Lockers on the Loose World Trip

March 27th – April 1st

Jungle Trip (Iguana Tours), Day One

I stupidly forgot to change the time on my camera, which was also serving as my alarm clock, when we arrived in Manaus from Belem so it sounded at 5.30am, frustratingly early for an 8am collection (you'd think I would have learned by now).

We were collected from our hostel and brought to the edge of the Rio Negro where we met our guide's son, Gerry Junior. Gerry Junior studies in Manaus but returns to his family in the jungle on some weekends to help out. We boarded a speed boat with him and shot across the river, stopping briefly to see the point where the Negro River and the Solimoes River converge (red-brown water meets light-brown water,) to create The Amazon River. Once across, a car drove us about 45 minutes to another river where, after a brief stop for coconut juice, we boarded a motorised canoe for the final hour which brought us to our jungle lodge. It was a fantastic journey and as we sat on that final low canoe, so close to the water and in touch with our surroundings, I lost myself in several over-flowing thoughts as my eyes gazed at flooded trees (the water in the Amazon can raise by 10m in the rainy season), birds flying overhead, riverbank dwellings and a vast expanse of water.

Our jungle lodge consisted of a wooden house tied to the banks of the river with a deck out in front. Behind these stood individual huts, one of which Helen and I were allocated. We were welcomed with a caipirinha and were then served up a lunch of fish, rice and salad. We had a couple of hours free time after eating so took a dip into the river, nearly getting taken downstream with the current, and relaxed on the deck.

At 3pm we left with a French guy, Jerome, who had arrived at the lodge the previous day, Gerry and Pedro (Gerry's helping hand) to go into the jungle for the night. When we reached our base, Gerry worked on putting our hammocks up and Jerome, Helen and I tried to start a fire. Most of the wood in the area was damp so it took a while but with Pedro's supply of harder, dry wood we managed to get a nice flame going. Chickens were then put on spears to roast and Jerome, Helen and I went to explore the surrounding area. I wasn't aware at the time but Helen told me in retrospect that that first walk through the jungle was one of the scariest moments of her life. She had images in her head that everything around her was poisonous and felt extremely unsafe. The poor lamb!

Over dinner around the fire, I asked Gerry to tell us his life story. He recounted that in his youth he had helped some Dutchmen smuggle diamonds out of Brazil. As a native of Guyana and having been brought up in the area, he was the ideal candidate for the job: he spoke perfect English and had in-depth knowledge about the mining region and surrounding jungle. During early adulthood he worked for five star travel companies and then in the 1980s he realised there was a gap in the market for backpackers and established his own business.

Once we had digested our dinner and Gerry's stories, Helen, Gerome and I set off on a night excursion with Pedro in a paddle boat to go spear fishing. It was quite something to be weaving in and out of flooded tree areas, the fishes' favourite hangouts apparently, in the darkness. We knocked branches overhead as we passed through tight gaps and, much to my horror, knocked whatever was on the branches into the canoe. After passing a tarantula on one tree, I asked Pedro to shine the torch into the boat and we discovered that in addition to the two fish, which Pedro had speared with great skill, we had also caught a number of large spiders, although thankfully no tarantulas. I stood up straight away but then realised that I jeopardised tipping the canoe so swiftly sat back down again. Once we were back out on the open river, under a sky full of stars, my heart rate began to return to normal.  I had a go at paddling but kept making us go in circles so gave the oar back to Pedro who could paddle with one hand, hold the torch in the other and look for fish all at same time.

Jungle Trip, Day Two

I woke a few times during the night with the sound of mosquitoes but think they were on the outside of the net, least I didn't get bitten which was a relief.

Pedro and Gerry got up with the light of day to make the fire. Helen and I followed shortly afterwards as we couldn't sleep any longer. We were not the only creatures waking up of course. As coffee was being made, we could hear Howler monkeys in the distance crying out. It was the first time I heard these monkeys and I found the noise fascinating and penetrating; almost an eerie sound like some kind of background noise to a horror film. I think they are actually the loudest land animal. What a wonderful reminder that we were visitors on their territory.

After a breakfast of bread, boiled eggs, jam and butter we went in the canoe to visit an indigenous family. When we arrived, however, we discovered that the parents and most of children were out; they had gone to Manaus for the day – a twice yearly occasion! Luckily, we were still able to look around the grounds and meet a couple of the older children who had remained behind. A variety of trees the family had planted meant they were self-sufficient in limes, lemons, wild passion fruit, cashew nuts, Brazil nuts, and coffee beans. They also cultivated a manioc plantation. Manioc (cassava) is one of the staple accompaniments in Brazilian dishes. Other crops, such as corn and rice, are not successful in the jungle as they get eaten by animals. Manioc is actually very poisonous but over the years the native Indians have developed a way of extracting the poison. This family still used traditional methods for preparing the root for consumption. 

Back at the lodge, I fancied seeing how far up the river I could swim. It was extremely hard work against the current but a lot of fun drifting back down the river to our lodge.

In the afternoon we went monkey spotting with Pedro in a traditional paddle boat. We entered a flooded wood area, paddled through large areas of floating grass and dodged several branches. We saw 4 toucans, different groups of black and brown monkeys, an eagle, a sloth, yellow finches, dark blue birds (let's not get too technical here) and lots of termite nests. We then returned to the lodge to watch the sun going down from the deck with a beer in hand and we glimpsed a dolphin heading downstream (which had to be pointed out to us by Gerry as Helen and I were so engrossed in conversation we nearly missed it!). What a wonderful afternoon. 

