Dec 23 2006
Brazil Trip Diary: Day 10
The plane ride was not very comfortable and I didn’t sleep at all. When we arrived in Manaus, there was no driver to pick us up. It was 5am. Someone was kind enough to help us to reach the owner of our lodge. When we finally got to the lodge it was 7am. I felt like a walking dead (行尸走肉).
Two hours later, we were on a boat tour of the Amazon river. It was a hot humid day. I sweat like constantly being in a shower. But there were only a few mosquitoes along the river, I was pretty surprised.
The river was wide. It holds so much water that it has tides. We are only in the middle section of the river but felt like touring the big lakes in the U.S. We saw fresh water dolphins, some gray, some pink. They are all blind because the river is always brownish and muddy. We went to another piranha finishing. But Amazon piranhas are much smarter than Pantanal ones: we end up fed more fishes than caught them.
There was a rain storm between touring and fishing. I’ve heard stories of how hard it could rain here: sometimes there was so much water pouring down at the same time, one could feel short of breath. Today, however, it was not to be. Nevertheless, we took shelter in a boat house and drunk the so-called Coca-Cola of Brazil, Guarana.
After the rain storm, the sunset was spectacular. We were on a quiet lake off the river. The water was calm and expansive, and setting sun gave it a creamy texture. When our boat cut through, the wake was not bubblery at all. It was like there was a little creature running under a piece of satin. It was one of the most memorable moments of the trip.
Later on, our guide showed us how to use spotlight to find animals at night. Animals’ pupils reflect lights like glistering purple diamond in the darkness. It was particularly fun to spot caimans hiding among water lilies. Our guide caught couple of them and had us held the smaller one for fun. Maybe it was the end of a long, long day, I was not as amused seeing the animals struggling to get free.
It was close to 9pm when we got back to our lodge. The lodge was deep in the jungle but there was plenty of development and clearing along the road to the lodge. The tour book said given the current clearing speed, 90% of the Amazon jungle will be cleared by 2020. It is a little hard for me to believe this number given the vastness of the forest. However, claims like these do make me more aware of the wastefulness of human activities. On our way to the river tour, tracks of land were cleared for pineapple plantation or cattle grazing. Some of them were still burning. Given the rich grass land Brazil has in the north, the abundance of tropic fruits produced elsewhere, and the uniqueness of the Amazon forest, it is a shame to see the land being used as such.
Our lodge is built on the edge of the forest. It was made up of a doze or so two-unit bungalows, each minimally furnished: a couple of beds with only cloth sheets to cover ourselves because even with large screen doors and windows the room was like a sauna in the night. The water is drinkable and taste really sweet. The shower has no hot water but it is fine once you get used to it. For the first time in my life, I slept in a hammock through the night. It was super comfy.