Amazonas adventure Day 4

The initial order was 5.30 for sunrise but the majority negotiated it to 5.45. The morning was cloudy so it didn't make any difference. There was one last big attraction to see: Victoria lily, the legendary plant that I remember from geography lessons in school and that I recently got to know better through Attenborough's Life of Plants. What shall I say? I have run of adjectives. Amazing, remarkable, incredible, awsome...?

There are many amazing, remarkable, incredible features about this plant. It blooms white on the first evening and is male, attracting pollinating insects and trapping them as it closes. Then it changes gender, blooms pink, releases the insects, and they fly away and pollinate other flowers. Or something like that. It's just too overwhelming, too clever.

There were many birds walking on the leaves - I am afraid I haven't managed to capture them.

On return, we had breakfast and packed while the boat navigated toward Manaus that we reached about midday. Hugs, goodbyes, promises to stay in touch, share photos. Back to the hotel, retrieving the stored luggage and taxi to the airport.

The rest is history.

Amazonas adventure Day 3

No early morning activities, but I woke up at seven and went up on deck for a cup of coffee. We started to sail downstream toward Manaus, with the goal of seeing the Meeting of Waters, the black of Rio Negro (although it is actually dark blue) and the white (in fact, yellow) of the Solimoes. Ruben was very emphatic about the Amazon only existing after the two rivers meet. I have seen pictures, but you cannot imagine it from a picture - well, you can try. The waters do not mix for about four kilometres because they have different speed, different temperature and different chemical ingredients. It's truly amazing.

Manaus is a huge city. When I first started thinking about this trip, three years ago, I thought Manaus was a little village where you went by a tiny plane. There must be places like that further up the rivers, but Manaus has a population of 2 million and it isn't precisely a beautiful city, at least not from the river. We saw the famous Opera House and decided that we didn't need to see it again. The long stretch of shore was docks and oil tanks. And many boats. During the first two days we hardly saw any boats and just a couple of houses.

After Meeting of Waters we went upstream on the Solimoes (note that I am using the correct name!) to the place where we anchored for the night and took another canoe trip. I must say that it felt a bit like anticlimax, because we did some more fishing and some more caiman patting, but I may be unfair. The vegetation was completely different, and there were lots of birds – all because the Solimoes (note the name!) is six degrees cooler than the Rio Negro, which is simply too hot for most forms of aquatic life. Apparently, the gender of caimans is dependent on the temperature: in hotter waters they hatch as males and in cooler water as females. Somehow they must meet in between. Quite right, the Rio Negro caimans were boys and the Solimoes caimans were girls, whom we named Margarita and Josefina before Ruben threw them back in the river. By that time Viki became so brave that she held the beasts, and Enrico and Costa did too. I now regret that I didn't. I am not scared of crocodiles, not like snakes.

Fishing was fun too, and some of the fish were catfish that look like something from a horror movie. I didn't get any and mostly sat and watched birds in my binoculars.

Viki had to go back to Manaus in the evening because she had to catch a 1 am flight to Sao Paulo (for some reason, Brazilian airlines have these crazy flight schedules). We were all curious about how she was going to get there – helicopter perhaps? No, she said, James Bond style, by speedboat. We stayed on deck to watch her leave. There were all kinds of boats passing by, in pitch darkness, without lights. At ten sharp, Ruben came up on deck and beckoned to Viki: “Ready? Let's go!” Guess what? The promised speedboat was the canoe. Frankly, I wouldn't feel safe going in a little boat on the big, big river in pitch darkness without lights or life jackets. I am not sure Viki was so happy either, but did she have a choice? According to Ruben, it took no more than forty minutes. But by the time they gor back we were asleep because the next morning we we getting up early to watch the sunrise.

Enrico and Josefina

Amazonas adventure Day 2

We got up at 6, and fortunately there was some coffee waiting, as breakfast was not until 8. Down in the canoe, into the flooded forest, out with fishing rods. I haven't angled in the past twenty years at least so it was very exciting, only there was no fish. Normally, you are supposed to be quiet when you fish, but Ruben showed us how to make huge noise by tapping the water fiercely with your rod. Piranhas was supposedly attracted by the noise thinking that there was a fight going on, so there will be a corpse waiting.

Of course I wished with all my heart that I would catch something, but I would be happy if someone else did, and actually I was just happy to be there, once again watching the reflections of trees and plants in the blank water. We changed places three times, and suddenly fish began to bite. Manolo, who steers the canoe, got two, and we all took pictures and admired, then Ruben got one, and then Enrico got one. I was all the time feeling gentle nibbles, and the hook came up empty, so I thought perhaps I forgot how to set up bait. And then, suddenly, I had a fish! A real, live little piranha! And then another one. So Enrico and I ended up saving the honour of the guests against the hosts.

Then we went back to the boat to have breakfast, and then another excursion into one of the tributaries and into the thicket where we were suddenly surrounded by monkeys. Small squirrel monkeys, so cute (hate this word, but it's the only adequate one). We had bananas with us, and the monkeys came and took bananas from our hands. And we learned how to talk to monkeys: ”Cheep, chip” apparently means: ”Come, lunch is served”.

Then it was time to learn dolphin language, as we tried to attract the dolphins' attention by beating the water surface with the fish we had caught in the morning. There were at least half a dozen pink dolphins around, and finally they came and feasted on our fish. It is very hard to capture the moment when a dolphin reaches for fish, so I have no good pictures. But it was amazing.

