Into The Amazon

After a foray into the largest forest system in the world through the Brazilian gateway city of Manaus all that Achal Dhruva can say is that the Amazon is simply amazing...

Aerial view of the Anavilhanas islands

Jammed in a sea of sweaty bodies, on the morning peak hour rush in the suburban local, my nose forcefully buried in someone's armpit and one leg crushed by another but that particular morning I was oblivious to it all. I was far away, thousands of miles away, ‘free like a bird’, zipping through clouds and skimming over an endless carpet of green, sliced by a labyrinth of small water channels. Despite landing in the early hours of the same morning from Brazil, I was still on a high, flying over the amazing canopy of the Amazon forest.

The one-hour scenic flight in the single engine, four-seater Cessna 180 seaplane was a dream come true and the highlight of my brief visit to the Amazon region. The bird’s eye view of the vast expanse of the thick rainforest was an awe-inspiring and mesmerising sight, one difficult to describe in words. Despite our pilot, Beto Cavalcanti flying really low and in slow arcs it was difficult to see anything below the thick canopy of trees. Small strips of sand, solitary boats and small floating houses on the banks of the innumerable small channels snaking through the jungle offered the only glimpse of life beneath the never ending blanket of green.

The narrow channels of the Solimoes

The thrilling early morning flight, 75 kms up the River Negro to the Anavilhanas islands, the largest fresh water archipelago, was just the curtain raiser as following the flight we were to embark upon a daylong cruise to the confluence of River Negro and River Solimoes forming the Amazon river. Fueling the excitement further was the promise of piranha fishing in small canoes among the meandering tributaries of the Solimoes. It was an action packed second day and the most memorable one of our short two and half day stint in the region.

Manaus on the banks of River Negro is the biggest city in the Amazon region and the most convenient gateway. It was the last stop after Rio de Janeiro and Salvador-Bahia on our itinerary of the 10-day Caravana Brazil or FAM Trip organised for a select group of Indian tour operators and media by the ministry of tourism, Brazil and Embratur (Brazilian Tourist Board). We arrived late night in Manaus after a nine-hour hopping flight from Salvador and were transferred to Tiwa Eco Resort, a 20-minute and 8 kms boat ride across the river the next morning. It was our base during our short stay.

Caboclos (inhabitants of the Amazonian river towns)

The first day in the Amazon was spent swimming in the river, downing Capirinha, a wonderful concoction of local brew made from sugarcane called cashasha and ice and lime while enjoying a sudden downpour and exploring the surroundings. The resort with wooden cottages built on stilts over a natural lake and a backdrop of a hill covered with thick tropical forest is a picturesque setting. It is one of the few luxurious resorts (with a swimming pool and all mod cons) among the 45 odd resorts dotting the Amazon forest. The accommodation gets down to the bare necessities in the interiors. But then you don't have the skyline of Manaus as reminder of civilization.

We had our first feel of the forest on a two-hour walk of the jungle post lunch. It was dense and at places sunlight hardly filtered through the foliage. Surprisingly we were not assaulted by hordes of mosquitoes as expected. "Negro has high acidity level and hence is difficult for mosquitoes to breed," explained Rudolpho, our guide. He was full of information about the various types of trees and plants but it was the `chimbua,' which arrested my attention. It is a small plant with poisonous leaves, which Indians use for fishing. They crush the leaves of the plant and mix it with bread and throw it in the river. The fish nibble at the bait and get paralysed and the Indians catch them with harpoons. "White palm leaves are used by Indians to cover their houses while the bark is used to make harpoons and handicrafts," informed Rudolpho.

Ra Ra Rah or Macaw

However, when Rudolpho announced at a small clearing in the forest that guests could spend the night there in hammocks, I am sure none of us gave it a second thought after the nugget of information he had divulged minutes ago. "There are about the 300 species of snakes including the rattle snake found around the Negro." The fun bit of the walk was climbing to a platform 20 metres high on top of a Kakok tree for sweeping views of the forest below and running over the shaky wooden Burma bridges built for an easy passage over the thick vegetation. We were slightly disappointed for the lack of wildlife sightings on the walk and our bad luck seemed to have carried forward to our night boat safari on the Negro to spot crocodiles.

