Blogs from Tefé, Amazonas, Brazil, South America

Martedi´6: Itapuranga III e´ ormai da cinque giorni ad aspettarmi al porto brasiliano di Tabatinga, ma questa volta me la prendo comoda e salgo a bordo solo un´ ora prima della partenza, fissata per mezzogiorno. Salpiamo e ci viene subito servito un delizioso stufato di carne: niente male come inizio navigazione, del resto siamo ormai su di una vera e propria nave e non piu´ su delle grandi bananiere come in Peru´; le fermate pero´ susseguono e le amache cozzano ormai le une contro le altre. Per fortuna abbiamo un terzo ponte sul tetto dove ci si puo´ liberamente svagare con un piccolo bar, delle sedie e la TV. Ore 15.45, suona la campana che chiama per la cena; ci deve essere un errore, o forse sono rimasto indietro di un paio di fusi orari, ma ... read more

We should have first met the Amazon rainforest from the window of our bus on the way from Cuaba the Porto Velho but all we saw was cows! Miles and miles of cows. The road we were travelling along was only paved in the 1980s, the improved access led 350,000 people to flood into the area grabbing land and clearing 20% of the forest in Rondonia state. Next hop was a flight to Manaus - the city at the centre of the Amazon basin. From the plane the enormity of the forest becomes more real: 600km of trees and that’s just a corner. It also show up the way that the forest is being nibbled from the inside out and losing chunks round the edges. We were pretty much flying along the line of a unsurfaced ... read more

I came back from my visit to the Amazon jungle. I went to Mamiraua reserve, which is a really great place. I stayed in a floating lodge, which is useful, because the whole area is a flooded forest, and water levels rise 10 meters during the rainy season. The reserve is an hour and a half from Tefe (the big city), which is only accessible by plane or boat, so it´s really in the middle of nowhere. I saw quite a few different animals, including capuchins, squirrel monkeys, red howler monkeys (and they make a lot of noise), and one white uacari monkey jumping between trees (look them up, they look real funny), sloths (they´re really hard to spot), cayman, river dophins (gray and pink), and lots of birds. When I got to the lodge, there ... read more

I am in Tefé, Brasil, in the Amazon region. It is a city of 50,000 people, which the locals call small. But compared to most of the 'cities´that I saw along the Amazon, Tefé is quite large. I´ve been here for almost 3 days now, waiting to be whisked away to my jungle trek in the Mamirau Reserve, and have to say that even though this is a small town, my stay has been quite pleasant. In fact, I already have a routine here in the morning. I start my day (usually quite late) by going to the same pastry shop every morning. They actually have black coffee which makes me so happy, but I did get a strange look from the owners when I asked for café negro! I also order a roll with ... read more