Then we sailed on for a while and anchored by a little village - I expected an ethnographic show with song and dance, and small boys trying to sell souvenirs, but there was fortunately nothing of the kind, they just went about their own business. We saw more dolphins by the shore, but of another kind, grey.

Waiting a bit until the worst heat was over, we started on the next adventure which was a hike in the rainforest. A very easy hike, but it was terribly hot, my shirt was absolutely wet. There were many remarkable things we saw, and some I have managed to get good pictures of, but no picture can do it justice. It was a fantastic feeling just to be there. And of course I know that the trail has been used by hundreds before us, and yet it was easy to imagine that we were really the first ever explorers.

I was hot and tired when we returned, but there was the final excursion of the day, looking for tree boas. I am not particularly fond of snakes, and told Ruben so, but he assured me that we won't get too intimate and that boas were not aggressive. We didn't find any snakes, just a couple of tree frogs, but it was once again that magical feeling of gliding in mid-air when you couldn't tell when real world stopped and reflection began. It was pitch dark, and Ruben had a torch. It was weird. Like a fantasy film, but real.

We were all very tired and went straight to bed.

Amazonas adventure Day 1

After our interrupted sleep, I was sure we'd sleep at least until 10, when they stopped serving breakfast. However, we woke up, fresh and full of energy at seven, as usual. It was much too hot to go to Manaus, opera house or not, so we started by visiting the hotel zoo, which did feature the promised jaguar, but otherwise rather pathetic. I went down to the river, following the sign ”Embarkation”, only to find a little beach. Apparently embarkation was somewhere else. They promised at the reception desk that the company would fetch us at 1pm. The internet connection in the room was ridiculously expensive, so I sat in the lobby, responding to dozens of urgent emails by saying: ”Sorry, I am in the heart of darkness, will get back some time”.

We checked out at 12 and sat further in the bar/lobby, Staffan drinking beer to kill the time, and me getting anxious again that something was wrong. Finally, a quarter past one, somebody did ask for us and introduced himself as Ruben, our English-speaking guide, telling us cheerfully that they never picked up their guests earlier than a quarter past two. This information made us suddenly very hungry, and we ordered a light lunch. Then Ruben came back, and an old man got hold of our suitcase (we had deposited the second one at the hotel), while Ruben introduced us to our fellow passengers: Viki from London, Madeleine and Enrico from Barcelona, Ciara and Constantino from Rome. That's it.

When I booked this trip and looked up options, given that I was very late because of the ever changing dates of my commitment in Rio de Janeiro, I immediately picked up Desafio as my type of trip: small boat for maximum twenty people, personal, no bars, karaoke or swimming pools. But alas, the only cruise available on the dates we could do was one of those huge boats. Well, beggars are no choosers, and I agreed to that: however, the travel agent got back after a few days to tell me that the Iberostar was chartered. There went my dream, but still a few days later, the agent emailed to say that he had an option, which was Desafio, which I wanted in the first place.

So there are just the seven of us. We were taken to the beach on the path I had followed in the morning, and there she was, some hundred metres from the shore, and a little motorboat to take us there. By that time, the river got waves, and I almost got seasick watching them. My dream was quickly turning into a nightmare, and I already saw myself flat seasick in the cabin for the next four days. Staffan on the other hand had some difficulty getting into the canoe and when we eventually came on board swore that he would never set his foot into that boat again, which is a shame, since it is the boat used for excursions.

I sat on the open deck, trying not to think of being sick, while we sailed away and everybody was given a welcome drink. I had expected a long session with safety instructions, but there wasn't any. Ruben started directly with sailor's yarn about all the anacondas he had encountered, and everybody was happy except for me. I was apprehensive.

Of course I have seen dozens of films about the Amazonas, but no picture can do justice to this huge span of water, and we were going right into it. I sat in my deck chair while everybody else went to inspect the cabins, scared even to move. Presently, the waves calmed down, and we entered one of the tributaries and anchored. I ventured into the cabin, too anxious to notice how tiny it was as compared to the picture in the brochure – but I know how such pictures are taken. I decided that I'll worry about it later, because we were now going out in the canoe, and that's what we had come there to do. No safety instructions, just a couple of life jackets thrown casually into the canoe. It was a pity Staffan didn't come, but I fully understand it, because you don't sit particularly comfortably in a canoe. Off we went, entering yet another tributary or flooded forest. Again, I have seen it in films, but no films can convey the sense of being there, with blank surface of water, reflecting the vegetation in quickly fading daylight. We saw a sloth, a couple of herons, but I would have been just as happy with gliding there over the water, listening to cicadas and birds.

Then we got back, were served a sumptuous meal, and off again, in pitch darkness, Ruben with a torch. In the thicket of the forest, first a porcupine – frankly, I didn't know they lived in trees – then a whole family of porcupines. I didn't bring my camera because it is a very simple one and doesn't do good pictures with flash. It was all spooky and incredibly beautiful. Then Ruben caught some caimans with his bare hands and held them for us to pat. The starry sky was amazing. I have seen the Southern Hemisphere skies several times, and it is always a wonder.

By the time we got back it was half past ten. And we were to get up at six next morning to go fishing. So I went down to the cabin and was sound asleep within five minutes. I had forgotten all about being sick.