Back to civilization...

Well, I survived the jungle.  Two nights spent in a hammock, three days without a shower, and several pints of sweat later, I'm still left craving a little more of the jungle.  After donning my R$3 colonial-style wicker hat on Tuesday morning, I boarded a boat with eight other travellers bound for a floating platform several hours upstream the Rio Negra from Manaus, which would serve as our base camp. 

 

Soon after arriving, we took a short canoe ride to do some piranha fishing with makeshift rods and with little luck.  I was the only one to catch a fish, and it was a menacing 2.5 inches long.  We had also gone on a night trip to catch cayman (similar to an alligator), and our guide Rueben, an Amazon native and possibly the most badass outdoorsman I've ever met, got out of the canoe and returned with a few babies for us to hold.  On our second day, we took a visit to a community of some indigenous people who earn money making handicrafts for tourists.  Upon our arrival, they excused themselves so that they could shed their western clothes in place of the more "traditional" garb, meaning loin-cloths for the men, straw skirts, bare chests and beads for the women, and face paint for all.  They proceeded to tell us about the traditions of their culture, perform dances for us and demonstrate their instruments.  It was pretty interesting, and not particularly surprising when they informed us afterwards that we needed to pay for the show.

 

Early on our first day, just after the piranha fishing, we watched our guide violently strip an unwilling "lazy monkey", or sloth, from its perch so we could all marvel at its stoic and curious appearance and pass it amongst ourselves.  Our faces were all ripe with excitement, while the small sloth appeared emotionless, unable to express any fear or even make a a defiant attempt at escape--the thing moved so slow!!  I felt pretty guilty watching the thing being torn from the tree, but was still eager to hold it once it was in the boat, a conflict of interest that would only be exaggerated later on.

 

The region we were "playing" in had previously been described as to me as a protected area. So, when we embarked on our overnight jungle expedition, I was a little surprised when our guide handed us machetes and instructed us to cut down several sizable (~7" dia) trees.  All in all, we cleared an area of roughly 15 square-meters.  I suspect that this is probably larger than the plot of Costa Rican rainforest which my 4th-grade class had chipped in to protect all those years ago--I've been wanting to go see it ever since, I just hope some asshole tourists haven't cut that down, too.  Needless to say it was a somewhat bittersweet event as Rueben constructed the most amazing camp I had ever seen, and in record time at that.  There was a structure from which to suspend our nine hammocks, a series of benches to sit on, and even a table from which Rueben served us delicious fire-roasted chicken, rice, and fresh fruit.

 

It was hard not to be impressed by the jungle.  It was so dense, packed with many new types of trees and vines, and teeming with insects and spiders.  In trying to keep up with the pace of the group, I found it difficult to take it all in, or even begin to search for wildlife.  At the camp, however, there were big ants, small ants, fast ants and slow ants, ants that hurt when they bit, and ants that hurt more.  Tens of flies quickly honed in on the bag containing the chicken.  I heard a loud, deep hum which grew progressively louder, and eventually drowned out the constant sound of the distant birds and insects.  It was the sound of a huge beetle with blue, iridescent wings and a horn on it's head which soon landed nearby all the other flies.

 

After dinner, I retreated to my hammock, under the protection of a mosquito net.  The net managed to keep me safe from the threats of the jungle, at least for the first four hours of sleep...In the middle of the night, I was woken up to the sound of screams and heavy breathing coming from my neighbors.  I had the distinct impression that I'd just been struck hard in the back by something large and strong; I was startled and disoriented, wondering who or what was attacking our camp, and what blow was to follow.  I lay motionless, and began to realize I was on the ground.  An instant earlier, the support beam which kept our hammocks suspended, and kept the ground at bay about a meter away from my body had snapped, at which point the earth took the opportunity to seek revenge and race towards me, picking up its pace at 9.81m/s^2.  Fortunately, I narrowly missed the remnants of the thin tree trunks during my fall, which certainly would have hurt.  Rueben found a sturdier tree to cut down, and we were back to sleeping in our precariously hung beds within 30 minutes.

 

The next day we took a short jungle tour, where we learned what trees were used to build things, which ones echoed loudly when hit to signal for help should you need it, which vines were poisonous enough to kill a man in a few seconds if any of its sap entered the blood, and which ones contained enough water to satisfy your thirst.  He pointed out the largest moth I'd ever seen, and coaxed a massive bird-eating spider out of it's hole for us to view (think the menacing villain from Arachnophobia).

 

Even better than the shade, the temperate waters of the Rio Negra provided relief from the sweltering heat and humidity of the Amazon.  On day one, I was admittedly terrified of what lie beneath the surface of the black waters.  When the wind wasn't blowing, the water looked like a sheet of glass, reflecting all that was above.  It was hard to tell where the trees ended and the water began, and what creatures might lie beneath.  I eventually overcame my fear, and remain unscathed by piranha, cayman, anacondas, and even the dreaded "penis fish", as I call it, which I'm told painfully takes residence in your urethra should you happen to pee in its general vicinity.

 

Overall, the trip was great.  I have some good pictures to share about my adventures, and I'll be uploading them to my shutterfly account (adambreich.shutterfly.com ) since it takes too much time to upload them directly to the blog.