A Quiet Day Watching the Amazon Slip Past

4 January 2012

Today was a quiet day for those of us aboard this vessel and as a result we’ve not much to report that would necessitate you taking time away from more interesting pursuits to follow along.

Morning saw us farther down the river toward our goal of the Atlantic Ocean. We moved past bucolic villages, were raced by young men in canoes, saw the pink dolphins once more and for the most part enjoyed a day of idle musing.  We had a 3 hour breakfast with a British banker and his wife followed by a not-so-traditional English pub lunch though there were mushy peas on the plate and our English friends kept trying to defend those as a genuine foodstuff. We remained aloof.

The rains were back with us today, lashing the ship and making us northerners feel it must have cooled off – until we stepped outside and realized that no, it was still hot – just more humid. The rainforest would disappear completely in heavy sheets of rain and then reappear wreathed in steam and newly washed. Below is a turkey vulture cooling itself by holding its wings outspread.

I made yet another landmark in this journey of life as we just crossed the equator. Dale crossed the equator aboard the HMCS Mackenzie many years ago.  There is a long and rich maritime history steeped in ritual about crossing that imaginary line by sea and all are tried in King Neptune’s court to be found worthy or not of the honour of moving from slimy, low polliwog to honest-to-goodness Shellback. So we are both now Shellbacks and Leatherbacks (rounded Cape Horn by ship) and while it is truly nothing compared to those who did it centuries ago in wooden ships, it is still king of neat!

Dale is actually ahead of me in the “reading wars”. He brought with him five books and has read them all already. He is now dipping into the onboard library. I am well behind with only 3 under my belt but then, I must have been doing other things…

Tonight we reach the ocean and head north to French Guyana on the North East coast of South America. I am looking forward to some wave action! This river is amazing but I do love to get rocked to sleep by the ocean.

                                                   A floating bar and convenience store

A friend tells me there are glitches when she tries to make comments – so we will quit thinking nobody is there and just assume you are technically challenged like us! Feel free to email any questions or comments you might have – we are checking now and again.

Until the next day dawns -

Moral Dilemma at Boca da Valeria

Jan 3, 2012

Boca Da Valeria – Mouth of the Valeria

Boca Da Valeria is a small, typical Amazon village located (as the name clearly states)  where the Rio Valeria joins the Amazon.  The village is made up of around 75 permanent residents and they live in the raised wooden homes seen all along the river system. You are not likely to be able to locate it on a map. The majority of their living is made through fishing and a bit of handicraft sales and the sale of some fruits and vegetables during the dry season.

Here is the moral dilemma we faced – is it fair for 500 people to descend on a village of 75 and poke around their homes and habits? Much as we ache to learn more about their lives and their families and their knowledge – we couldn’t bring ourselves to play tourist in their homes and pass them small change and pens and whistles and things. It smacks a little too much of trading beads for furs.  The hardest thing for me was that the children of the village have as pets various species of local wildlife including monkeys and sloths. I really wanted to see a sloth up close and personal. I did see one yesterday in the wild curled up in a tree fast asleep but he/she was mostly hidden under a nice leaf blanket and was doing a great impression of how not to be seen in the Amazon. 

Before you (or I) judge the people who went to Boca da Valeria too harshly, be aware that we were assured that the village had come to an agreement with the cruise company to allow this and to demonstrate various things like the processing of manioc and how their homes look on the inside. Still – we couldn’t do it so we watched the comings and goings from the ship. Many of the villagers came out in various and sundry canoes and paddled around the ship – mostly teenagers. I think it is pretty much the equivalent of teens at home cruising in their cars and pick-ups and showing off for each other and the crazy white folk. One family came out with mom, dad and a small boy and his pet sloth which we viewed admiringly from too great a distance. It is very hard to tell with sloths whether this was stressful or just another day hanging out asleep. I would like to believe that the sloth would rather have been napping in a shady tree rather than being passed around a boat rather casually. ( the picture below is of dad and child "passing the sloth")

High points from the day? Well, Boca da Valeria is located in an exquisitely beautiful setting that we enjoyed most of the day. We also had the very real treat of seeing PINK dolphins busy fishing in the river around us. There are only estimated to be around 800 of these in the Amazon Basin so this was a rare treat indeed. And we saw them many times along with their more common grey counterparts.

