Monday – Manaus Day 1 – Caiman Spotting
Last night, bugs were a real problem. All deck activities (quiz, cabaret etc) were brought into Scotts Bar, where they’ll stay for the foreseeable future. Despite the fact that many white lights have been turned off and replaced with red ones, to deter the little critters, they came in their droves. The people effected most were the smokers, of course, who are only allowed to suck on their weed in certain, designated areas – all on the open, aft deck. Anyone venturing into the open air were beseiged by clouds of tiny insects determined to stop anyone having a good time. From the inside of Scotts Bar, looking out, the windows were like a scene from a sci-fi horror movie; thousands of tiny bodies crawling all over them. A notice was put up on the doors asking people to use them as infrequently as possible, to help keep the insects out… it didn’t work very well… they still got in.
This morning, the upper deck was thick with black bodies. A small of team of crew, presumeably the result of some intense, and nail-biting straw-pulling, were assigned the task of cleaning them up. Wielding high-power hoses, they literally hosed the decks down, to make them habitable again. Makes me itch just thinking about them (shudders).
Later, we arrived in Manaus, the Capital of Amazonia. We didn’t arrive until lunchtime, so I took advantage of that fact and did some important painting in the cabin.
Manaus is a friendly place; a brass band turned out specifically to play for us, which was lovely. Because our tour today wasn’t until the evening, we decided to make use of the free wi-fi available in the terminal building. Unfortunately, we weren’t alone; Fred Olsen’s Boudicca was berthed just along from us, and many of their passengers were also trying to make use of the wi-fi. Sheer numbers of people sat around the terminal building with their assortment of laptops, mobiles and ipads, brought the service to an almost grinding halt; we battled with it for over an hour, and could barely get a squeak out of it. When you did get connected, it was either painfully slow, or it kicked you off altogether and you had to re-connect. After that hour we gave up and decided to simply go for a walk around the city.
To call Manaus bustling would be a gross understatement; I’ve never known a city bustle with quite so much fervour (except perhaps Istanbul). All of the streets in downtown Manaus are one huge market; there are so many stalls, you can’t help but wonder if any of them are actually making any money. We wandered slightly aimlessly for a while, untl we found ourselves back at the cruise terminal. We bought two large bottles of mineral water, from a small supermarket, to take on board with us, and went off to prepare for the evening’s excursion; caiman spotting!
We had an early tea in Marco’s, and was out on the quayside at just before 7pm. A 45-minute boat trip in the dark brought us to the place we’ll be visiting tomorrow; Lake January, where we decamped to smaller motor canoes, and the adventure began….
Within only five minutes of setting off into the small waterways that surround the area known as Lake January, our guide had bagged a small caiman. It was quite astonishing; our motorised canoes seat 10 passengers. The driver sits at the back, while the guide stands aloft at the front, with a torch. He’s swishing it around, looking into the long grasses, and signalling for the driver to change position every now and then… and then, he’s laid down on the front of the boat…. the boat slows to a crawl…. then bang! he’s stood up, holding a caiman in his hands – just like that!
The boat was brought to a halt to give everyone the opportunity to see the creature, and to hold it. It was one of the smaller species of caiman, which only grows to about 2 or 3 metres. This was a young one, only about a metre long. Holding it was a thrilling experience; you had to hold it around the neck with one hand and around its tail with the other, to stop it thrashing about and trying to escape. I thought it would feel slimy, but it didn’t; quite the opposite in fact; it felt quite smooth, and warm. After everyone had seen the little beastie, he let it go.
Over the next hour, we thrashed our way through the dark creeks and long grass, by torchlight. Fireflies danced along the tops of the grass, like magical elfs; it was amazing! It wasn’t just the odd one or two… there were loads of them – like something out of Avatar! Our guide explained that the caiman hunters were able to identify the caiman in the long grass because the torchlight would reflect back from the darkness, giving them away. All it took was a little practice, and whipping them up out of the undergrowth simply took speed. Our guide caught a second animal, but never quite hit the hat-trick. I felt for him a little; he was a young man, and I sensed that catching three meant something signifiicant – it appeared to be the number that guides on the other three or four boats had caught…it just didn’t happen for us tonight…
Not that it mattered one bit; the experience had been a wonderful one, and one we wouldn’t have missed for the world.
By the time we got back to the ship, it was almost 11pm. We took our laptops up into the terminal building in the hope that it would be quieter, and therefore the wi-fi, faster…. it was a slight improvement on this afternoon, but not by much. We decided to call it a night, as we had an early start in the morning…