The crocodile spotting was exciting for the sheer experience of navigating on the river Negro under the starlit sky, searching the numerous narrow inlets and channels for the elusive reptile. We did not spot any crocodiles, the only thing we spotted were a couple of cows on a small island in the river. I consoled myself with the thought of the piranha fishing expedition planned the next day, crossing my fingers to catch one of those feared `critters.'

The scenic flight had raised our expectations for our second day in the amazing Amazon and I was all set to experience what I thought would be the deep interiors of the forest on our journey in search of piranhas. The first leg of the boat cruise turned out to be more of a touristic affair with us having a river view of the sights and sounds of Manaus city, more specifically the waterfront area. We passed the huge and bustling floating harbour built in 1902. Houses on the riverfront are built on stilts as the water level of the river can rise drastically during monsoon and in 1989 had risen by 12 metres flooding large parts of the city. Life in the Amazon revolves around the river and with boats as the only modes of transportation it was not surprising to see large floating petrol pumps on the river in the vicinity of the harbour.

Teatro Amazonas, the grand opera house in Manaus

Manaus is a sprawling city with a population of 1.7 million people. At the turn of the century, Manaus, riding high on rubber exports, was probably one of the richest city in the world with electricity on its streets while those in Paris and London still had gas lamps. The grand Teatro Amazonas, the famous opera house designed by Domenico de Angelis in Italian Renaissance style in 1869 was the first opera house in Brazil. The streets around the opera house were coated with rubber to minimise the sound of the carriages. We did manage to make a quick stop over at the opera house on our way back to the airport and were numbed by the dazzling grandeur of it interiors. Today, despite its modern and cosmopolitan look Manaus is still like a big village in the countryside, quite remote as it accessible only by boat and air.

A few kms downstream from the city we finally came to the meeting of two rivers, a spectacle by itself. River Negro originating in Columbia is black in colour due to the high organic content and Solimoes coming from Peru is muddy yellow and at the confluence there is a clear distinction of both the waters, black and muddy. The two waters don't really mix till about 16 kms downstream from the meting point. The entire Amazon River is navigable but at places it becomes aggressive and it is a six-day trip from Manaus to Belem where the river meets the sea.

From the confluence we headed towards Janavari Lake for our lunch halt at Rainha da silva (Green of the Jungle), a charming floating restaurant. A spread of meat and fresh fish was laid out to calm our by then growling stomachs. Vegetarians in Brazil will have a hard time as the options are quite limited but the country is a meat eater's paradise, especially Amazon with varying kinds of meats and fresh fish. (The non-vegetarians in the group simply loved the local steak house called Bio Gordio or Fat Cow, our lunch halt before catching the flight out of Manaus.) Post lunch we went for a short walk behind the restaurant on an elevated wooden walkway to view water lilies in a small clearing.

The short walk is when we bore the full brunt of the famed mosquitoes of the Amazon. They were huge and persistent and if you stopped moving they were all over you. The lilies were these huge pads of green covering the entire surface area of the small pond, a very picturesque sight. We then shifted to small dug out canoes and went piranha fishing in the maze of narrow channels of the Solimoes. We were accosted by groups of kids paddling in canoes holding out a menagerie of wildlife for us to photograph for some money. They handled baby crocodiles, tree sloths, turtles, small monkeys, macaws and snakes like their favourite toys.

We sailed the narrow muddy water channels through dense vegetation the silence broken only by the occasional cacophonic outburst of an unseen bird in search of a good fishing spot. But the `lost in the Amazon jungle' feeling which I had seen on Discovery and National Geographic channel was unfortunately missing. Perhaps it was the presence of canoes filled with tourists we encountered on every turn, which marred the experience. And to add to that my run of bad luck continued as despite frantically thrashing the water with my fishing rod to attract the piranha none would bite. In fact I did not manage to catch any kind of fish. Others were not faring better but a few did angle in two or three small fish. Some one had a bright idea of throwing me overboard to attract the piranhas. At this point I simply gave up fishing and sat back to enjoy the ride and observe the few floating houses of the Caboclos, inhabitants of the Amazonian river towns (generally a few such houses are clustered together). As we sailed back to the boat at the back of my mind I had this feeling of being slightly shortchanged. Yes I had experienced the Amazon forest, a glimpse of what one would call the veritable tip of the iceberg but it was what I would call a sanitised one. Before I bid a final adieu to the enchanting forest I had promised myself to return to this exotic destination on a good one month holiday and really explore the hidden world of the Amazon. When I fulfil this promise is to be seen.