The Jungle

The boat ride down the Rio Arara (a tributary
of the Rio Amazonas) to our jungle lodge

The long shallow skiff cut through the cold water of  a tributary of the Amazon, speeding  us to the jungle lodge. We (Ian, Sal and our new traveller pal Jin from Seoul, South Korea),  sat with our bags between our legs, looking out across the water to the open grasslands punctuated by trees. The landscape was not as thickly covered with jungle as I thought it would be. Rather a collection of sparse almost savannah like hillocks in parts.  The overwhelming feeling was of tranquil peace, the whir of the motorboat engine apart.

The Ararinha Jungle Lodge

Jin and Ian swimming in the river

We found the lodge on arrival to be a set of round wooden shacks. We were in the main (shared) dormitory. Simple beds with mosquito nets. A cafeteria downstairs. A few other travellers milling about. Our guide Sean (I am pretty sure this isn't his birth name but one based on his love of P Diddy aka Sean Combs...) told us he was taking us out to see the wildlife. And so we did, as the sun set we watched both grey and pink dolphins move and leap in pairs, playing and chasing one another, the water of the Amazon so purely reflective it gave the impression of an endless mirror. Water stalks took off and landed with their exaggerated syncopated action, the air was alive with the singing of birds.

If there was one thing I had always promised myself I would never do it was swim in the Amazon - infested as it is with crocodiles, swimming snakes, pirhana fish. But we couldn't turn it down, so pale and innocent it looked, and found it to be refreshing and cool, even if you could not see what was beneath your feet.

Below the canopy of the jungle

The next day we went for a hike through the forest, Sean always with his eyes forward and on his feet checking for snakes. They have had a few people bitten over the years, and this is rather unpleasant for him as it necessitates the catching and killing of the snake, and then the calming of the bitten through telling him/her that the snake is not deadly poisonous (even if it is) so they don't hyper ventilate and push the poison further into their system. After that he then needs to arrange for an emergency evacuation back to Manaus for anti-venom treatment. One of the guides at the camp still walks with a limp from a bite 3 years ago. So I can see the reason for Sean's cautiousness.

Arachnophobes, Look away now!! 

As we walked he would fish out tarantulas with his bare hands from inside logs and divots. Jin, our South Korean friend and intrepid photographer, would get close to the arachnids with his camera. All the more alarming when Sean said the tarantulas could jump 6 feet to sink their fangs in you. Still the tarantula didn't bite him, but I made sure I wouldn't be by standing behind him all the while he took photos.

Sean, with his machete close to hand made a bracelet
from the tree bark

Sean made Sal a bracelet from the bark of a tree, which she still has (I am about a month behind writing these), and we spent a breathless fifteen minutes running through the bush trying to spot a cappuccino monkey way up in the trees, which we did eventually.

Catch of the day- Amazon Piranha

In the afternoon we went out on the boat and made fishing rods out of canes and string with hooks baited with tiny pieces of beef which we sank the into the water. Piranhas were biting in no time and we pulled them out and put them in the boat, bleeding and showing protruding jagged fangs. We resisted the urge to swim. The next day Sean cooked them for lunch, pretty tasty (if fearsome looking) they were too.

...which made a tasty lunch

Sal has always been a succulent target for mosquitoes - quite good for myself as they ignore me completely for a tastier morsel. Sadly Sal had a huge reaction to being bitten by the Amazonian breed. Her arms and legs swelled up. And then, unfortunately, she got bitten three times on the eye. It was like she had gone four rounds with Mike Tyson. She has an impressive slide show (available on request) tracing the emergent swelling, and her face turning into a balloon. All better now though I am happy to say.



At night Sean took us out Cayman hunting. Something very easy to do in the dark as you only need to pass your torch over the water to spot the fiery orange reflection of crocodile eyes. On approaching the cayman fixates on the torch light and becomes almost hypnotised, and as a result Sean was able to just pick one up and hold it from the neck. He passed it round the boat so we could all hold this smooth, sleek, vicious and cold creature, which also manages to be quite beautiful in an efficient sort of way. I was worried Sal would drop the beast and it would bite my toes off, then when I was holding I was even more terrified that I would drop it and it would bite Sal's toes off. Luckily neither scenario came to pass.


A floating house, with the local football team's kit
drying in the Amazon sun

 

On the last day we went out to meet the people who live around the lodge. Some houses are lashed to logs so they can rise and fall with the water level, which varies extremely from season to season. Others go for the stilt option and their abodes look imperiously down on the river. Electricity only arrived here in 2009, and that - alongside government programme and schooling - has brought the community of Rio Arara and others across Amazonas closer to modern life.  Flat screen TVs abound, as do stereos and satellite dishes, even if none of the houses have what you might call a "proper" bathroom.





A jackfruit - tasted somewhere between a
banana and passionfruit

Before modernity arrived life was simple - so bountiful that a fisherman can put down his net for an afternoon and catch 20 or more large fish, enough to feed his entire family and have more to sell besides. Fruit of a bewildering and tasty varieties grows on every bit of dry land. The weather is clement and cool. Now there are welfare payments like the bolsa familia, and fishing unions which pay people to not fish certain species to protect them, and everyone is saving money for advancement by working for the eco lodges. It is changing, but Sean and the locals say it is for the better. Interestingly he said that few were attracted by moving to the city. Indeed those that had moved to the city for work were looking to move back to the countryside where life is easier, and more fun.

