Brazil - Amazon

 We flew into Manaus, before taking 2 vans, and 2 boats to a floating lodge 3 hours away.  Talk about going to the middle of nowhere! 

But first on the way, we had to cross the mixing of the two rivers (Negro & Amazon).  The Dark waters of the Negro river and brown waters of the Amazon river meet just south of Manaus, but they do not actually mix.  It takes them around 17km to finally mix.  This is mainly due to the difference in flow rate, temperature and pH of the two rivers.  We actually felt the water go considerably colder when we cross from the Negro to the Amazon. 

The trek to the lodge was very interesting in itself, and educational.  We noticed that most of the houses on land were built on stilts, even when they were far from the water.  This is because the amazon has 2 “seasons”: Low water and High water levels.  When the water level is low, many of the river streams disappear or become isolated as lakes, creating a high concentration of fish, and hence changing their diet.  Then over four months, the water level raises to a considerably higher level.  This can be easily seen on the high water mark found on trees.  As the water rises, the fish start swimming where it was dry and start eating the fruit that has been dropped by trees. It also creates more water channels and pathways.  Eventually, the water reaches the high level point, staying there a few weeks before start to recede again.  It is a very interesting cycle that this ecosystem has adapted to.  

The few days we spent in the Amazon were amazing.  We even went piranha fishing, where Maxine caught 2 piranhas while the rest of us caught just one each.  In the end we had a set of Red, Yellow, Black and dog piranhas, out of 32 different types of piranhas.  It was the girls’ first time finishing, and whilst Harriette’s “Bucket of patience” did run quite low, they had a blast fishing.  The best part was that the lodge chef grilled the piranhas’ we caught for our dinner.  While there was not a lot of meat on the fish (and very bony too), they were delicious. 

Whilst we were there we took multiple boat trips to see wildlife and landscapes, and we got cross off quite a few things off our list, including one 1.5m anaconda, a 3 toed sloth, a couple of Monk Saki monkeys, a few Howler monkeys, an iguana, a tarantula, lots of cormorants, hawks, parakeets and macaws.   We even managed a hike through the amazon jungle, learning about the different trees and some of the uses that they have by the natives, such as a bark used to fight off malaria. One of the highlights was seeing the grey river dolphins and the very shy pink dolphins, but we got to see them both!  Not to mention caiman alligators. Our boat guide even managed to get very close to the alligators.  It’s was amazing that they have 2 sets of eyelids (from clear to protect the eyes underwater, and another for the sun), along with the tiny sharp teeth (32 pairs).   

At the lodge, we spent most of the midday in the water, swimming with the piranhas and caimans.  The lodge itself even has it own caiman resident (Armandino), but luckily he only comes out to “play” in the evening. There is actually a no swim policy after 6pm…  The lodge also had a dugout canoe that we took out for a spin.  It was a fun paddle but the girls decided that it was just too hot and jumped in, and swam back to the lodge. 

From the Amazon we head off to our last stop in Brazil before we head back home!