Amazing Amazon Adventure

I am having a hard time deciding where to begin this tale, because it is one of epic porportions. For the mere 30 hours we spent in the Amazon Rain Forest, we saw a lot of wonderful things.
In the end, we decided to fly Manaus from Belem, and though it caused some minor headaches, the extra doh we spent was justified with the week we saved. Had we hopped on the boat, we would not be arriving in Manaus til Monday (at the earliest).
We arrived at 3am and proceeded to kill some hours in the airport until the busses started. During this time, we also were harassed by some persistent scammers regarding cheap accomodations and jungle tours. Fortunately, Lonely Planet gave us the heads up on these touters, so we told them off and boarded a bus at 7am.
Being that we hadn't slept much the night of travel, Tuesday was a write-off, where I chose to sleep and Matt chose to read. The next day was similar, though we managed to venture to the docks and make a brief appearance at the market. Bustling, of course, being an International Port. Also, that day we booked an overnight adventure into the Amazon, which starts a new chapter of this post...


We rose at 6:30am to eat some breakfast and get our overnight bags together quickly before departing from the hostel at 7am. From there we took a relatively nice bus on not such a nice road east of Manaus to a small village. From there, we boarded a boat and motored our way through the maze of rivers and flooded forests. We are in the midst of the rainy season right now, so the rivers are 8-10 meteres deeper than they are in August. This is makes accessing parts of the jungle easier by boat having flooded much of the forest. Unfortunately, many birds who have made their nests too low lose their homes, and often times their young. Rather depressing, I know.

Panaromic of Lodge from Tower

Same Lodge, minutes later during a down pour

Arriving to the jungle lodge, we set up our hammocks, ate a basic lunch and enjoyed the tranquillity for a couple hours. This included a stroll through the jungle on a trail not far from the lodge and some lazing in our hammocks.


Just before 2 in the afternoon, we set out by canoe into the flooded forest. The best word we can find to describe this is 'magical.' The only sounds that could be heard, were birds singing (including toucans, macaws and woodpeckers), our guide, Francisco, paddling and the occasional fruit plunging into the water from the treetops above. Sometimes red howler monkeys can be spotted, but we were not so fortunate. We did see plenty of large spiders though. Some seemed even too big for birds to enjoy.


As we bushwacked our way out of the magestic 'floating forest' we set some fish traps. We used the low branches as a secure anchor for the line, and used chicken as the bait. We would later return to find that 2 of our 6 traps had large fish on them, that we would enjoy that night with dinner.


Following the trap setting, we went out into a more open part of river and tied the boat down so we would not get taken with the slow current. Here we would fish for Piranhas using chicken as bait as well. These fish are vicious, and to fish for them you need to be not only aggressive, but timely too. As you feel them nibbling, you need to yank hard on the line in hopes of hooking them. Our boat managed to catch 10 piranhas, with one whole chicken. Matt and I seemed to feed them more than catch them, and only caught one each. Francisco caught 4 as did Simone (the German girl in our group).

The ripples in the water are from some grey river dolphins.

After tossing what remains of the chicken into the black waters, and seeing it vanish and a dance-like fashion, we collected our traps and fish and headed back to the lodge. We arrived just in time to climb the tower and watch the sunset. We manged to spot some grey river dolphins in the glassy water that reflected the colorful sky.
Dinner included the usual rice & beans, along with some fried fish that we had caught. Not a lot of meat on the piranhas, but tasty anyway.

(This story is so big that Mitch had to take a break and I will take over from here)



After a delicious Piranha dinner, we relaxed briefly in our hammocks until nightfall and then headed out in the same canoe with now a small motor on it to go alligator and caymen spotting. In the darkness of night we coasted along the water for about half an hour with only the glow from the distant Manaus and lightning on either side of us for light. When we reached our destination, Francisco pulled the motor in and paddled through the bushes flashing is light on and off for brief navigation, completely eliminating any night vision one might have achieved. All the while we are being brushed by branches and ducking under bushes that only hours ago we had seen covered in spiders (very hard for me, but I managed). Closer to land, he would leave his light on longer to look for the glow of eyes. I of course wanted to see a 23 foot long caymen swim by us, maybe touching the boat with its giant tail, but alas, he found a 3 foot caymen and barely failed to catch it.


Later, he did manage to catch two baby caymens which we were able to hold and inspect, all the while they emitted calls that Francisco indicated were for the mother which if it came around we would have to climb the tree next to us. Exciting maybe, but I got the feeling he was bluffing as there was no severity in his voice or urgency to return them. Later we saw more eyes on land which he whispered was a small species of jaguar, but I sadly only managed to glimpse the eyes. Still, a very neat experience!
We headed back and immediately fell asleep in our hammocks as we had a 5:30 morning for another boat trip,this time just in front of the camp to spot dolphins. We did indeed see a couple swimming up and down, and were close enough to hear them breath in and our and watch them jump slightly out of the water. These were gray dolphins and were of course very cute. We did not swim with them though and the rain began so we headed in for breakfast.


After breakfast, we took another short boat ride to the beginning of our hiking route. It was raining at the beginning but let up soon after. The jungle was again phenomenal. Within ten minutes we found a tree whose bark is used for malaria medicine and another whose is used for vicks vapour rub. Later we found another tree that when sliced with the machete leaked natural milk that was very sweet and the indians would feed it to children for a treat. We spotted two species of frog, one of which being the poisonous tree frog.

Later yet, Franscisco captured the Crab spider which is a ten legged tarantula and the largest spider in South America. The spider has fangs that can pierce sneakers and emits an itching-burning powder which our guide calmly ignored while showing off the fine specimen. No big deal but he held it two inches away from our faces for a photo opp... I did my best to pretend I was relaxed. Later we continued to find more tree bark that is used for scented candles, other that can be used for clove flavouring, and a thick vine that contains very filtered and drinkable water.

Later yet we found an incredibly large, brown mass on the side of a tree that when gently cut with the machete produced millions of ants covering the nest. Apparently these ants eat a poisonous vine and their insides act as a natural bug repellent. So you put your hand on the nest and within seconds it is covered in tiny ants, letting your entire hand be covered to the wrist, you then pull it away and squash the ants, rubbing them up and down your forearm for bug protection. NEAT!

After this point the rain really really really started. I was soaked right through to the bone and ever step was like I was walking in a puddle due to the amount of water that leaked down my jeans into my socks. An hour later we reached the boat and motored our soggy bodies back to the camp where we rested and pseudo dried before attempting another go at the flooded forest (as per my request) before we left as I still so badly wanted to see monkeys or a snake. Sadly, neither were present and we only managed a quick glimpse of tucans again and saw many many larger spiders.

On our way out from the lodge, the rain had subsided, so the lot of us were able to enjoy a near dusk boat ride along glassy waters. We managed to spot even more dolphins then in the morning, including one pink river dolphin!

Alright, that is the best we can do to share such an exciting and memorable experience. Thanks for reading!