We also had opportunity to learn more about some of our dining neighbours. There is a table of Brits that sit next to our table at dinner and they are great fun and we have been slowly getting to know each other as the days go by. One of the couples, as it turns out operate a very large farm (>2000ac and 1400 sheep) and they concentrate on growing renewable fuels. Turns out he does speaking engagements around the world. Well, you know what happens when one farmer runs into another… I suspect strongly we will be learning much more from each other before the voyage has run its course.

 We have now weighed anchor and will not stop again until French Guyana on the Atlantic coast. It will take 2 days to get there with much jungle and river between there and here.  We are in an archipelago of islands at the moment and you can clearly hear the sounds of the rainforest from our balcony as we glide by.  It is becoming obvious that the river has started to rise as flooded forests (Igapos) are becoming a more common sight. It amazes me that they survive the annual flooding as it comes nearly to the top of riverside trees and they are in relatively deep water for 6 months of the year.  It is quite the difference from our little patch of desert at home to say the least!

Until tomorrow -

Santarem and the Rio Tapajos

January 2, 2012

Santarém, Para State

We have now left Amazonas State and entered Para State. The city of Santarém is the 3^rd largest city in the Amazon basin. It lies on the Rio Tapajos just a couple of miles from where the R. Tapajos joins the Amazon at another non-mixing meeting of the waters similar to that at Manaus. The R. Tapajos is what is called a “clear” or “Black” river (though it is actually green). These tributaries of the Amazon all have similar qualities – clear water in shades of green and brown that are acidic and do not harbour mosquitoes. The native people drink, bathe and cook with these waters though they do not recommend the same for us!

This morning we boarded a river boat that took us to the “meeting of the waters” and then to the Igapos (flooded forest) and lake Maica.

Santarém is a hub for agriculture and here the forest shows all the deforestation things you hear about. The air is thick with smoke and there are many agricultural industries around this area. There is a large Cargill soybean terminal here and stockyards and other evidence of rainforest agriculture.  The area we navigated through is inundated with water during the rainy season so all livestock have to be moved to higher ground. They raise climate tolerant Bos Indicus cattle here (or ears and humps as Dale calls them) that are not beautiful to look at but can survive the heat, the wet and the bugs. Though not always as evidenced by large flocks of vultures.

Cruising down the river we saw river dolphins (grey – the pink ones are very rare) and many fishermen plying their trade with anything from a piece of string to a spear to a net to a regular rod. The waters here are thick with fish including species of catfish and the ever present Piranhas.  We did some Piranha jigging ourselves with a piece of meat on a hook and string. A couple people caught them – I had some good bites but never managed to set the hook and they made off with my bait. Toothy little buggers!  We were also treated to a first hand look at cleared lands and cattle rearing Amazonas style.  The cattle we saw did not make either of us think of a nice juicy steak, that’s for sure!  Further into the Igapos and Lake Maica we saw more native wildlife – hawks, vultures, egrets, a sloth and many large iguanas.  All of it is fascinating.

We did not have rain yet today, though there is time yet for that. We had quite a strong easterly wind which after 5 days into this adventure felt lovely, cool and dry. It is amazing how quickly you can adapt to such a radically different climate. I was grateful that the camera didn’t fog up and I wasn’t a puddle of sweat lying on the deck. On the other hand – it was 34 or 35 degrees Celsius (around 95F) so we are not exactly rejoicing at it either.

Tomorrow we head for a small village called Boca de Valeria. Here we hope to get up close and personal with some sloths and maybe catch a glimpse of some parrots and capybaras (the largest rodent in the world, famous from documentaries about anacondas eating them).  Tonight – we dine on beef in the traditional Argentinean style (why not Brazilian we ask??) and enjoy the air conditioning. We are amused each evening by a group of six Brits from Liverpool and Manchester. They are a cheerful and entertaining bunch and have kept us laughing for 2 nights now. We hope this continues. I have also struck up a lovely relationship with our head Maitre d’hotel. He guards my health by keeping alcohol out of my food. Each evening he brings me the next evenings menu, makes suggestions and, when there is no alcohol-free version, has the chef make me something nice. It is all very civilized. He is also teaching me a new word in Portuguese every night  - so far I have Felice Neuvo Annas (my spelling is probably abysmal) for Happy New Year and Gelo (ice) along with Bom Dia (Good day).

Well – it’s a start!

