Manaus sits at the northern bank of the Rio Negro, which is the river that actually touches the city, just a few kilometers before reaching the famous intersection with the Solimões. Its port, as previously mentioned, is a vital part of town and is incredibly busy, even early on a rainy Saturday morning.
The most noticeable - and curious - structure in the port area is a Customs Office. Its mere presence there struck me as odd, as the nearest border, in any direction, is roughly 800km away (and that's if you draw a straight line through the forest). And that wasn't all: apparently, the whole thing was imported from England and assembled, Lego-style, on its current location back in 1906, which also makes it one of the world's oldest prefabricated buildings.
After giving it more thought, I suppose there isn't that much civilization between Manaus and the neighboring countries and, since the river is the only available route anyway, perhaps it is easier to just wait until people reach the city instead of trying to cover the vast lengths of the Amazon border. So that could explain it, I don't know. In any case, I guess that if people bothered to bring an entire building from across the ocean and deep into the rain forest, they probably needed it badly.
As we made our way past the gigantic Lego house, just before reaching the floating docks and boarding our boat, we also noticed a huge plaque hanging on a stone wall over the water, marking the highest level of the river during the flood season each year.
Two things stood out there: first, the difference between the highest and lowest points in any given year is staggering - usually 8 to 9 meters, I've been told (which also means that the floating aspect of the docks is an actual necessity, not just to look cool). It wasn't even the dry season and the water was nowhere near the marks on the tablet. Second, the 2009 flood was a big one; in fact, it was the highest ever recorded and the water actually went over the walls and spilled into the streets, something that had only happened a couple of times in city history. Global warming, anyone?
However, oblivious to any sort of apocalyptic affairs, The Boss and I were just happy to finally be on our way. The vessel that would take us to the Meeting of the Waters was a traditional Gaiola (that's Portuguese for cage, by the way), which is the local name for those wooden boats that get trashed by anacondas in awful B-movies. They look really quaint and everything, but what nobody tells you beforehand is that they are slow. Like, really slow. Evolution slow. No wonder the damn anacondas always catch the boat and eat everybody on it, really. The Boss, for one, couldn't get over our speed (or lack thereof) and started to question whether the 6 hours scheduled for the tour would suffice to get us beyond the city limits.
Thankfully, we had our friendly guide, Aliomar - or Al, for short - with us. Al was able to greet people in half a dozen languages and was remarkably fluent in English, but, more importantly, he was also a living trivia database who seemed to know quite a bit about the Amazon, a trait that made the journey much more interesting.
So, as our boat slowly chugged down the Rio Negro, Al shared tidbits about the region with us. For example, that the Amazon river reaches an unbelievable 90km across at its widest point, and goes a remarkable 100m below surface at its deepest; that its water level can vary up to 10 meters over the year and, during the flood season, the river can make entire sections of the forest disappear. And the man just went on and on, each figure quoted more astonishing than the previous one. Everything there is superlative and, if you learn one thing - and one thing only -about the Amazon, it should be this: you just don't fuck with the river.
In that sense, what becomes really impressive is how nearly every single aspect of human activity in that region is deeply affected by the Amazon basin. They eat what the rivers provide, they build houses where the rivers allow, they go where the rivers go, they live according to the rivers' seasons.
For instance, as I mentioned above, there are virtually no roads going through the dense jungle and the water is really the only route available for most people. So they have floating gas stations and, instead of bus stations, transportation to different cities is made through boat stations. Moreover, because most of those boats would lose a race against pieces of driftwood and the villages can be quite distant, some trips may take days or even weeks, so people have to bring hammocks on board for the journey. It's pretty cool, actually.
Another example: the farther you get from downtown Manaus, the simpler the houses get and, to withstand the seasonal inundations, locals have to build them on top of wooden poles. Whenever the flood surpasses their original expectations and actually reaches their doorsteps (which, according to Al , occasionally happens), they simply build a temporary second level and move to the roof. There's no point in fighting the river, so they just roll with it.
