Flooded Alter Do Chao and tranquil riverside Maguery

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Tim Version:
* Travelled to Alter Do Chau in it's flooded state and kayaked iit's flooded forests.
* Went to Maguery staying with a local family and got to hike through the jungle.

The version now under water coz the river levels are so high this year:

Arriving in Santarem while it isn't a dead heap of a place, it also isn't one I wanted to spend any time in. Unfortunately arriving 12 hours late meant we had missed the bus to Alter Do Chao so I had to stay the night. Myself and some others found our way to a cheap hotel, checked in, and cleaned up - most of us had done the same thing not showering during the boat trip! While Im sure there were some places to head out to for some night life I was knackered so found some decent food, some Skol beer, and slept a brilliant night's sleep.

The next morning after a lazy checkout of Hotel Brazil I made my way to Alter Do Chao. Known for its golden sandy beaches, the "Carribbean" of the Amazon as my hotel posters were telling me, was at this time of year totally flooded. As I wasn't after beaches but instead was after the flooded forest, this was perfect. I bussed my way there and bumped into an American gentleman who was running an NGO with a group of people near the Maguery and he gave me a good run down on the area and the people, as well as giving me an English speaking break! I didn't yet know it but the guy on my left and right were the owner and one of the other guys staying at the hostel I was destined for in Alter Do Chao. Entering Alter Do Chao, bigger than I thought, I saw many a dead Carnaval metal beast laying scrapped on the side of the road. Funny to see something that has so much thought and work put into it just left to rot on the side of the road once it had been used... and there were lots of them too.

In Alter I found my hostel Albergue da Floresta, checked in, and met a French couple who had been staying there about 3 weeks. Its a very easy place to just do nothing, which is exactly what they had been doing! The owner, Angela, is also a champ of a bloke making the whole place good fun to stay at. I even got chatting there to a Brazilian girl who turned out to be good friends with the Aussie girl I stayed with in Jericoacoara! Portuguese was the common language of the hostel, with only two guys having a tiny bit of English, so it really tested my Portuguese with both succeeded and failed spectacularlyin different conversations but was interesting to talk with anyway! At the hostel I opted for the cheap string-up-a-hammock option which turned out to be very comfortable even without a mosquito net to my pleasant surprise!

The main beach in Alter was totally covered in water and the beaches were reduced to one small one on our side, and a bit more but still not much on the other side of the river, which you take a row boat over to. That is also where I went to hire my kayak to paddle the flooded forests. Not like the deeper Amazonian idea of a flooded forest, these are more like flooded bush land as you can see from the photos but the tranquility and time alone paddling around them was so relaxing it was golden. I ended up paddling for about 5 hours in and out of all that I could find through various types of flora with the odd bird spotted around the place but not much else animal life wise. Its an interesting thing however paddling around the top of a palm tree, or picking the nuts off the highest branches of a tree that you know is actually rather high, instead having it all just poking out of the water! I also learnt to try and look under the water just a little more carefully for obstacles as i found myself getting a little stuck at some points in the top of trees that were totally under water as the visibility is next to nothing in the water! My best little find was the stick insect that somehow managed to find his way to my paddle where he wasn't all too well camouflaged. If there is anything to base the typical round eyed alien head on it is one of these creatures! Suffering a few rain showers I was also at times floating in the middle of the river hiding under an umbrella which must have been a bit of a funny sight for anyone passing by! When I got back another French guy had arrived who it turned out was also planning to go to Maguery like myself the next day and having to catch an early bus the next day he thankfully had an alarm!

We caught the 8am bus back to Santarem only to find Angelo was wrong and the bus for Alter Do Chao didn't leave until 1pm, not 11am, so we actually could have slept in but none the less it was good to be up and we ran a few errands, got some food, and in no time at all were on the 5 hour bus ride to Maguery. I thought it was 4 or 5 hours but my French friend and his other French friend both informed me it was only an hour or so I happily thought awesome we'll get the whole afternoon there! Heh nope, it was 4 or 5... plus our bus had mechanical problems so along the way, full with people, we popped into a mechanics for a while to get the bus fixed which kept us a little longer.

