The Amazon - Really Big Trees

After a couple of days relaxing on beaches, eating good food, and enjoying our air conditioning, we suddenly realised that this wasn't exactly the authentic Amazon rainforest experience we were expecting. In many ways it was much much better than the experience we were expecting, but we thought we'd better go and check out some hardcore jungle at some point in any case ... at least for a couple of hours or so.

Originally we were considering spending a couple of nights with a traditional rubber tapper family in the heart of the Amazon. However the logistics of such a trip looked like a nightmare, especially as we only had 4 days in and around the area before we had to catch a boat on to Belem. So we settled for visiting a community for a few hours on a boat tour. Looking at the conditions we have been staying in, I think we made the right choice. Hey - we'd already lived in dense rainforest in Belize for two months - there was definitely no call to do it again.



We got on a boat early in the morning and eased on up the river for a few hours, marvelling at the banks of pristine beach backed by jungle that we passed en route. Finally we stopped outside a little village in the Floresta National do Tapajós, an area famous for its huge trees. Here our guide, going by the name of Mario, told us to disembark. We were in beach clothes and flip flops at this point, but we had our jungle gear with us in a rucksack. We asked Mario if we needed to change at this point. "No no," he said. "We will just be going for a little walk now." He then handed us a two litre bottle of water to carry, which we thought odd for just a little walk, but Mario himself was barefoot, so we assumed everything would be ok.

We got out and waited on the outskirts of the village, while Mario "found" the guide who was to show us around. The problem was, he didn't seem to be there. After half and hour, Mario came back saying that the guide had gone AWOL, but he'd found someone else who could take us. Our substitute guide took one look at us then shouted something in Portuguese. This was translated for us by a German girl in our party who happened to speak Portuguese. Apparently he said: "Why are these people not wearing proper clothing? They will be walking through the jungle for over 4 hours." When we questioned Mario about the so called “little walk”, he said it would be more like 3 hours not 4. I seemed to remember from a couple of years back, that a three hour trek through dense jungle in the scorching heat could never really be described as “little”. Also, for some reason I was slightly more inclined to believe our substitute guide rather than Mario. So, now that we knew the full extent of the walk, we asked Mario if we could return to the boat to change. Apparently we couldn’t – it had left. Mario gestured to the empty patch of river where the boat had been. It was not coming back until after our trek.

Eventually, despite being poorly attired, our substitute guide said he would take us and we set off into the rainforest. Mario himself held back a bit, saying he had to "do something" first. So we began without him, trekking through snake and spider infested jungle, in just our flip flops and shorts.

Speaking of spiders, about 10 minutes in we encountered our first specimen of Amazon wildlife. Naturally it was an enormous tarantula – an animal that Liz has a profound fear of. Around this point, Mario came bounding up to us, no longer unshod, but now sporting a pair of very professional looking jungle boots. Various theories were aired as to how he had come into possession of them – the most convincing being that he had returned to the boat. Mario just shrugged.

He became much more enthusiastic however when he learnt about Liz’s fear of spiders, and set about attempting to “cure” her of her fear then and there. His method involved picking up the recently shed skin of the tarantula (which of course Liz mistook for the real thing), then attempting to wave it about in her face whilst shouting “Nao peligroso! Nao peligroso!” [translation: “Not dangerous! Not dangerous!”] Somehow this failed to work, and Liz’s arachnophobia remained intact ... which was a shame because we then ran into another 3 tarantulas on our walk, and numerous other smaller spiders.

We continued on through the forest. Our walk took in both secondary and primary rainforest. We began with secondary forest, which actually looked identical to the Belizean jungle, just with the added mystique of being “The Amazon”. We according gazed at every tree and plant with an added sense of wonder. This sense of wonder was aided by our substitute guide who, in comparison to Mario, was brilliant. Every so often he would stop, jump off the trail into the forest, then bring back some flower, plant, vine or fruit, that was traditionally used for perfume, insect repellent, rubber production, snake bite antidote, used in cosmetics, could be eaten, etc, etc.

His party piece was taking a large coconut type fruit, splitting it with his machete to reveal a dozen or so smaller nuts, then splitting these smaller nuts in terrifying fashion – gripping one side of them tightly with his fingers, then chopping at the exposed part of the nut just millimetres from his fingertips. Once split, this nut would reveal a powdery substance that smelt like coco, and also a large maggot type grub that wriggled around on the palm of his hand. Apparently these are very tasty fried in butter! He also showed us some rubber trees, tapped by the local community, as well as a large strikingly coloured bug:

After a couple of hours we passed into primary rainforest – something we had not experienced much of before. There was a stark difference between the two; the primary forest had very little ground cover, and consequently you could see a lot further at ground level. Also, the canopy here was much denser, making it darker, cooler and more pleasant to walk through. The final difference was the clincher, and the main reason why we were on this walk in the first place ... the trees were huge! We spent ages taking pictures of them. Here's my favourite:


At this point we had completed half the walk. It had taken 3 hours. We were knackered ... though through careful avoidance of biting insects, and extensive application of repellent, our bare toes were still more or less intact. Our substitute guide suggested we quicken the pace, so as to be somewhat near his original estimate of 4 hours. The walk then became a bit of a slog. The terrain became a bit steeper. We became tired, hot and dehydrated. Our flip flops began to fail us. There was much cursing and stubbing of toes. Finally, after two hours (that felt like two days) we arrived back at the village. The boat was in a slightly different place than before, so a short canoe trip through flooded forest was required. Mercifully this was very relaxing, and before long we glimpsed our boat from between the trees. It was anchored just next to an idyllic sandbar.



What a great place to find yourself after 5 hours hiking through rainforest! We chilled out in the water for a bit, before tucking into a well deserved lunch of freshly prepared fish. It was then time to motor on home, and this was when Mario finally came into his own. Throughout the return journey he plied us all with caipirinhas – a cocktail consisting of cachaca rum, lime juice, sugar and ice - whilst the sun set in the background.

Then, truer to form, he rigged up a TV and amplifier and played a video of some truly awful Brazilian pop singer. However, even this assault on the senses couldn’t ruin our day. We had experienced the hardships of the Amazon rainforest, encountered “dangerous” wildlife on the way (well tarantulas look dangerous anyway), and had made it back in time for a good night sleep in our air conditioned room. Perfect.