Still, even at our iceberg speed, soon enough the city was behind us and there was nothing but trees on both sides of the river, which meant Al was running out of cool stuff to point out - although, luckily, it also meant that the meeting of the waters was pretty close.
One of the main reasons why this aquatic intersection is so famous is that the water of the Rio Negro is, in fact, quite dark (thus the name), whereas the Solimões has that more common brown look. But that, of course, is just half the magic. The real eye-opener is how the two just don't mix. Apparently, differences in temperature, speed (the Solimões is hotter and faster) and density create the invisible water barrier that allows both rivers to run side-to-side for such a long distance. I must confess I wasn't terribly excited about going through all that trouble just to look water, but that was quite a sight (an a pretty neat phenomenon too).
* * *
After the boat spun a couple of times for pictures, it was time to move on. Next, we would go a short distance down the Amazon towards a lake that was notorious for the amount of Victoria amazonica (or Victoria regia, as it is commonly known in Brazil) leaves on its surface. We were also supposed to see a few of the famous Amazon pink dolphins along the way, but the little bastards never showed up. We did get to see a few of the boring grey ones, but they were way too fast for our camera (here's all got - a random bird).
Still, just because the pink dolphins didn't grace us with their presence, it doesn't mean that there was nothing to see. I particularly enjoyed the little floating villages along the river, whose people just live in a completely different reality than the rest of us. It's amazing, really. Unlike their city counterparts, these folks don't build their houses high above the ground, but rather drop anchor and just go up and down with the river as the seasons go.
Furthermore, these houseboats are definitely more house than boat. There's no hull beneath them and they stand on top of rough cuts of trunks from a specific type of tree, one which is able to withstand being immersed in water for up to 30 years. As a result of this cutting-edge engineering, some of the houses look like they are about to go under; although, other times, the houses look surprisingly well-built and even have satellite dishes - definitely a bizarre combination
The runaway winners of the twilight zone award for most unique sight, however, were the two little girls who were riding their bikes on a deck. Never mind the absolute lack of space - and maybe I've seen way too many Discovery Channel documentaries - but aren't piranhas supposed to live precisely in those shallow waters? Isn't that an extremely irresponsible behavior?
When we finally made it to the surroundings of the Victoria regia lake, Al told us that we would first change to smaller boats and visit a nearby igarapé, which is how the locals call the narrow and shallow waterways created by the rising levels of the river into the forest (you know, where the anacondas usually eat those lucky enough to survive that first attack in the main river).
The igarapé we saw was nice and everything, but I wasn't really paying attention to Al's explanation this time. Much more entertaining to watch was the futile attempts of a dragonfly to mate with our very charming (and just as green) motorboat. So yeah, I can't say much about the igarapé (water goes up, water comes down, you know how it is), but I can tell you that the poor bug was probably in love and followed us all the way to through the jungle and back.
Before returning to the lake to see the damn water plants, we also stopped at what could only be described as an Amazon convenience store. Al probably had a deal with those people, who tried to sell us all sorts of handcrafted junk, but he also had something to show us. Suddenly, with a silent nod from him, the owner of the store disappeared behind a door, only to return a few moments later with a teenage boy and a couple of broomsticks. The two then inserted the broomsticks in contraption that looked like a medieval torture machine and began to spin, slowly lifting something from the water.
It was a rudimentary wooden tank that contained a couple of pirarucus, one of the largest fish in the Amazon basin. Beautiful creatures. However, despite its size (or perhaps because of it), the pirarucu is also one of the fishermen's favorites: the poor thing has lungs and has to surface to breathe, only to be whacked in the head by hungry men when it does. Because of its tasty meat, it is also known as the Codfish of the Amazon - although I had it for lunch and, albeit delicious, it didn't taste like codfish at all.
As for the lake with the Victoria regias, for all the build-up involved, it wasn't that impressive. Sure, the plant itself is unique - it has the world's largest water surface leaf or something - but I had seen those things in back home, at the Botanical Garden, so they were nothing really new. And, truthfully, how exciting can a leaf be?
