Time to summarise the week Amazon rain forest, some first impressions are also in the previous entry.
Firstly about the lodge - have to praise the owner Jacques: he's building a nice place out
there (still adding to it), in the middle of the rain forest. Conquering the jungle is not easy, but he has done a nice job and put together a meaningful program for visitors. Also good food, friendly personnel, things happen most of the time when they are supposed to happen etc. The guides are also a lot of fun, experienced in the forest and speak good English, in addition to several more languages each. Our main guide Kristoffo and Joseph were both a pleasure to be around and very funny. We had lunch in Joseph´s house one day - he lives on the Urube river with his wife and four kids, as well as some chickens, parrots (like the one in the picture - very friendly and curious birds, we had one in the lodge as well, called Laura) and a couple of dogs. It is about an hour from the nearest village. During lunch the "school boat" arrived bringing his two oldest kids back from the day in school - different from any other school transportation system. We had a lot´s of fun with Kristoffo and Joseph.
The days following our walk (and getting lost in the forest) were mostly spent on the various rivers surrounding the lodge, but also visited a local village with about 600 families living there. Simple hospital, school (9 grades) a lot of posters again for the upcoming elections. We saw two churches of the 5 in the village - one catholic and one protestant, but Kristoffo claimed the people are not very religious, because the church don´t approve of beer and partying. All houses, even the poorest-looking ones, have a satellite dish - even on the river, where electricity is generated on spot. The dish is pointed straight up, this is the equator after all.
Most of Wednesday and Thursday the Urube river, which is a black water river (there are three types. Black, which is acid (PH4), not very rich in sediments, white, which carries a lot of sediment flowing all the way from the Andes and thirdly clear water rivers).
The nice thing about Urube was that it is very close to the forest, indeed at times we were passing through it on water, with trees covered in water (and during rain season when the river is about 10 meters higher you literally are travelling on the forest). It is also possible to swim in this river unlike the Amazon, which is polluted and has some dangerous small fish that enter your body and eat from the inside and out. Another interesting thing was a rainbow that made a circle around the sun, no ground contact - never seen this before.
Perhaps the highlight of the two days on the Urube was the night we spent at a local fisherman's
floating house. His wife cooked some excellent tucunare, we slept in hammocks outside and didn't even notice the fishermen leaving the house at around 4am. Since we slept outside we could observe a large number of bats operating in total silence and with great precision (not wearing IPods, or else they'd be screwed).
The third river day we spent on a different black water river leading to the mighty Amazon. Before heading out though we saw a couple of fields being cleared up for agriculture (trees chopped down, then burned, producing a field that can be used for about 10 years, depending on which crop is grown), the fields we saw were used to grow pineapples, but bananas numerous other fruits and manioc are also grown (manioc is a type of root that is used for flour, basically the only source of carbohydrates in the rain forest cuisine).
Have to say - the Amazon river is powerful, more than 30 km wide, more than 3000km long and in some places more than 100 meters deep. It's a powerful natural phenomenon and does affect the surrounding forest and people a lot. For instance, it rises 6-12 meters in the wet season, covering trees and plains, feeding them with rich sediments for the next dry season. Our canoe was very small on this river. (No pictures because of the heavy rain.)
This time we had four more people join us (the fist couple of days just Veiko and myself). A very friendly couple from Chicago (nice to meet you, AJ and Daphne) and a couple of Belgians, Eveline and Steve. It was raining heavily in the morning, rain in the dry season is not very common but heavy when it occurs. There is not a lot of cover in the canoe so unlike our friends who had brought rain jackets Veiko and me used the opposite strategy of wearing as little as possible. Worked also but was a little cold. Still remember how hot the water in the river seemed when comparing to the temperature outside (I think it has to be around 30C in the river, given that's the temperature in the air year round).
