Brazil

Tomorrow we are off to Jerioacoara, a beach town 6 hours from here, which has been rated one of the top ten beaches in the world. It is really difficult this traveling...so many beaches to discover and so many hammocks to relax in. But that is the end of our beach days until we head back to the coast at the end of May. Kate is terrified she is going to lose her tan. As an English citizen, the best and most prized thing taken home after a vacation is a tan. This is the first time in her life that her legs are tan! After Jeri, we head to Belem, the mouth of the Amazon and will take a 7-day trip on a boat with only a hammock for accommodations. Have no idea how this will be because we have yet to meet someone who has done it. But we are looking forward to a whole other part of the trip - the interior of Brazil....

April 30 - Manaus, Brazil (Heart of the Amazon River and jungle)

I am crawling into my 10th month of travel and only have 7 weeks left in South America. Although I will be sad to be at the end of my trip, I am certainly looking forward to the comforts of home: drinking water directly out of the tap, speaking English, throwing toilet paper in the toilet instead of the garbage pail, talking on the phone, eating bagels! But that is still 7 weeks away which 7 times longer than most Americans go on vacation. I do not know how people do it!

We arrived in Manaus yesterday after a 5 day boat ride up the Amazon from Belem and a thirty hour bus ride from Fortaleza to Belem. Brazil is huge, larger than the continental United States, so there are large distances to cover. Our thirty-hour bus ride was better than expected. I guess when I am prepared for a long journey it does not seem as bad as when there are unexpected surprises like cancellations and breakdowns that can lead to a long journey. There were many children on the bus and that is common in South America. What is not common is to actually hear the children, even on very long rides. They are just used to sitting for extended periods and never cry, whine, or complain. Can you imagine an American child on a thirty hour bus ride with absolutely nothing to do? Complete chaos... Anyway, this bus was the exception, unfortunately, and there were two kids on the bus who ran up and down the aisles for hours to the point where we were ready to throw them out the window!

Belem is a port city on the mouth of the mighty Amazon River which is the largest river in the world, not the longest, the largest, in volume. The river system contains 12 times the amount of water in the Mississippi River. 12 billion litres flow down the river every minute which is enough to supply New York with drinking water for 60 years! (facts courtesy of Lonely Planet) The Amazon is not one river, but 1,000's of tributaries called igarapes. There are over 50,000 miles of river and depths of up to 360 feet enabling large boats to ply the Amazon and bring goods all the way to Peru. Parts of the river were so wide that it felt we were sometimes on a bay or ocean. The river flows through the jungle where the roads are impassable, if there are any roads at all. Therefore, the river is the major form of transport in this part of Brazil and we saw huge cargo boats with 60 to 70 eighteen-wheeler trucks on board carrying all sorts of goods to various places- an amazing sight.

The Amazon River contains 20 percent of all the world's fresh water and the surrounding 5 million square kilometres of jungle provides 20 percent of the world's oxygen. So, what is all this fuss about losing the rainforest about then? Well, the facts are really unbelievable and you have to be here to believe it. Although the forest is immense, the Brazilian government wants to exploit and cut down the forest in order to make money. In 1995, an area the size of Belgium was destroyed and this jungle is irreplaceable and invaluable. The irony is that the land cleared for ranches and farming cannot support agriculture for long so therefore more land must be cleared. This is leading to extinction of many animals and plants. In a few hours walk of the Amazon jungle, there are more species of plants than in all of Europe. It is so different to know all these facts and than see the beauty of the area and think, maybe, in twenty or thirty years this will not be here at all. Tragic... Somehow, seeing the numbers in Times Square click every second detailing the miles of rainforest lost every second does not have the same impact as actually seeing the rainforest and knowing it may someday be gone for good. Not that I have any answers. But being aware is the first step.

During our five day boat trip down the Amazon, the Brazilians did not seem to grasp the importance of conservation and thought the river was a giant garbage can to hold their empty beer and soda bottles and plastic cups and could not understand why we got upset when they threw garbage over the side of the boat.

About the boat......... well, Kate and I were a bit worried about this trip, especially for safety reasons. We had heard there was lots of theft on the boats because when you sleep in a hammock on board there is nowhere to lock up your stuff. So, we decided to get a more expensive cabin (100 dollars for five days including food) for our five-day trip and it proved to be a wise decision. The hammock area was crowded, loud, and bright. Our cabin was small but clean and we could lock it. We also thought we would be bored silly but this was never the case. The many curious Brazilians on board made the trip entertaining and gave us a chance to learn more Portuguese. We met loads of great people and had many laughs. The days were spent just watching the jungle slide by and looking for wildlife, like fresh-water dolphins. There are not many people living along the river and the few shacks that we saw were not much more than planks of wood with no windows. The first day there were loads of people in dugout canoes trying to hitch a ride on the boat. The paddled up quickly to our boat and then tried to grab on - it was amazing to watch and always looked like their boats would capsize in the boat's wake, but most managed to grab hold and secure their boats for a ride up the river. The middle of the day was scorching and we either sat in the shade or under the outdoor showers on the top deck with the rest of the Brazilians.