
Once we returned to the lodge and ate dinner we were
taken out, in a very small canoe, to paddle around the local shoreline and
bayou spotting animals.
The
canoe was fitted with a powerful spot light which helped us find our way
through the thick water covered bayou jungle.
We saw many critters and when the light was turned off we
found ourselves in the very dark bayou surrounded by tarantulas. It was
truly scary and fantastic at the same time.
Wednesday, April 23 2008
Julia in our jungle hut.
Last
night while we lay in our beds it rained. We were encased by the humid
jungle air and our mosquito net and felt safe.
This was not just your average rain shower this was a
full on tropical down pour. There was thunder and lighting and buckets of
rain most of the night.
Here is a shot of our intrepid hiking group.
After
breakfast we went hiking in the jungle with our Guide Yuri. Yuri is a native
Brazilian, in his mid to late thirties, and extremely knowledgeable of the
Amazon.
Here is a Parana the boat skipper caught as none of us
tourists had any luck fishing.
On our walk he introduced us to many different plants and
explained to us how the natives used them for medication and nutrition. It
was extremely hot and humid on our walk, we were drenched in perspiration
but, it was a fantastic trek. Yuri
showed us how to climb and sing on vines, how to use a blowgun, and how to
fire his native bow.
Our final excursion at the Eco Lodge was to go Piranha
fishing and Caiman spotting.
Jungle Trek Video