Other post for New Year's Day

Some housekeeping points -

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Ciao

New Year's Day - Parintins Island

January 1, 2012

It is 5:40pm and we have just weighed anchor off of Parintins Island where we have been anchored since noon. This morning we sat on our balcony in the rain and mist and admired the view of the islands slipping past and fishes jumping in the muddy water. The water of the Amazon is the colour of café au lait. The Rio Amazonas sends so much sediment into the Atlantic ocean that it can be seen from space and extends out more than 300 miles from the coast. As rivers go, geologically this is a young one so it is wide and flat and still removing tons of earth as it flows. Originally in the movement of continents this area was an inland sea and the Amazon flowed to the Pacific. The Andes were pushed up and the direction of the river reversed.  This also had an effect on the fauna – Amazon river dolphins are of Pacific origin and were stranded when the Andes rose. They adapted over time to the fresh water environment and their body shape and colour altered to meet their needs in a muddy river. They are sonar experts and don’t have much use for eyesight because the river is so clouded with sediment.  We have only seen the dolphins once near the Meeting of the Waters. They do not leap or follow boats like their ocean cousins and are generally more elusive.

So – Parintins…this is a city on an island in the Amazon between Manaus to the west and Santarem to the East. In Brazil it is most famous for its Boi Bumba Festival which is second only to Festival in Rio de Janeiro in size. 10s of thousands of people descend on the island in June for the festival and the costumes are said to be even more elaborate than their more famous counterparts in Rio.  Of course, we are not here at Boi Bumba time so we don’t get to make that judgment call with any authority whatsoever.  As it turns out, the rest of the year Parintins is pretty much a fishing town and Amazonian outpost for goods moving up and down the river. Now imagine a strictly Catholic city on a Sunday that happens to be New Year’s Day. You get the picture – we have little to report other than the location is beautiful, the rainy season continues to rain and we caught up on a lot of reading and picture sorting. Dale is working his way through the culinary delights of the ship and complaining that on a small ship like this one the balance of eating to exercise is off. I have suggested he run stairs or eat less but he scoffs at these ideas. 

Here is an interesting thing about trying to take pictures of a rainforest in the rainy season to inform people back in North America … when you take your camera outside it fogs up completely for about 10 minutes – and then again when you come in. Think eyeglasses in cold weather only in reverse.  Some terrific shots were missed through this unforeseen issue so you will just have to accept our descriptions of some things!  The same thing happens when you pick up your binoculars to see if that is really a toucan you spy in the forest.  I have no idea – sorry!

Ok – this slow day gives me the opportunity to enlighten you on some interesting things about Brazilian politics that we learned in talking to our Indian guides.  In Brazil it is very important to the government that they have some idea of how many people actually live in the country. So they made a law that citizens must vote – no option. Well, big deal you say, what if you don’t show up? Well, according to the voting law, you lose your rights as a Brazilian citizen – you lose your ID, rights to access government services and other such wonderful things.  To me this seems like a great idea to get past the voter apathy in Canada and the US – I’m just saying…

I also asked about the relationship between the indigenous population and the rest of the country. Apparently Brazil is one of the most “mixed” countries in the world. The native population was devastated by disease courtesy of colonial Europeans and subsequently enslaved by rubber barons. They learned that fighting back did not result in better lives so they chose to adapt and cooperate and that spirit still seems alive and well today. The native population in the rainforest regions still has a much more primitive daily life than those Brazilians in the cities but much of that appears to be by choice. The Brazilian government is making concerted efforts to raise the standards of education, health and general wealth through policies that favour rights of the indigenous peoples. Large tracts of rainforest are set aside for native tribes (bigger and much more productive than Indian Reservations in Canada or the US) and non-natives are not allowed in these zones without a clearly stated reason for being there or an invitation.  The laws of the tribes are the first laws applied. Our guide, Ananias, said that for instance if a white man is murdered in a native territory by a native, the native will not be arrested or prosecuted for murder. The white man is deemed to have been in the wrong.  I am not so keen on seeing this enacted as the voting laws but it is interesting to see that there are more effective ways of dealing with the colonial mess than other parts of the world seem to have chosen.

Food for thought as you contemplate your New Year’s resolutions!

The sun has now set and we are once again moving down the Rio Amazonas. Tomorrow we explore Santarém…

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!!!!!

December 30 - Manaus achieved!

Dec 28 – left home for Regina in mixed snow/slush conditions. Rupert is at home in care of a friend and we are off to the Amazon.

