The mighty Amazon

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Our base for organising our trip to the rainforest was Manaus. It’s a big city, packed with tour agencies offering all sorts of Amazon adventures. We had already pretty much decided to go to a sustainable reserve called Mamiraua so we could avoid the pesky tour agents and spend our days doing all the admin we needed to do like book boat tickets, pay our deposit for Mamiraua, buy long sleeve shirts to survive the mozzies, visit the Colombian embassy etc. All tasks were successful except the Colombian embassy because they wanted so much detailed information to give Kez a visa and most of it was impossible to get - like a bus ticket from Venezuela to Colombia, which is of course impossible to buy in brazil. Also our plan was to get a yacht from Colombia to Panama and visit the San Blas islands on the way but to get a panama visa for kez would take 3-4 weeks, time we don’t have. So in the end it has actually all been a blessing because we are seriously running out of time. We are meeting Andy, a good friend from Vienna days in Mexico mid May and that only gives us about 6 weeks. So we will fly from Venezuela to Costa Rica and then have 5 weeks to jeet (South African for go fast!) through 4 countries (Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala). Luckily they are small countries!

Anyway, back to Manaus…On Thursday 22 March we arrived at the port at 6am to board our boat as we were told. Destination Tefe. At 8am we left the port and travelled all of 5 minutes to a smaller pier where all the other passengers who had not bought tickets at the official office could board - about 90% of the boat. We had decided not to brave the hammock class where people hang their hammocks literally on top of one another. Our cabin was on the top deck, nothing posh just 2 bunk beds and our own toilet and shower. But soooooo much more comfortable than the hammocks, especially since it had luxurious air-com! We could also lock our stuff in there to keep it safe. We eventually left the port at midday, by which stage we had been on the boat for 6 hours except for when we got off to go buy lunch at a delicious bbq/braai place 2 minutes walk away. In total we were on the boat for 2 days and 2 nights and it was definitely worth it to have the experience of travelling on the mighty Amazon river on a boat with all the locals. We could have taken the fast boat both ways, it takes 12 hours and is like a bus on water, more expensive but much quicker. We decided to take the slow boat one way and the fast one back. On board the boat we chilled out loads, played chess and scrabble and rummy and just enjoyed the views. We went past two “Meeting of the Waters” where two rivers with vastly different ph levels meet. One river is a really dark black colour (more acidic and most towns are built on these rivers cos the mozzies can’t breed so well in the water) and the other river is a dirty brown colour that the locals call “milky coffee”. When they meet it is quite spectacular because the water doesn’t mix at all and there is a clear line in the water with one side black water and the other dirty brown. It is really fascinating! Included in the boat price are 3 meals a day and it’s incredibly well organised considering that there were probably over 300 people on board and the kitchen was tiny. We ate in shifts, just queuing up until space was available and the food was a self serve buffet. We had been warned that the food was horrendous but we were very pleasantly surprised and our food was really pretty good. Either we got lucky or we are not very fussy eaters!

We arrived in the small town of Tefe early on Saturday morning and spent the day exploring the small town. We had a delicious lunch and even played some very random pool where the balls were different sizes and were all solids and had a totally random set of numbers. We just made up some rules and it entertained us for a good two hours! The next morning we boarded a small private fast boat to travel the 2 hours to Mamiraua reserve. Our fellow guests were Jeff, Mike and Andre from the states (we had actually met Jeff and Mike in Sao Luis but had no idea they were on the same Amazon trip as us!) and a couple from Italy/Brazil. The boat trip there was amazing in itself, the scenery is incredibly beautiful and we really felt like were heading into the middle of the jungle. Mamiraua (www.mamiraua.org.br) is part of the only true sustainable reserve in the Amazon although many other places claim to be to attract tourists. They are funded by an impressive list of organisations from around the world and they run over 50 research projects, some of which are unique in the world. The floating lodge where we stayed is one of their ways to get additional funding and to open up the reserve to the public. It is the only way for tourists to visit the reserve. The part of the reserve that we stayed in is part of the mysterious flooded forest that when fully flooded is the size of England. The reserve itself is over 1 million hectares and is home to a huge variety of wildlife including quite a few species that can only be found in the reserve. It is certainly not cheap to stay there and getting there is also expensive but it was definitely worth it. We also had some Christmas money from Nick’s folks tucked away that we had promised to spend on something special and this met all the criteria!

