New Year's Eve in the forest

Dec 31 – I see now that in my exhaustion Dec. 30 seemed to slip past me! However, we are now located on New Year’s Eve and have had a long, hot, interesting and very sweaty day out on the Rio Negro and Rio Solimans and Lake Januari. 

So – why all the river names when we said we were heading down the Amazon? Well, the Amazon is a river made of rivers and runs through several countries. Apparently the people whose job it is to name rivers and decide exactly how long they are can not agree on this one.  So, officially the Nile is the longest river in the world and the Amazon, the widest. People are still searching for the source of the Amazon and at last count (unofficially) it is quite a bit longer than the Nile, stretching more than 7000km across the continent from Bolivia and Peru in the Andes to the Atlantic. The indigenous peoples of the entire area have their own names for their sections of the river system – hence the naming confusion.

Back to the Rios (pronounced Hee-yos in Portuguese)at hand:

We set off on a river boat at 9am headed for the Meeting of the Waters where the R. Negro (Black River) meets the R. Solimans (or Amazon). The Rio Negro is a wide, flat, deep river that runs from the heart of virgin rainforest and joins the Amazon at Manaus. The water is the colour of very strong, dark tea because it flows off of the forest land and the wood and leaves colour it and give it a strong acidic pH of 3.8. This acidic water means much fewer mosquitoes and other larval insects. But acid loving ones thrive as do larger, heartier species of fish including the largest freshwater fish in the world. R. Negro is also one of the deepest rivers in the world at over 120 m in depth in some places. From dry season to rainy season the river will rise in excess of 15m or about 3 inches a day from January through July.

The other river – flows from the Andes and higher reaches and as a result is swifter and carries much more sediment on its way to the Atlantic so it is yellow in colour. Because it spends less time in the rainforest the river is lighter and has a much higher pH of 6.7-7.0 or neutral. Where they meet they do not mix for over 10 miles. There is a clear line in the water and at this junction there is an abundance of fish along with birds and larger water fauna that eat them – egrets, herons, eagles, vultures, cayman, river dolphins and more.

After admiring the view we went on to a small rainforest village of fewer than 20 families where subsistence is still the way of life. The village is located on an island in the river and the homes are all on stilts as the river inundates the entire island during the wet season. The village has a small rubber plantation and gardens to sell vegetables to Manaus. The residents are first and foremost fishermen – that is their diet and their means of making a living. The standard rainforest diet is fish and manioc (cassava). Manioc raw is poisonous and has to be heated, dried and ground to become edible. We watched a 100 year old man cooking it in a huge pan. Contrary to what most of us think, the rainforest (at human level) is not filled with fruits and abundance – it is actually quite a meager living at the forest floor because the light does not penetrate far enough for things to grow readily. Most animals in the forest live off of leaves and other vegetation that humans don’t digest well and then hide, so the humans can’t digest them!

We were then shown the traditional forest way of harvesting and processing latex from the rubber trees and vulcanizing it into rubber. This raw rubber was (and is) sent down the river and eventually to the world. The trees are tapped and the latex runs during the cooler nights. In the morning the sap is collected and then heated and sulphur is added to vulcanize and stabilize the latex into rubber.  Natural rubber has fallen out of favour due to the development of synthetics but is still used where the substitute product can not match the natural rubber qualities. The first Europeans to see the natives with waterproof hats and bowls were impressed and thought this a useful thing though the Europeans first use was as erasers (hence the name “rubber”) it took a Scot (Macinaw) to make the first raincoats and then things took off in industrial use.

Back in our river boats we headed to a National Park Reserve and Lake Januari (pronounced: JAN – oo-are-ee). Januari is a native term meaning “evil spirits” and was so named after the Portuguese  killed off many natives there. The Lake is not a lake for half of the year (like Rush Lake!) and then is filled with the abundance of the Amazon during the rainy season. Small floating villages are located around the lake making for “sharp rises and falls” in the real estate…! Every one does everything by boat. Fuel stations in Amazonia are located out in the river; children go to school in School Boats, not buses; and if you don’t like your neighbour you can cut his lines at night and he won’t be there in the morning!

After an awesome lunch at a floating restaurant (Grilled Arapaima is wonderful! Can’t say the same for the manioc) we climbed into smaller 10 person boats and looked at the Lake and the wild rice plants, birds and other such things. We finished up with a hike up to see some Vittoria Regis (Queen Victoria) lilies. These are the largest waterlilies in the world and can reach more than 5 feet across. Monet would have loved them I am sure! I can say it was definitely worth it but I would advise anyone considering hiking in a rainforest at 2 in the afternoon to reconsider. I am unable to describe the heat and humidity in language most of you would understand. Let’s put it this way – I heard Floridians gasping about it and Florida is not exactly a dry cool spot itself. 

Tonight we have a formal dinner and I am not looking forward to climbing into formal clothing – I want to lay back and REALLY appreciated air conditioning as an invention!

We have now left Manaus and are headed down the river to Parantins. Tomorrow I will try to get to a little info about the indigenous people and some cool things about Brazilian politics…

Bom Dia (bomb GEE-uh) or Good day!

p.s. I did see one small snake curled in a sunny spot in the wild rice patch but he didn’t seem impressive enough to be an anaconda…

p.p.s. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!