Just short of Maguery we met a guy who said his father had a house we could stay and, incredible luck, and thats just where we went! The 3 of us all got to stay in the same house and the family were brilliant. My Portuguese was a little rough here but the other 2 spoke excellent Spanish and so were able to converse much more than I. The food, which lonely planet says is basic as anything, was instead delicious and there was more than we could possibly eat for every meal with beautifully cooked meat, beans, rise and some salad. We also found that the "without electricity or running water" town of Maguery also now has 24 hour electricity, running water, and the room we were staying in was a new concrete place with newly tiled floors and a brand new bathroom! So with us all ready for some rougher living it turned out to be much better than our hotel! I was able to talk to the father a bit, a man with one eye clouded over looking about retiring age, as he seemed very used to foreigners trying to speak Portuguese and he had a lot of patience but I failed mostly with the rest of the family. Except however again with one of their kids around 12 years old! They're always the easiest to talk to it seems as their speech is still fairly basic and so matches up with yours as you are learning the language, and they also will tell you honestly when they don't understand what you are saying, be it with a tilted head and a half shut eye, or verbally, making it much easier to correct yourself and learn from your mistakes! They had 2 generations living there, with their son and his wife and child in the building we were living in, but it wasn't crowded at all.

The second day there we did a hike through the forest for most of the day with a local guide who unfortunately for me only spoke Portuguese aand in a way I really didn't understand so I lived most of the day in a world of my own but at the same time it was kind of nice! We got to see the different styles of vegetation up close and personal, with it much more being the large trees and thick undergrowth style that people expect from the Amazon, seeing various insects and birds along the way and an old kill from a Jaguar (nothing but bones left). The girth of some of the trees in this region is incredible, as it is somewhat famous for, and our guide showed us various local plants and fruits that were edible and often quite tasty that I would have walked straight past including a large round seed pod with seeds inside that once de-shelled with a Machete taste a lot like a mix between an Acadamia Nut and a Cashew, delicious! After the trek we also got to see the collection of Latex from the local trees (its the sap by the way - cut the tree and collectit, nice and simple...) and the transformation of that sap through a process into various goods such as bags and flip flops and other objects that the community now sells to support itself. A Sao Paulo born Brazilian with excellent English that I talked to at the local store where they were selling the goods told me of his recent breakup with his wife, a sad story but with a good lesson to be learnt... he loved the river and tranquility and this region, and she loved city life and Sao Paulo. Despite this they loved each other and made it work, first living in Sao Paulo then in Alter Do Chao. Unfortunately with time his wife wanted to move back to Sao Paulo, as could be predicted, but he didn't, so they broke up, and worst of all they have a kid together stuck in the middle now moving back to Sao Paulo to live without a father. Love, it isn't quite anything, as romantic as it would be to say that it was...

One full day there hiking was enough for me to see everything that I wanted to see and so myself and one Frenchman decided to catch the next bus outta there - unfortunately that being the only bus of the day and at 4am! So with a little sleep and very bleary eyed we got up, packed up our gear, and kinda expected to walk out into the darkness on our own - turns out our hosts were actually up gutting fish and had prepared us coffee and biscuits for an early breakfast heh. Again, rough living eh?! With a bit of last slow tired conversation our bus arrived and we slowly bumped our way back to Santarem, where the Frenchman caught a boat on to Manaus and I caught my bus to Campo Grande! I had to start mentally preparing myself early as this bus ride is a 60 hour bus ride IF everything goes to plan, so I fueled up on good food, walked around along the docks staying outside and out of chairs as much as possible until my time was up at which point I made my way with the awkward local Brazilian buses, backpack and all through the turnstyles, to the bus depot where I caught my bus out. Thankfully there I found that I guy I had met in Alter Do Chao who lives in Sao Paulo was also catching the bus, and while he spoke nearly no English he understood a little and more importantly understood my Portuguese and had the patience to speak at my speed, so I had my "bus buddy" for the trip. One other factor of this trip that both guide books and locals had warned me about is the fact that while there is made road for about 100km after that the road turns to dirt and it is bumpy as hell, day and night, for the first 2 days! Not a good recipe for sleep! So this should be interesting and I really hope they are all wrong, but upen seeing my bus as a more basic less luxurious thing with large higher up 4wd tyres and a heavy duty powered winch on the front I don't think they are =(

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