As soon as we had settled into our wonderful floating cabin (with hot water! Naturally from solar power) we were called for lunch, the first of our many wonderful meals. All the food served is from the surrounding area and there is therefore lots of fresh fish, salads, veg and exotic fruit and organic chicken from a local community, but no red meat. Everything was cooked using local recipes and really did taste so fresh. We sampled many fish and fruits that we had never had before. The desserts were also amazing.

One of the advantages of Mamiraua is the small groups and it really makes a difference only having 7 people there instead of the 20 or 30 odd at other lodges in the Amazon closer to Manaus. Our days were quite structured, early breakfast followed by the morning activity. Then lunch and time for a nap in the heat of the day. Then the afternoon activity followed by dinner. And lastly the evening activity. Our activities included two mozzie filled walks in the jungle where we saw lots of birds, insects and plant life. It’s a cool feeling to be walking in the Amazon rainforest and in a couple of months it won’t be possible because it will be totally flooded. We also went out in small groups on traditional canoes to get closer to some of the birds and we also saw two sloths, one really close up. They are fascinating creatures. We visited a local community of river people in the reserve. 190 people live in the village which is totally flooded for a few months a year and they move onto floating houses with their chickens on a float too as well as small vegetable gardens. They were wonderfully welcoming and excited to explain their way of life to us. There are many communities in the reserve so they don’t get visitors all that often as visitors are taken to different communities and only those who have said they want to receive visitors. A number of communities have chosen not to receive visitors and this is respected, although more and more are apparently expressing interest.

We also visited the pink river dolphin (Boti) research project and had a 3 hour lecture from the lead researcher on site. These creatures are very interesting and this is the only research project in the world on river dolphins and the biggest marked dolphin research project in the world. They have almost 500 dolphins tagged and the 3 researchers monitor them for 6 hours a day, 6 days a week. Talk about dedication! The project has been running for 15 years and is world renowned for its findings. It was really a privilege to talk to the researcher and find out so much about these dolphins. We also saw hundreds of them in the rivers on our various boat trips.

On our last day we went piranha fishing and Kez caught a HUGE one, check out the photo! We also took a long boat trip where we saw a part of the forest that is already flooded, it is so strange and magical to see all these trees in a metre of water and in a couple of months the water will have risen another 10 metres. We went as far as the Mamiraua lake where we watched a beautiful sunset and on the way back we saw at least 50 caimans (like crocodiles). It would be impossible to list all the birds we saw but it would not be an exaggeration to say that we saw around 100 species in the 4 days we spent there ranging from herons and kingfishers to macaws and parrots and 2 species that were once thought extinct but are back on earth. It is a bird-watchers paradise!

In the evenings our activities included a lecture on the Mamiraua Institute of Sustainable Development, watching a BBC documentary on the flooded forest that was mostly filmed in the reserve and going on a short night hike in the forest where we saw a big ugly tarantula and a truly gigantic toad.

Visiting Mamiraua has definitely been a highlight of our trip so far and we were quite sad to get up at 4.30 am on Thursday to travel back to Manaus. Our last day in Manaus was again filled with admin and we visited the beautiful Amazonas Theatre. It is an incredible building to find in the middle of the jungle and it is where Dame Margot Fonteyn danced for the last time before retiring. In the evening we boarded a bus to Venezuela. We have spent nearly 2 months in Brazil and it has been brilliant but it is also exciting to be heading to a new country and we are looking forward to speaking Spanish again!

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Photos

I thought the Amazon was wide?
Oh and that's floating grass in the middle, you get massive meadows of the stuff!

Kez's big pirhana catch!
And check out the state of the art fishing rod.