After seeing the Amazon we headed back along the smaller river, changed into some dry clothes in another floating house, warmed up with coffee and cachaca (crazy Eastern Europeans in the opinion of our companions) had some lunch, got some garbage bags to use as isolation from rain (rain jackets sold out, so had to be pragmatic) and continued our trip. Saw a lot of dolphins (grey and pink), interesting and beautiful sight in a river... Of course some more fishing on this river as well, this time intentionally for piranhas - very aggressive fish. The best way to attract them is to splash in the water with the fishing pole, the bait is meat. Also spotted several birds, hawks, parrots, vultures, canaries... 
After dark Kristoffo caught a cayman (alligator) with his hands - pretty incredible, basically you blind it by pointing a torch at it and then push it and grab the jaws. It was a small one perhaps 60cm long and two years old, but there are many caymans in the river - their eyes glowing in clearly visible bright dark red when hit with light from a torch.
The night we spent in a jungle house about 2km from the lodge, to hear sounds of the night in the jungle, and they are different from daytime for sure. Since it had rained a lot during the day there were a lot of fogs around. These guys are loud! Also we had some of the cachaca we had bought after the rain after the rain and had a few drinks in the dark jungle with AJ and Steve - lots of discussion about US politics, none of the Americans we've met so far like Bush (guess the other half of US don´t travel or don´t publicly proclaim their political views), and AJ was as fierce an opponent to him as any I've met. But quite an interesting discussion, followed by another night in a hammock.
Next day was our day off, I spent it studying a little Spanish (last chance before Spanish-speaking environment) reading books about the rain forest, history of the colonisation and listening to music (you miss music if you only hear sounds of nature for almost a week). Very chilled out day. Completely out of the blue I spotted two toucans just by our house - they were around for about 10 minutes, so got a few pictures as well. Possibly the highlight of the day - don't have to venture deep into the forest when sometimes it helps just being a little lucky.
Sunday a quick tour of Manaus (which was one of the riches cities in the world during the rubber boom, before vulcanisation was invented and large rubber plantations common in Asia and elsewhere). We also saw the meeting of the rivers where Rio Negro and Solimoes meet to form the Amazon. Negro is black and Solimoes is white, because of different temperatures, composition and weight the rivers don't mix immediately, but run parallel for about 6 km. Quite a sight - multicolored river. Sunday was also election day in Brazil and it's a pretty big deal there - voting is mandatory with fines and prohibitions of running a business and even travelling for those who fail to vote. Turnout is in the high 90s, most places are closed on the day, 
public transport is free etc. The Americans though a similar system might benefit their country, while the Belgians saw nothing strange in it - voting is mandatory also in Belgium.
Sunday was also Veiko's birthday, so we celebrated in Manaus international terminal. We very really hungry, alas the international departures area consists of two souvenir stands and a (initially closed - election day) snacks bar. We managed to convince one of the girls from the souvenir stand to get someone else to open the snacks bar. Beer and microwaved pizza haven't tasted this good for a long time!
Overall have to say that the Amazon was a worthwhile week, saw some animals, birds and met some good people - both local and other gringos. Still I think the jungle is a bit extreme in climate to be very enjoyable, but it is possible to get used to it and the rivers add a lot of variation so would definitely recommend visiting to friends who are into nature.
Eventually the flight took us to Panama, where the connecting flight was nine hours late, so we were taken to a hotel in town so we got to see a little of Panama City as well. Would actuallty not have minded staying longer - seemed like a nice city (possibly the only such city in Central America) and country, but couldn't change the tickets unfortunately. Picture showing some of the ships waiting to go through the channel as seen from the plane.
