Tuesday – Manaus Day 2 – The Amazon Experience

Our trip took us, first, to the ‘Meeting of the Waters’, where the Amazon River and the Black River (Rio Negra) meet, on their way down from the Andes, and on their way to the sea. Because each river is of different temperature and density, they look different; the Amazon is sany coloured – like milky tea, whilst the Black River is clear, but dark. At the point where they meet, they run alongside each other for several miles, not mixing, but creating a visible line in the water; it’s quite a sight actually, and attracts dolphins, several of which we spotted, but could I film the bloomin’ things?…….

Our next port of call was a small indian village called San Jose, where they extract rubber from the rubber trees. It was lovely to be able to walk through the village and see how they live. It’s also hard to visualise how different life will be in 3 to 4 months time, when the river reaches it’s highest point. Most of the paths we were walking on, and the stilts of the houses, will be under several metres of water, you won’t be able to walk anywhere – all travel will be by boat.

All along the Amazon, houses tend to fall into two categories; those built on stilts, to accomodate the rising waters, and those built on floating logs, so the whole house simply rises with the rise in levels… all quite extraordinary.

From San Jose, our boat took us, again, to Lake January, where we were downsized to the smaller 10-passenger boats, for a trip down some of the smaller creeks and tributaries. The wildlife on display was awesome; egrets, cormorants, blue-hooded pelicans, ciskadet, and moorhens. We were also fortunate enough to see a couple of different makes of eagle, which were quite magnificent.

Back at the floating restaurant, we were given a buffet lunch, which consisted of pretty much everything you’d care to think of. There was rice, pasta, potatoes and vegetables, chicken and fish…to name but a few items. Oddly, the only thing that didn’t seem to be available was water; instead, they took drink orders for the bar, so most people were ordering, and paying for, beers or soft drinks separately. This is all very well, unless you’ve come on the trip wiithout any cash in your pocket… for an eight-hour excursion not to provide some fresh water seems slightly odd.

The final stage of our excursion featured a walk into the woods, along a raised wooden walkway, to see the famed Amazonian Giant Lilly-pads. Awesome they are too, as was the giant tree they have growing there, with it’s odd, and quite unique shape, around its base.

There was a shorter version of this tour, which didn’t take all day, didn’t include the visit to San Jose, and didn’t include lunch. Passengers on that tour had been told that they couldn’t walk along the walkway to see the lilly pads because it was damaged… clearly a lie, and one that got back to passengers on the shorter trip, which caused a bit of bad feeling, and quite rightly so.

And so it was back to Manaus. Long bouts of sitting on a boat, chugging along and vibrating as it does has a tendency to send me to sleep. Back in Manaus, we had just an hour before sailaway, which we used to take advantage of a much speedier wi-fi in the terminal building (speedier because now there was hardly anyone there).

No sooner had we vacated our space on the quayside than hordes of river boats filled the gap; within minutes of us untethering, it was like we were never there.