Moreover, in order to get to the actual lake, we had to go on a long wooden bridge that stretched into the forest and then over the water. It was one of the most precarious structures I have ever seen. Honestly, words cannot express how rickety that thing was. Al knew the walkway wasn't really that safe and kept shouting from the back to keep the line moving and avoid concentrating too much weight in any part of it, but stupid people in the front kept stopping to take pictures.
Standing some 4 meters above the ground, I wasn't entirely convinced that that was such a good idea, but I got even more anxious after reaching the water part and seeing a few alligators in the water just waiting for that thing to collapse. Truth be told, most of them were not really that big, but I'm not entirely sure I could take on even the really tiny ones under water. Plus, there were enough gators to make up for any disadvantage in size. And all just to see a bunch of big round leaves? Fuck that, it was lunch time anyway (for us, not the alligators), so I was out.
* * *
The Boss and I woke up Sunday morning not sure of what to do. Our flight back was early in the afternoon, so we didn't have that many options. There was a tour to a nearby city that promised the opportunity to actually swim with the elusive pink dolphins, but it was slightly too long for our timetable. Luckily, the super concierge once again came to rescue us and suggested a quick trip to INPA, the National Institute of Amazon Research, where we could see more of the region's wildlife.
As it turns out, at least from what I could see, the INPA isn't much more than a glorified zoo. And it didn't look like a really well-kept place either. In any case, I'm glad we decided to go, because that's where we saw the animal I wanted to see the most: the Manatee, a giant herbivore of the Amazon that seems to live in a constant Zen state of mind. It is really soothing to watch them slowly swimming around in their tanks, even if those seemed a little tight for such large animals.
On the opposite side of Zen - but right next to the Manatee - we also got to know an Otter that was frantically doing laps in its pool. Seriously, we stood there for about five minutes and it just swam with furious purpose, back and forth, never even taking a break. I jokingly told The Boss that it was probably training for the Olympics, but, given the fact that when we passed by its pool again nearly two hours later it was still going hard at it, it became clear that the Otter was using performance enhancing drugs and would never make it to the Olympics.
One interesting aspect of the INPA was that most of the animals were free to roam about the area - which, while cool to see in person, made it hell to take pictures. Most of the photos I took looked like they came straight out of a page of Where's Waldo In the Jungle. It was easier to capture the bastards in the wild than in that limited environment. Go figure.
(Quick tangent here: It is also really weird, in a scary I-would-certainly-die-here kind of way, how you never realize how much of the forest around you is alive at first glance. However, if you just stand still and observe for a minute, you notice how everything around you is moving. Monkeys, birds, really freaky bugs, you name it.)
I grew increasingly frustrated with my inability to photograph the damn monkeys and I really wanted to take advantage of that no-cages environment, so I decided to take a close up shot of a macaw that nested on one of the buildings. The nest was slightly beyond what I assumed was the implicit do not cross line for visitors, so I asked one of the keepers if I could get a little closer to take a better shot. He said that there was no problem, only I shouldn't get too close. My response was "Yeah, of course, you gotta protect the animals", to which he replied "I'm not worried about the bird, I'm worried about you. She usually attacks children, you know." So here's my close up photo of the man-eating macaw. Not really a close up, but then again I got to keep all my digits, so, all in all, I am happy with it.
So The Boss and I strolled happily on that Sunday morning, seeing snakes, turtles, fish, spiders, alligators, the whole gang. Our time was almost up, but the INPA is a reasonably large place and we wanted to see as much as we could, so we ventured down a narrow path that ended in a charming little lake. Right next to in there was a hut, where a security guard was sitting on a folding chair and taking a nap, seemingly without a care in the world. As we approached the hut, he opened his eyes, so I thought it would be a good idea to get some directions, since we didn't really know where we were going. I asked him what was ahead, over at the lake. He scratched his chin and said:
"Oh, you know. Some turtles, some fish. I think there's an electric eel in there too." And, after a beat, he completed: "Oh, and there's also an alligator loose somewhere around here, nobody has been able to catch it yet."
The man then lowered his hat and went back to sleep, as The Boss and I stared at each other in disbelief. We had seen the kind of gators they had in that place and, suddenly, it felt like a good time to turn around and start packing.
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