Amazon Adventure

On January 10th, Nell, Claire and I met in Manaus for the start of our Amazon Adventure. I flew to Manaus from Sao Paulo, with a stop in Brasilia, while Nell and Claire flew in on the milk run from Recife. Our jungle adventure started the next morning when the folks from the tour company picked us up to take us to their lodge in the middle of the Amazon. It took four hours to get to the lodge, an hour by boat, forty minutes by minivan and then another two hours by boat to the lodge, located on one of the Amazon’s tributaries.

The lodge is high up in the treetops with its various buildings -- cabins, dining lodge, kitchen -- being supported on stilts, some as high as thirteen or fourteen metres off the ground. The level of water in the Amazon can rise up to twelve metres in the rainy season, so houses need to be higher than this. When the water is high, the houses float just above the water, while in the dry season, they tower metres and metres above the ground. Floating houses, which rise and fall with the waters are also common.

While we were in the Amazon, the water level had started to rise, but was nowhere near its full potential. At certain points while traveling by boat we were literally navigating above the treetops! It’s a pretty cool sensation. As for the houses on the stilts, they would shake when anyone would walk by on the connecting walkways.

The lodge organizes day or half-day activities for its guests, including dolphin watching, piranha fishing, walks in the jungle, and visiting an old man who taps rubber. Piranha fishing was quite the experience. The first afternoon, we went out in a motorized canoe to the lodge’s secret location for “catching the big one”. Well … the piranhas were hungry that day and the big one was definitely there. We never actually caught anything though, as the fish kept biting not only the chunks of meat that we were using as bait, but also the hook and line! Once the majority of our hooks had been eaten, we headed back home. The next day we went to a new location and managed to catch a few small piranhas. Deep down, I suspected that we kept catching the same one, but it’s hard to say for sure.

The jungle walk was interesting. The most prominent features of the jungle are HUGE ferns and palm leaves, an overabundance of enormous termite colonies (these nasty guys are taking over the jungle ….), vines that adopt and then strangle the life out of the trees, and killer ants. We even swung from real “tarzan vines” that we came across. I am surprised that Tarzan didn’t wear gloves – the thorns on the vines are brutal!

Over all, we had a fun time in the jungle. It would have been nice to have done a few more hikes or canoe trips, but the activities organized by the lodge did give a good overview of life (human and other) in the Amazon.