Welcome to the Jungle (Part 2)

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.

Welcome to the Jungle (Part 1)

A couple of weeks ago, The Boss (for those who were not paying attention, that's my girlfriend's name) and I went to the Amazon for the weekend. For the weekend! The Amazon is not exactly around the corner, even if you are already in Brazil - nor a particularly small venue, for that matter - so people usually don't bother hopping on a plane to spend 40-something hours there. But that's exactly what we did.

Of course I tried to reason with The Boss. I argued that we would spend more time on transit than actually there. I even went on Google maps to show her how freaking huge and far away the Amazon was, but to no avail.

The woman loves to travel and was on a mission. She might be leaving the country for good soon, so lately she added a sense of urgency to her tourism, as if she needs to see whatever is left in Brazil before moving on. And, because she is on the road more often than that George Clooney character from Up in the Air and practically lives in hotels, she racks up miles like crazy, meaning the trip would cost about $3.99 for both of us - breakfast included.

There was one catch, though: the Amazon had actually been my idea all along and I wanted to spend a full week there, maybe even two. I wanted to take a cruise down those rivers, see the wildlife, breath some fresh air and get bitten by prehistoric bugs - you know, the full experience. But The Boss couldn't take that kind of time off work, so, as hard as it is to argue against dirt cheap trips to exotic locations, I had been putting up a fight and negotiations had been stalled for a few months.

Still, The Boss is not one to dishonor her own title and wouldn't let my pretentious veto spoil her "weekend on the jungle" for much longer. Thus, in a rather cunning fashion, she booked the trip behind my back and waited until we were out and I was drunk to break the news. It was genius, really. In my intoxicated state I totally forgot to get mad and, by failing to object in a timely manner, I also forfeited my right to keep blocking the proposal. We were going to Manaus and there was nothing I could do about it (and, after discovering my flight back included a 5-hour stopover in São Paulo, it's not like I didn't try).

Since I was deliberately kept out of the loop during preparations, I would be once again travelling in the dark. The only instructions I received were to take a shot for yellow fever and to buy a gallon of insect repellent; then to meet The Boss at the airport on Friday night at 0700 hours. I was also informed that we would be returning on separate flights on Sunday afternoon, so I would suffer the 10-hour journey back alone. And that was it, end of briefing.

Furthermore, because I had also forgotten to do my pre-travel research (i.e. check maps, distances and things to do at our destination), all I knew about Manaus was what they taught me in school, which only added to my overall sense of blindness.

That's not to say I didn't know anything. I knew, for instance, that Manaus is the capital city of the state of Amazonas, smacked in the middle of the rain forest, right where the rivers Negro and Solimões merge to form the Amazon river (well, technically the Solimões is the Amazon, but it only gets that name after absorbing the Negro). I knew that, late in the XIX century, the boom of the latex extraction industry brought about a golden age for the city, of which the Teatro Amazonas is the most impressive reminder. I also knew that, later on, at some point during the XX century, the national government, trying to foster development in northern Brazil, turned the area into a tax-free industrial zone. Last but not least, I remember my grandma telling me that there were no mosquitoes in Manaus, which had something to do with the water in the Rio Negro.

Nevertheless, despite what was clearly an in-depth previous knowledge of the city, I was totally surprised by what I saw - and in a good way.

First and foremost, Manaus is massive. It has a population of about 2 million people, a figure truly remarkable, considering that the city is mostly unreachable by land. It is also staggering large, spreading out, towards the jungle, for miles and miles and miles. But then again, I suppose they don't really have problems with lack of space around those parts, something that can be inferred from the fact that there are not many buildings that go over 4 stories.

It is also a relatively modern city, not at all what you would expect of a town isolated by the world's largest forest. The streets are wide and, by and large, pretty well-kept. McDonald's is there, as are most luxury hotel chains and roughly one quarter of the total Japanese population (more on that below). Due to its strategic location and the development policies in place, and being the river the most obvious choice for transportation, Manaus also boasts a pretty relevant and well-equipped port, able to handle a considerable traffic that includes full-sized tankers. On a sad note, however, grandma was dead wrong about the mosquitoes in there. Whatever beef they had with the dark waters of the river seems to be in the past and I'd say they are quite comfortable in Manaus these days.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Evidently, we didn't get to see any of that on Friday night. In fact, when we arrived in Manaus it was almost midnight and there wasn't much to do besides taking a ridiculously overpriced cab ride to the hotel.

The hotel, in this case, was the Novotel Manaus, which was located at the industrial district. Industrial. Anyone who has ever gone anywhere, ever, knows that this is never a good sign, but we were confident that the fine folks of Novotel wouldn't have randomly set camp in a dodgy part of town. And we were right, or at least partially right. I couldn't see anything industrial or fishy about our surroundings and there were a lot of hotels in the immediate vicinity. We were, however, pretty fucking far away from the city center (thus adding the ridiculously to our overpriced taxi fare), and other hotels were all I could see in the immediate vicinity.

