Forty Shades of Green on the River of Life

Arrival

As the plane slipped bumpily between cotton wool clouds before landing at Iquitos, Peru, I caught my first glimpses of the Rio Solimões, aka the Amazon. Over the next nine days I would travel 2000 km by boat to Manaus in Brazil, and venture into the watery fringes of jungles covering an area almost as big as Australia.

The Rain Forest Near Iquitos

My first boat, the Amazon Queen, stopped at one of the more up-market jungle lodges. I caught a fast launch, a tuk-tuk across an island and finally another fast launch up the Napo River to spend a few days at the ExplorNapo Reserve and lodge.

Charlie the tame capybara met me at the small jetty. So that’s what a rodent the size of a plump dog looks like. Gaudy macaws squawked from the tree tops. Glossy green gourds the size of round melons hung improbably from trees.

That afternoon I headed into the jungle along a muddy path soggy with wet leaves and rotting vegetation.

Jungle soils are surprisingly thin and infertile because the high rainfall leaches out essential minerals and nutrients. The ecosystem relies on rapid decay of fallen vegetation and uptake of the released nutrients to fuel new growth. A myriad insects, ants, fungi and bacteria orchestrate the cycle.

There is no breeze and only dim greenish light filters through the dense, layered vegetation. Forty Shades of Green, as Johnny Cash sang all those years ago. Orchids and epiphytes cling to branches. There are a few familiar garden plants, but here they are super-sized. The humidity is stifling and everything feels damp and clammy.

You see surprisingly few birds and animals in the jungle. They hear and smell us coming and either move away or remain still and silent in the shadows until we pass. Occasionally you hear the faraway wail of howler monkeys.

My guide suddenly stopped and pointed at what appeared to be a few large dead leaves among other leafy litter on the track. We had almost stumbled over a fer-de-lance, the most dangerous snake in South America. So don't stroll around in sandals – and walk behind the guide.

The guide can also protect you from other perils, such as the ant tree which rains angry ants if knocked. The ants protect the tree from foraging insects and animals and the tree provides the ants with a home. My guide casually remarked that the bite of the tree ant is fatal as I frantically thrashed around after having dislodged a swarm in a test shake of their tree. Very funny!

The Orchestra at Sunset

At sunset the insect and frog orchestra strikes up. Chirps, squeaks, hisses, buzzes and trills merge into a multi-toned jungle symphony. One frog makes a loud noise like two steel rods striking together. Another sounds like a very tuneful outboard motor, or maybe a gentle jackhammer. I sat rapt in my verandah dress circle, lit by the soft glow of kerosene lamps, listening to a concert of invisible performers.

In the flooded forest below my room, small fish rose and nipped at the surface to feed, making tiny blips and spreading rain drop ripples in the water. A predatory egret landed on an overhanging twig and the fish fled to safer depths. Eventually they returned and the watchful egret picked them off with rapid, well-aimed thrusts of its long beak.

Then the sunset show was over. The performers were either exhausted or had found mates – or had become prey to silent hunters of the night.

Meeting the Wildlife

I went out on the river wildlife spotting by torchlight. Fishing spiders clung to tree trunks just above the water line waiting for a meal. A small snake was curled up among the leaves in a tree. A kingfisher slept on another precarious twig so it would be woken by the vibrations of an approaching predator. Below, the red eyes of caiman gleamed in the torch light, silently waiting.

Next day, a host of golden butterflies appeared from nowhere in a fluttering, glowing cloud until they were swept away by an air current. The moment was over in a few seconds, as if it were only a magical dream of daffodils in the sky.

A tiny orange and black poison frog no bigger than a fingernail hops through leaf litter on the track. Unraveling the way curare acts on the nervous system led to its use as a muscle relaxant in surgery and the development of better drugs for the purpose.

Later I saw river dolphins porpoising through the water. Pink dolphins have a mystical significance to many Indian people that has largely protected them from hunters.

Dolphin Stories

Dolphin stories abound, such as the one about a fisherman who became very angry with a dolphin that repeatedly stole fish from his net. One day he caught the dolphin in the act and beat it with a stick. When his wife gave birth shortly after, the child was half man, half dolphin in revenge for the beating.

In another story a woman was washing clothes by the river and crying over her no-good, drunken husband. Suddenly, a handsome man appeared and gently asked why she was so sad. She explained and the man hugged her until she was comforted. Then they both disappeared into the river and the woman was never seen again.

The River From Iquitos to Santa Rosa

After a few days in the jungle I caught the Cielito Lindo en route from Iquitos to Santa Rosa, three days downriver. The Cielito Lindo did not stop to collect passengers so we sped out in a fast boat to clamber aboard with our gear.

Dawn steals softly over the dark forest with orange-red reflections off the still, flat water. Birds start to call and swallows swoop and soar low over the mirrored surface. Long narrow commuter boats putter along loaded to the water line with passengers and produce. Women shelter under bright umbrellas. We wave and children wave back.

Thatched houses on stilts occupy small clearings pressed in by jungle and tangly vines. Crops are planted on muddy banks exposed by the falling river.

A dark black squall approaches. Grey curtains of curving rain fall from the squall line and fat drops dance upon the water, nearer and nearer. Torrential rain falls for 15 minutes or so, driving me under my poncho on the small boat we were using for piranha fishing.

Piranha Fishing

Everyone got soaked, so we went back to the Cielito Lindo and fished over the side instead. We caught large orange-bellied piranhas as quickly as we could throw lines in the water, then lined them up in a school on the deck and took pictures before eating them at dinner.