Gerry's friend, Mathias (a Swiss guy living in Chile), and his French girlfriend arrived at the jungle lodge that evening. We headed out with them on a canoe for that night's activity: caiman catching. Pedro stood at the front of the canoe with a torch and indicated where the caiman  were with flashes of the torch to his brother at the back. His brother then directed the canoe to the right spot and turned off the engine. We held our breaths as Pedro stealthily crouched, plunged his hands into the water and, in one swift movement, extracted a caiman from the water. When he had caught two, he handed me one so that his hands were free to go again. With the the first slightest wriggle, my heart rate increased about three fold and I almost dropped the boy which Helen thought was hilarious. 

Back at the lodge, Gerry explained the difference between caiman and alligators to us (in short, all caiman are alligators but not all alligators are caiman!). We polished off some fish that had been caught earlier in the day for dinner and finished the day puffing on cigars which Matthias had bought for Gerry.

Jungle Trip, Day Three

 I must have slept well as I didn't hear the downpour nor even the Howler monkeys which the others commented on over breakfast.

Gerry took us on a very informative walk through the jungle in the morning. We learned that the soil in the jungle is infertile so the roots of the trees tend to grow horizontally across the ground. The variety of vegetation was astonishing and over generations native Indians have found a use for most plants and animals in their habitat, be it for medicine, food or material. We were shown the trees where hard wood, soft wood and red wood come from; barks with drinking water inside; paraffin trees which, when lit, produce a flame; a bark from which Indians can make threads and rope; and a walking tree where the main part of the tree abandons its trunk and over time it consequently moves across the ground.

Gerry had a vast amount of knowledge about the jungle. He showed us how to make a roof from palm leaves (waterproof), demonstrated that it is OK to eat the worms that live in the shell of one of the nuts  (we all had a nibble on what was to be quite a sweet, coconut-flavoured worm) and pointed out the so-called “Prostitute Lips” which is a flower whose petals turn into leaves. It rained quite heavily for most of the time, our ponchos ripped almost straight away and Helen and I (well, more me actually) got a little bit obsessed with trying to make a David Attenborough style video (several takes of the sentence “so here we are, deep in the Amazon rain forest.”). We rode back to our lodge under extremely dark clouds and, soaked to the skin and with torn ponchos that made us look a bit tramp-like, were introduced to a whole new bunch of people who had just arrived at the lodge.

The afternoon then started with piranha fishing. The boys among the group started to develop a rather hilarious (for us not the fish) technique of getting a fish on a line and throwing it back over their heads onto the roof. By so doing, the fishes were knocked out and would then slide down off the roof into a bucket giving the effect that it was raining piranhas. Helen let out a shriek when she caught one and screamed at me, “Get the camera!”. I failed to catch one single piranha but had immense fun trying and provided enough entertainment for the others as I wildly flung back my line, repeatedly losing any fish I did manage to catch.

Before dinner, we set out with Gerry again, this time in search of dolphins, monkeys and birds. Unfortunately the rain seemed to keep all the animals at bay; even the birds and insects seemed quiet. The only thing which we could really hear were frogs. Just as the rain came to stop, we did manage to spot gray river dolphins and caught a glimpse of a pink dolphin which suddenly made the boat excursion very worthwhile. The boys from the new group of tourists also appeared in a boat alongside ours and showed us a sloth they had knocked down from a tree. It was very wet and looked sedated and apathetic but apparently they are like this, whether they have been knocked down from a tree in the rain or not!

It was piranha soup, omelet and rice for dinner. Sami, an Indian from Guyana, showed us one card trick after another and then the new group went out to catch caiman. One was brought back to the lodge and it was demonstrated to us all how sensitive caimans are – they can be paralysed by just stroking their stomachs. I think it's the closest we got to seeing a caiman at the height of sexual arousal!

Our last evening in the jungle was spent drinking beer and playing silly games with the other backpackers. At some point in the middle of blowing cards off a wine bottle and trying to guess how many brothers and sisters each person at the table had, Gerry invited Helen and I for one extra night excursion. We  were taken in a canoe into the middle of the nearby lake with Gerry, Mathias and their girlfriends. Gerry had his guitar and could play just about any song on request. So there we sat, under a sky full of stars, drinking beer and singing songs in the middle of a lake in the Amazon. The only other noise which could be heard above the music was that of some crocodiles. Gerry was able to make the same sound so there was a fascinating moment when Gerry and the crocodiles seemed to be having a conversation.  When we got back to the lodge, the generator had gone off so the others had been forced to go to bed. The party in the jungle was over.

Jungle Trip, Day Four

On our last day in the jungle, we woke up to find that our riverside lodge had been swamped by an enormous piece of floating grass. This had to be removed before we could set off on the morning excursion ... but easier said than done. Rather than moving the grass, the whole lodge itself was to be moved. It was quite spectacular to watch. All hands were on board as various men, who I'd never seen before, appeared to help untie the house from the bank. When the lodge, Gerry's home and business, started to drift into the middle of the river, Gerry's arms seem to flap more wildly. My words of advice to him, “Gerry, don't worry, just go with the flow” (bu bum) were probably not really appreciated. The grass was eventually dislodged and Gerry shouted instructions at men in canoes to coordinate maneuvering his home slowly back to its original position on the bank.

Our last excursion was to see a rubber plantation. As rubber can now be made synthetically, the business of extracting rubber from trees, pouring it into a mold and heating it over a fire is somewhat obsolete. Still, it's good to know the origins of the condom business and we got to see a monkey with her baby scurry over our heads which was a bonus.