Dec 29 – 5 am leave for the airport to catch a 6:30am flight to Toronto. Uneventful, arrived T.O. at around 10:30EST and proceeded to sit around and wait for our next flight which didn’t leave until 3:00pm. I have no compliments at this point for the quality of amusements behind the Homeland Security “Iron Curtain” – not even a Tim Horton’s for Pete’s sake! Anyway – you don’t care about that. We climbed aboard another uneventful flight to Miami and had a lovely (she reported sarcastically) eight hour lay over. I also have no compliments to the folks at Miami International Airport (acronym – MIA – seriously!). Some of the things that happened to be MIA at MIA were: directions to different concourses, any reasonable amount of seating – uncomfortable or not (never saw any comfortable at all come to think of it); available security at midnight when we were required to go through it; any source of beverages at midnight (not a vending machine to be had) and a few other things that I will not list here for fear of boring the audience. We did get a room at the Miami International Airport (MIA) Hotel which is an interesting throwback to the 80s in Miami – décor and sheets. And when was the last time you were in a hotel where there was an ashtray on the side tables? However, it was clean and provided a lovely refreshing shower and an attempt at sleep. We did not succeed in the sleep department for fear of missing our next flight but at least we got some horizontal time which was an excellent change from the endless Economy class airplane seats and Boarding Gate Dis-comfort zones.  Then – we boarded our flight to Manaus (a charter flight operated by Miami International Airline (also MIA) and yes, you may say “Who?” because we had never heard of them either which does make one a little nervous when heading off to the heart of the rainforest. Fortunately for us – despite the 70s era seats – the crew and the plane held true and we flew through the night to Brazil. I watched the sun rise over endless miles of forest and then watched the clouds close in as we neared Manaus. We broke through low-level cloud and rain at 8 am over virgin rainforest and the Rio Negro and Rio Amazon.  Wow – it really does look like those National Geographic documentaries and the scale of the place is off the charts. But more on the forest tomorrow. For today – we landed at a city of nearly 2 million in the heart of the largest rainforest on earth, accessible only by air and the Rivers. Yup, city of nearly 2 million; airport smaller than Regina’s. Seriously. Only 5 gates and we were the only plane there – well, the only operational one. They had nicely left some weathered hulks of 737s that had gone before at the end of the runway. Perhaps to remind us of what the jungle is capable of? Who knows. It felt a lot like an “Indiana Jones” or “Romancing the Stone” scene and made it wonderfully real.  One small luggage carousel and one cheerful, tiny customs agent later we were released to Manaus.  Holy Hot and Humid, Batman! 30˚C and approximately 120% humidity. At this spot in the Amazon basin they tell us it rarely goes much below 90% humidity even in the dry season. It is now the rainy season. What that humidex calculates to is more than I care to think about at this point. Let us just say that people who have been traveling in the same clothes for more than 48hours ought not to spend too much time in it! So here is what we saw – you step out of the little airport and there is the rainforest – huge and green and thick and lush and steaming and looking exactly like it ought – and no sign at all of that 2 million person city that you are supposedly in the midst of. It feels like it would take mere minutes for the rainforest to reclaim everything, including you.  You can feel everything growing almost feverishly all around you. 

We took a drive through the city and saw an interesting mixture of old and new, shabby and ultra-modern. Manaus in its heyday was the richest city in the world. Huge fortunes were made for Americans and Europeans. It all went bust when rubber seedlings were smuggled out to Asia and the city went into rapid decline. Apparently the white folk speak of those days longingly and the local Indian population speaks of them with horror. Fast forward a few decades and eventually the Government of Brazil stepped in and decided to make Manaus a “free port” – basically a tax haven – and the boom is on again. Our guide said that last year they exported 3000 cars a month into Manaus. This year it is up to 8000 a month – complete with an absolute traffic nightmare. Over 500 huge multi-nationals including such global giants as Phillips Electric and Yamaha now call Manaus home – and remember, no roads to speak of – access only by river or through that tiny airport.

Anyway, more about Manaus and the River tomorrow. Today we sleep and try to adjust to the climate. I wonder if Dale’s hair will curl? We are now aboard our ship – the Pacific Princess. Yes, those of you over 40 may recognize that name – it is the one and only Love Boat. The Captain is now an Italian and she is showing her age a little but it is nice to be on a relatively small ship on a big river. And hey, who thought we would ever actually sail on THE Love Boat?

Until tomorrow -