Heading into the jungle

At 7 am we’re in a van hurtling through Manaus with our traveling companions, a young German couple and a French business man. With us is our multilingual guide, Antonio/Anthony/Antoine who, skinny and with straggling long great hair, looks like a former rock musician and has many war stories.

First stop is a small harbor, where a long skiff with two rows of seats under a metal roof awaits us. We head out to cross the Amazon River (Solimas) and the Rio Negro to the famous “meeting of the waters”, where Antonios instructs us to trails a hand though the caramel and dark tea colored water, to sense the marked difference in temperature. “No piranhas,” he promises.

Next we enter a wetland, where the clumps of vegetation mirrored in the still, deep water, do no reveal they are fully grown trees. The depth is at least 6 meters and this is an area where big alligators and snakes live. As if on cue, I see a big snout emerge from the waters, to quickly disappear again.

After more than an hour we reach land, where a dark red bus is waiting to drive us to yet another, smaller boat. The last boat ride takes more than an hour, again though inundates areas and we arrive at the hotel at 11.30. There’s a lot going on there and the staff brusquely commands us to drop our bags in our room (which turns out to be rather far away) and to return as quickly as we can to get into another boat for a picnic lunch in the forest, followed by a visit to a caboclo home. We’re tired and overwhelmed, consent to the lunch, but insist on having to rest after that and explain we’ll set our own pace from now on.

We lounge at the pool, a floating dock set in the river, protected by a sturdy wire mesh, so you can bathe in the dark water without fearing a cayman joining you.

Dinner is a communal affair, where we meet people in our group and our indiginous guide, Felipe. Then we crash in our blissfully airconditioned hut set right on the river.