Firstly about the lodge - have to praise the owner Jacques: he's building a nice place out
there (still adding to it), in the middle of the rain forest. Conquering the jungle is not easy, but he has done a nice job and put together a meaningful program for visitors. Also good food, friendly personnel, things happen most of the time when they are supposed to happen etc. The guides are also a lot of fun, experienced in the forest and speak good English, in addition to several more languages each. Our main guide Kristoffo and Joseph were both a pleasure to be around and very funny. We had lunch in Joseph´s house one day - he lives on the Urube river with his wife and four kids, as well as some chickens, parrots (like the one in the picture - very friendly and curious birds, we had one in the lodge as well, called Laura) and a couple of dogs. It is about an hour from the nearest village. During lunch the "school boat" arrived bringing his two oldest kids back from the day in school - different from any other school transportation system. We had a lot´s of fun with Kristoffo and Joseph.The days following our walk (and getting lost in the forest) were mostly spent on the various rivers surrounding the lodge, but also visited a local village with about 600 families living there. Simple hospital, school (9 grades) a lot of posters again for the upcoming elections. We saw two churches of the 5 in the village - one catholic and one protestant, but Kristoffo claimed the people are not very religious, because the church don´t approve of beer and partying. All houses, even the poorest-looking ones, have a satellite dish - even on the river, where electricity is generated on spot. The dish is pointed straight up, this is the equator after all.
Most of Wednesday and Thursday the Urube river, which is a black water river (there are three types. Black, which is acid (PH4), not very rich in sediments, white, which carries a lot of sediment flowing all the way from the Andes and thirdly clear water rivers).
The nice thing about Urube was that it is very close to the forest, indeed at times we were passing through it on water, with trees covered in water (and during rain season when the river is about 10 meters higher you literally are travelling on the forest). It is also possible to swim in this river unlike the Amazon, which is polluted and has some dangerous small fish that enter your body and eat from the inside and out. Another interesting thing was a rainbow that made a circle around the sun, no ground contact - never seen this before.This black type of river is rich in fish and we did spend a lot of time fishing (no pole, just the line), catching two tucunares (one of the best fish for eating, pirarucu being the best one, they were about 7 and 5 kg) and piranhas. Actually saying 'we caught' is not entirely correct as Kristoffo caught the big fish and I managed to catch a piranha. I got close though, but cut myself fighting a big one (15kg at least!) and it got away into safety under some tree trunks. It's possible to actually lose your finger when fishing using just a line, so perhaps I was lucky. Using live bait, the main annoyance was that piranhas kept eating the bait - in about 10 minutes they could easily kill and eat half of the bait fish while avoiding being caught.
Guess which one I got!
Perhaps the highlight of the two days on the Urube was the night we spent at a local fisherman's
floating house. His wife cooked some excellent tucunare, we slept in hammocks outside and didn't even notice the fishermen leaving the house at around 4am. Since we slept outside we could observe a large number of bats operating in total silence and with great precision (not wearing IPods, or else they'd be screwed).
The third river day we spent on a different black water river leading to the mighty Amazon. Before heading out though we saw a couple of fields being cleared up for agriculture (trees chopped down, then burned, producing a field that can be used for about 10 years, depending on which crop is grown), the fields we saw were used to grow pineapples, but bananas numerous other fruits and manioc are also grown (manioc is a type of root that is used for flour, basically the only source of carbohydrates in the rain forest cuisine).Have to say - the Amazon river is powerful, more than 30 km wide, more than 3000km long and in some places more than 100 meters deep. It's a powerful natural phenomenon and does affect the surrounding forest and people a lot. For instance, it rises 6-12 meters in the wet season, covering trees and plains, feeding them with rich sediments for the next dry season. Our canoe was very small on this river. (No pictures because of the heavy rain.)
This time we had four more people join us (the fist couple of days just Veiko and myself). A very friendly couple from Chicago (nice to meet you, AJ and Daphne) and a couple of Belgians, Eveline and Steve. It was raining heavily in the morning, rain in the dry season is not very common but heavy when it occurs. There is not a lot of cover in the canoe so unlike our friends who had brought rain jackets Veiko and me used the opposite strategy of wearing as little as possible. Worked also but was a little cold. Still remember how hot the water in the river seemed when comparing to the temperature outside (I think it has to be around 30C in the river, given that's the temperature in the air year round).