Piranhas are surprisingly common in the Amazon, but not the Hollywood Piranha that will instantly strip the flesh from a hand idly trailed in the water. Be alert but not alarmed. Indians use the saw-like teeth in the dried jaw of a piranha to sharpen the points of poison darts.

Where Peru, Colombia and Brazil Meet

The Cielito Lindo arrived at Santa Rosa, Peru, early one morning. A ten-minute boat ride across the Amazon brought us to Leticia, Colombia. I relaxed in a riverside café, drinking Colombian coffee and listening to a plaintive Spanish song sobbing from a drink stall across the road. Men sat in groups, talking and taking phone calls while cigarette smoke curled about their heads.

“Welcome to Brazil” said my driver as we sped down an unremarkable suburban street from Leticia to Tabatinga. There was no sign of any border, just normal houses and streets. We arrived at the official border post a few minutes later.

I had passed through three countries in the space of an hour or so.

Day 1 on the Itapuranga

I joined the MV Itapuranga for the 3 day trip from Tabatinga to Manaus. We left two hours late while the crew unloaded hundreds of floppy cartons of frozen chicken onto a truck. Occasionally a chook fell from a soggy carton and skittered icily across the decking.

The ship carries passengers as well as cargo. There are only 6 cabins for passengers, so most travellers sleep in hammocks slung closely together, almost touching, on two decks. Baggage is piled beneath the hammocks.

At first, people swing silently in their hammocks. Some passengers stick watchfully close to their baggage until they realize that no one is going to make off with their possessions while trapped on a boat in the middle of the Amazon. Not to mention being under the gaze of dozens of other watchful hammock dwellers.

People and Life Aboard the Itapuranga

After a day on the Itapuranga the reserve of departure softened and we exchanged pleasantries on deck and at communal meals. I met a girl going from Lima to Manaus to study biology who later asked me to pose with her for a photo on the bow.

A Columbian university student going to Sao Paulo to study photography offered me delectable Columbian sweets and helped me to buy the best bananas when we went ashore.

A big sign stretched across the stern railing said “NAO JOGUE LIXO NO RIO”. Not that anyone pays attention to it. Laughing drinkers sway and hug each other and hurl their empty cans over the side, along with food wrappers and fruit peel – at least until Ponti the big barman convinced them to throw their empties in the garbage bins on deck.

Kids on deck practice penalty shots at goal to pass the time. The goal posts are two big water-cooler bottles and the ball is an empty beer can. Most of the kids just kick for goal without thinking, but one boy of about ten knows how to disguise his shots. He nearly always fools the goal-keeper, but takes it all in his stride, never gloats and just looks cool as a cunning strike slams home. One little guy has just learned to walk but he kicks the beer can reasonably well. The only problem is he falls over after each kick. Another kid shrieks in a descending tone like a manic soccer commentator when he scores a goal.

On the first day the Itapuranga stopped at several villages to take on and discharge passengers and cargo. Despite people and cargo coming and going across the narrow plank gangway, it was all handled with the economy of familiarity. On the crowded shore, food and drink vendors did a brisk trade and fragrant cooking smells waft aboard.

We spent the remaining days without stopping. Occasionally, a fast launch raced out from the shore with stuff to sell or passengers to embark. The launch would come skillfully alongside the moving ship, someone would grab a rope flung aboard, and the business would be done very efficiently.

One boat came along side loaded with asie in drink-sized plastic bags. This provoked a buying frenzy and the entire stock sold in a few frantic minutes. Asie looks much like cocoa, but is made from the crushed flesh of fruits from a certain kind of tree. The glossy black seeds are used to make attractive necklaces. Asie is reputed to be an excellent health tonic. Brazilians love it.

At night a big moon slips mistily between the clouds. The engine throbs with a steady rhythmic beat, but up on the bow it is not loud enough to drown out the soft slap and hiss of water slipping along the hull and off the stern into a ripply, glowing vee that spreads into the humid night.

Nothing could be more conducive to contentment and sound sleep than lying in bed on such a ship on such a river, hearing and feeling the engine, while reflecting dreamily on the jungle, the dark waters and our steady progress into night and a new day.

Arrival at Manaus

The Itapuranga, which had become a familiar and friendly home, arrived at Manaus in the gathering darkness of early evening, the sky behind still blood-red in fading sunset. For the first time since leaving Tabatinga bright city lights shone across the water, illuminating all the activity of a busy port and its backdrop of lit-up buildings. It was welcoming but also touched with the melancholy wistfulness of parting.

Manaus is in the midst of the jungle at the confluence of the silty Rio Solimões and the black Rio Negro. It is a foreign body lodged in the Amazonian flesh that would be quickly devoured by the jungle but for the indefatigable efforts of the inhabitants to maintain it – just like the frenetic housekeeping of all those myriad ants scurrying through the jungle litter helping to build their own leafy city.

Saying Goodbye

The camaraderie of the Itapuranga melted away in the hubbub and confusion of arrival. We said hurried goodbyes and withdrew into our own preoccupations; scattering into the night and setting separate courses into new journeys. Lives that had briefly intersected in space and time drew apart once more.

A thousand kilometres downstream the great river finally enters the Atlantic via a myriad twisting mouths, but the coffee-coloured water remains visible from space far out from the land. Fresh water slowly mingles with the salty sea and the mighty Amazon is swallowed up in the greater immensity of the boundless ocean. Silt from the eroding Andes eventually sinks to the depths of the Atlantic, becoming part of the earth’s crust once more and completing a vast cycle that began eons ago in the Pacific Ocean when the mountains first reared up into the Paleozoic sky.

Floating logs and matted lilies from forests far upstream scatter like so many lost lives, setting lonely courses across the heedless sea until they find an unseen landfall on some distant shore – or decay and sink into the dark abyss.