I had bigger problems, though. First, my dinner had been some foul-tasting airline cracker and a tiny glass of warm soda, so I was starving. Second, it was almost 1am and The Boss had ambitious plans for the next day: I just knew that, given the extremely short nature of our trip, she would try to do as much as humanly possible on Saturday, even if it cost me my feet. So it was important that I hit the sheets a.s.a.p. in order get as much sleep as I could, but I was too hungry. And the longer it took me sleep, the hungrier I got, which, in turn, made it even harder to sleep. I was doomed, trapped in a misery loop.

It wasn't easy waking up the following morning. In addition to my late-night struggles, it was pouring down outside and my religion does not allow me to get up on weekends before noon when it's raining. But breakfast was included in the price and we needed a decent meal before heading out, so The Boss kicked me out of bed at 6:45am.

When I finally managed to get dressed and drag myself to the lobby, we found the strangest breakfast buffet ever waiting for us. Sure, they had the traditional choices: juices, fruits, cake and bread; two or three types of cereal; coffee, milk and hot chocolate; scrambled eggs and sausages; and even a few exotic Amazon fruits for those who woke up feeling a little more adventurous. But then they had stuff like Piranha soup, rice, cup noodles and chopped beef, as well an entire table filled with Japanese food (no sushi, though).

While we attempted to make sense of this weird, brunch-like menu, we noticed that we were the only two non-Asian people in the entire restaurant. It was mind boggling, I felt for a moment like I was in another country. Granted, we were at a hotel and I half-expected to see more foreigners than Brazilians visiting the Amazon anyway (not really our first choice for tourism), but I wasn't ready for anything like that.

Later on I recalled some alarmist e-mails I received, the kind everybody gets once in a while, claiming that international forces were plotting to take the Amazon away from Brazil. At the time I dismissed those as internet nonsense, but now I'm not so sure. I know that there's much interest in the bio-potential of the rain forest. I even recall a real case of foreigners getting cute with its natural resources, when a Japanese - them again! - corporation decided to register Cupuaçu as a trademark. (Now, Cupuaçu is the name of a fucking fruit and has been used for as long as there have been people in the Amazon, you can't just come from across the planet have dibs on that. Sorry.) We sent those fools packing, but still. First they went after the fruit, now they are messing with breakfast, while their numbers keep growing. What comes next? Lunch? Dinner? Or, God forbid, our deep-fried snacks? Is nothing else sacred?

In any case, as politically engaged as I may sound now, nothing even remotely close to that crossed my mind during our meal. In my half-awake condition, I was infinitely more concerned with our upcoming activities than with the geopolitical ramifications of breakfast. We had booked a boat trip to the famous Meeting of the Waters, the spot down the river where the Solimões and the Negro converge, but still had a few minutes to kill before our transfer arrived, so I decided to find a comfortable couch in the lobby and sleep some more.

The Boss, on the other hand, was a little more anxious, bordering on cranky. The grand appeal of this tour is that the rivers have very distinct colors and run side-to-side, on the same riverbed, for nearly 16 kilometers without mixing. But, with the torrential downpour outside, she feared the whole thing would get stirred up and the only meeting of waters we would get to see was the one between the rain and the river.

Her anxiety increased as time passed and we could see no signs our ride, so she decided we should call and confirm the pick-up. However, since I was the one who made the reservation (my one task other than buying insect repellent) and I had forgotten to write the number down, I would have find a computer and access my e-mail in order to get it... all of it seemed like a lot of work and I really really wanted the extra 5 minutes of shuteye. By then, The Boss was fed up with my laziness and had definitely crossed the border on to Crankytown, meaning I was headed for trouble.

I knew I was on thin ice, so I did the only thing I could to prevent the worst: I furiously pretended to be asleep. Deep down I think I knew how unlikely it was that she would get bored and leave, or that she would even believe I was really sleeping, but perhaps I was hoping my own tranquility would sooth her somehow. Well, it didn't. But thankfully, a thoughtful hotel clerk saw the gathering storm from the main desk and intervened, saying he had the number and offering to make the call.

Much to our (my) surprise, the good man was promptly informed that there was no pick-up scheduled to pass by our hotel that day, at least not from that agency. I actually thought about suggesting we retreat to our room, finish sleeping and then find something else to do, but I could see the foam forming on the corner of The Boss' mouth and realized that it would be a bad idea (she had crazy eyes, man, and they were pointed right at me!). So, instead, I kept quiet and began wondering about my fate: even though I could swear on my life that I really made the damn reservation (Patricia! I spoke to a woman named Patricia!) and it wasn't my fault at all, I knew it would be my head and my ass nonetheless.

That was when the super concierge saved my life for the second time in as many minutes. Since we didn't pay anything up front for our so-called reservation, he suggested we simply join a different group, as there were several of them doing the exact same tour that morning. In fact, he said, there was one of those that had just left the hotel and could still be reached, and he could check if there was room for us, if we were interested. That we were and, within minutes, the kind soul put us on our way to the Manaus port. Whew!

So, against all odds, everything just fine again. The Boss was happy and smiling, my head was still firmly attached to my body - thanks to the adrenaline rush, wide awake too - and even the rain was finally clearing. Things were definitely looking up.