After seeing the Amazon we headed back along the smaller river, changed into some dry clothes in another floating house, warmed up with coffee and cachaca (crazy Eastern Europeans in the opinion of our companions) had some lunch, got some garbage bags to use as isolation from rain (rain jackets sold out, so had to be pragmatic) and continued our trip. Saw a lot of dolphins (grey and pink), interesting and beautiful sight in a river... Of course some more fishing on this river as well, this time intentionally for piranhas - very aggressive fish. The best way to attract them is to splash in the water with the fishing pole, the bait is meat. Also spotted several birds, hawks, parrots, vultures, canaries... 
After dark Kristoffo caught a cayman (alligator) with his hands - pretty incredible, basically you blind it by pointing a torch at it and then push it and grab the jaws. It was a small one perhaps 60cm long and two years old, but there are many caymans in the river - their eyes glowing in clearly visible bright dark red when hit with light from a torch.The night we spent in a jungle house about 2km from the lodge, to hear sounds of the night in the jungle, and they are different from daytime for sure. Since it had rained a lot during the day there were a lot of fogs around. These guys are loud! Also we had some of the cachaca we had bought after the rain after the rain and had a few drinks in the dark jungle with AJ and Steve - lots of discussion about US politics, none of the Americans we've met so far like Bush (guess the other half of US don´t travel or don´t publicly proclaim their political views), and AJ was as fierce an opponent to him as any I've met. But quite an interesting discussion, followed by another night in a hammock.
Next day was our day off, I spent it studying a little Spanish (last chance before Spanish-speaking environment) reading books about the rain forest, history of the colonisation and listening to music (you miss music if you only hear sounds of nature for almost a week). Very chilled out day. Completely out of the blue I spotted two toucans just by our house - they were around for about 10 minutes, so got a few pictures as well. Possibly the highlight of the day - don't have to venture deep into the forest when sometimes it helps just being a little lucky. 
Sunday a quick tour of Manaus (which was one of the riches cities in the world during the rubber boom, before vulcanisation was invented and large rubber plantations common in Asia and elsewhere). We also saw the meeting of the rivers where Rio Negro and Solimoes meet to form the Amazon. Negro is black and Solimoes is white, because of different temperatures, composition and weight the rivers don't mix immediately, but run parallel for about 6 km. Quite a sight - multicolored river. Sunday was also election day in Brazil and it's a pretty big deal there - voting is mandatory with fines and prohibitions of running a business and even travelling for those who fail to vote. Turnout is in the high 90s, most places are closed on the day, 
public transport is free etc. The Americans though a similar system might benefit their country, while the Belgians saw nothing strange in it - voting is mandatory also in Belgium.Sunday was also Veiko's birthday, so we celebrated in Manaus international terminal. We very really hungry, alas the international departures area consists of two souvenir stands and a (initially closed - election day) snacks bar. We managed to convince one of the girls from the souvenir stand to get someone else to open the snacks bar. Beer and microwaved pizza haven't tasted this good for a long time!
Overall have to say that the Amazon was a worthwhile week, saw some animals, birds and met some good people - both local and other gringos. Still I think the jungle is a bit extreme in climate to be very enjoyable, but it is possible to get used to it and the rivers add a lot of variation so would definitely recommend visiting to friends who are into nature.
Eventually the flight took us to Panama, where the connecting flight was nine hours late, so we were taken to a hotel in town so we got to see a little of Panama City as well. Would actuallty not have minded staying longer - seemed like a nice city (possibly the only such city in Central America) and country, but couldn't change the tickets unfortunately. Picture showing some of the ships waiting to go through the channel as seen from the plane.Arrived in Quito around 7 in the morning today, the air is really thin here (3,000m above sea level), but it seems like a friendly enough place. The plan is to hang around here for about a week, take some private lessons in Spanish (at $6 and hour it seems a bargain) and plan the next weeks of our trip. I'm quite tempted to head to Venezuela or even some Caribbean islands for some diving and more Spanish, but could potentially also end up going to the Galapagos islands off of the Ecuadorian coast if we find a good deal that fits with the schedule. The planned part of the trip is over for now - the next deadline is making it to Buenos Aires by the 20th November.
More to report in a few days - hasta luego!
More to report in a few days - hasta luego!
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