Brazil

We left Mamiraua early in the morning to be in time for the 12 hour fast boat to Manaus. We covered the almost 700km in 11 hours and stepped ashore in hot and chaotic Manaus. We found this to be an expensive place and left the next day after doing the usual computer admin and sending another CD with back-up photos home.

One again we found ourselves on an overnight bus, this time to Boa Vista in northern Brazil. Once again Johan feared for our lives as the bus driver was racing into the darkness...

In Boa Vista, we changed unto another bus for the last 2.5 hours to the Venezuelan border. Border formalities were a breeze. In retrospect I think we must have been an odd sight - 2 travellers walking from Brazil to Venezuela with just backpacks, all the other people were in cars and were searched - we just got our stamp and walked into Venezuela.

Just over the border we found a taxi to the town of Santa Elena, some 15kms away. What a pleasant change - we could understand everyone again (Spanish vs Portuguese in Brazil) and the people were much friendlier. General living costs seemed lower as well.

The transfer from Tefe to Mamiraua took 1.5 hours in a fast speedboat. We were joined by 2 other travellers, Marcos and Ara, a Spanish couple living in Switzerland. We were the only visitors as the airport at Tefe was closed due to the large flocks of vultures attracted by the nearby garbage dump! Few tourists would be willing to spend a day (at least) on a hot sweaty boat to Tefe in order to visit the reserve. This interesting chain of events made it possible for us to come on very short notice in their high season.

The Uakari Foating Lodge consists of 5 floating bungalows connected by board walks to the main building where there is a library and the dining room. Upon arrival, we were greeted by the deafening sounds of the red howler monkeys. It echoes over and engulfs the atmosphere at the reserve - in a way it sounds ominous, not unlike an approaching storm!

The Mamiraua reserve is a flooded forest reserve where the water covers almost the entire forest for 8 months of the year. Water levels rise and fall by as much as 12 meters over the year. Our visit coincided with the beginning of the dry season with a rapidly declining water level - it dropped some 4 metres since June!

Our days were spent on activities in the mornings and afternoons with some very good food in between. We went on nature walks, animal watching walks, canoe tours, sunset cruises, night walks, fishing trips, etc. It was fantastic!

The reserve's claim to fame is that the bizarre looking crimson red faced uakari monkey with its shaggy white coat is only found in this reserve and nowhere else. We saw 3 groups of them and also the super slow moving sloths, hanging from trees. On our night walk, we saw a huge beautifully coloured coral snake, one of the most poisonous snakes in the world. This was on the same trail where we observed fresh jaguar prints.

We have also visited the boto research project. This is the local name for the pink Amazon river dolphins, which we saw on numerous occasions.

We were amazed at the abundance of wildlife in this reserve. We also visited Sao Jose, one of the local communities. These communities profit from involvement in the reserve. During our stay we were joined by 2 sets of television journalists. One was doing a story for SBT, the 2nd largest TV network in Brazil. The other is Brazil's own Discovery Channel, called Expediciones who hitched a lift with the Brazilian navy who also came by for a short visit. We enjoyed the interaction with the film crews.

We absolutely loved our time in the reserve and our host and naturalist guide, Otavio, was excellent. We were sad to leave.

Culture shock: in Peru you have mototaxis, in Tabatinga motorbikes for taxis and in Manaus only taxis! Local people love a dish called farinha, a crunchy (may I add tasteless) flour made from some Amazonian root that they sprinkle over their food. Manaus has an opera theatre, dating from the rubber boom period, some 100 years ago. Some of the rubber barons were so rich that their clothes were sent to Britain to be ironed.

We had purchased two hammocks in Peru and were now ready to use them. We made our way to the harbour and secured a spot on a cargo/passenger ship heading to Manaus. We bought tickets to Tefe ("Two days, maybe three days - perhaps two and a half") - about 700 km down the Amazon river and about 2/3 of the way to Manaus. We could only afford hammock space but a very friendly American couple (on their way to South Africa!) held the bulk of our baggage for us in their cabin. Besides that Johan did the usual antics to secure our small bags to a pole - so much so that we struggled to access our stuff! Just before the boat was about to leave about 120 locals streamed in and hung their hammocks alongside ours - a very colourful and unforgettable 2.5 days followed.

We spent most of our time in conversation with the other travellers on board - an American couple, a Malaysian couple, two British guys and a Colombian. The conversation as well as a few cans of beer made the trip quite bearable - even enjoyable! The food was mostly edible and the scenery was beautiful. Nights were lightning shows. Snaking down this giant river for so long gives one such a tangible appreciation for the sheer enormity of the legendary Amazon jungle. Every now and then we would stop at some port and load/unload all sorts of wares and passengers.

No one could know for sure at any given time exactly when we would arrive at Tefe. It was only a small handful of us that were heading for this port and someone in Peru had mentioned something about needing a further connection to get there. At about 11 pm we arrived somewhere. We are still not sure where, but thanks to our Colombian friend, Luis, who could speak a bit of Portuguese we managed to figure out in the nick of time that this is where we should get off. Our new friends bid us a worried farewell as we literally had to jump off the edge of the boat onto the patio of some ill-lit floating house along with about 8 other passengers (one of them a dwarf). A friendly local dentist called Silvano informed us that it would not be possible to catch the connection that night, but only the next morning. We walked the empty streets, giant and bizarre insects swarming everywhere, and before we knew it we were booked into a cheap hotel along with the dentist and his friend.

Janine had been craving maize porridge of all things. Silvano took us to the market this morning where Janine was delighted to find none other than maize porridge - excellent! After the breakfast we had to travel 6kms by bike to a beach where boats departed for the last 15 minute stretch to Tefe. The breakfast, all the new insects, and then the high-speed motorbike ride through the early morning jungle was all it took to delight Janine. When we arrived in Tefe Johan was equally thrilled to move into our cheap hotel with aircon! So both of us are well and happy and were very well received by our jungle lodge representatives. We head into the jungle tomorrow...

The 12 hour speed boat ride was great as was the little town where we got stamped out of Peru - very laid back and viby typical Amazonian town. Tabatinga (this is now Brazil which suddenly makes things expensive and Portuguese!) was a bit draining at first. Extremely hot and Humid. Now the mototaxis were just small motorbikes with no carriages (although some drivers wear vests with handles built into their sides!) and car taxis are very expensive. We managed to find hotel, immigration, a bank ATM that would accept our card and even a coconut or 4 and settled into our hotel. Amazing how things can change so suddenly when you cross a border...