Man of the Match - Juan Horsman

We ended our Amazon, and Brazilian, trip with a visit to the local football stadium, perched on an island in the river. Complete with clubhouse, a full size pitch, and even a couple of stands. There I managed to finally get a game of football before we left Brazil which made me incredibly happy, and Sal because at least I would bloody stop going on about it.....

Manaus

Manaus has to be one of the strangest locations in the world for a city of two million. It lies deep in the midst of the jungle, 900 miles upriver from the mouth of the Amazon, 1000 miles to Belem (the nearest major city). It is so cutoff from civilisation that it is near impossible to reach by car, instead you have to fly or take the boat.

The Mercado Municipal, modelled
 after the Les Halles market in Paris

 

The unusual location of the city, and its grand and sometimes dilapidated public buildings, are products of the rubber boom which began well over a hundred years ago The area around Manaus is rich in rubber trees (a species unique to Brazil until the seeds were exported), and from around 1850 until 1910 untold riches were brought to the few rubber barons who had a near monopoly on its supply.  It was an era of endless lust for the flexible, durable, waterproof commodity. The sap tapped from the trees was refined and vulcanised (what a great word that is) and then shipped out to produce macs, wellingtons and above all else tyres - bicycle tyres, car tyres, truck tyres - across the globe.

 

The grand Teatro Amazonas stands in the centre
of Manaus

The huge inflows of profit were used to build a city within the wild jungle modelled upon a French municipality, or one of the great baroque metropolis of northern Italy. Electric lights installed and a tram network constructed (before many cities in Europe or North America had these), huge baronial palaces, a vast and delicately designed steel and glass market building, a palace of justice, an ornate governors house. But chief among these monuments to rubber stood the Opera House (Teatro Amazonas) - designed to pay tribute the great La Scala of Milan. Huge, opulent and lavishly decorated with 36 chandeliers from Italy, and plush furniture from France.

 

 

The inside of the Teatro Amazonas

We attended a tour during the day of this striking building, and in the evening took in a showing of the original 1931 film of Dracula, the soundtrack played by an 12 piece string orchestra illuminated by haunting lowlight. It was fantastically atmospheric.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the Praça São Sebastião, Manuas

 

 

 

In 1910 the British managed to steal a few rubber seeds and take them over to Malaysia to grow and then sell and as a result the monopoly was broken. For some years Manaus went down the tubes - few jobs, high crime - until regenerated in the sixties through the creation of a successful free trade zone. In recent years burgeoning eco tourism brings those who want to see the Amazon to the city - including us.

The River Amazon

'All aboard'  the Amazon Star-our transportation
and home for 5 days and nights

A trip up the Amazon starts in the city of Belem in the north eastern state of Para, which we flew into from Forteleza, Ceara (we have not written a blog about our time here as honestly we didn't do much - once we made the epic journey across the sandunes to Jericoacoara, we found the beach and kicked back and relaxed for a week). It is not a beautiful town, but it does have one wonderful hotel for thirty quid a night which we snapped up and luxuriated within. The most important asset of the city to the townsfolk, and to us, is the vast market stretching from the old bay to the modernised industrial port and within which lies all the bounty required for all of life in north east Brazil, including to survive a boat trip. We headed there to purchase the most vital of waterborne comforts - the hammock, beautifully made and colourfully designed.

The view from our hammocks

Hanging out on deck. Watching the river flow by.

After a night drinking at the Amazon Beer Company - a brewery in the port which does a decent IPA - we woke early the next day to get on the boat to reserve a place. We ended up having to wait till six pm to get on the boat itself, a bit of a grind, but once onboard we strung up our hammocks to the metal beams on the second floor deck, and got cosy with two hundred Brazilian passengers doing likewise.  I (Ian) felt a bit trepidatious about all this. Never have been a fan of sharing a room with huge numbers of people (a sin to say it as a backpacker but how I am), nor ever managed to strike up a manageable relationship with a hammock for a lie down on a beach in the afternoon, let alone five whole days and nights on the water. I shouldn't have worried. Once I got used to the cold at night and had worked out a nifty crossways sleeping position I slept like a log. It's something like returning to the womb - with the white background noise of the boat, the rocking of the hammock, the semi foetal position you end up in. Never woke up so refreshed.  For Sal, who did all of this when in Brazil ten years ago, it was like second nature.

Crossword time!

Once you get going on the open water - the delta at the mouth of the Amazon is so wide it seems more like a sea than a river - there really is not too much to do. A lot of reading, a lot of writing, learnt a few new card games. Of course no internet, phone, and a TV that only works intermittently and used purely to watch football games or novellas (Brazilian soap operas of advanced melodrama). Instead we watched the banks of the river with the small houses on stilts slide by, the yellow school boats delivering their charges to the escola, and evenings on deck marvelling at extraordinary sunsets.

Amazon kids row alongside the boat, in the hope
a care package will be thrown

One of the magnificent Amazonian sunsets

A typical Amazonian dwelling on the banks of the river

With our pal Daniel, who was more than happy
to give our hammocks a good swing at 6am each day
when he was ready for more playtime

From the boat, there is not much wildlife to be seen beyond a few birds, nor is the jungle as jungely as the Amazon - Mother of Rainforests! Harbourer of Evil Snakes and Ancient Lost Tribes! - seems it should be to a romanticised westerner. But none of this detracts from the experience which is more about a dead slow pace of life, the chance to think and reflect, and a rare opportunity to be in amongst the people of Brazil. On that note, as everywhere in Brazil, there were dozens of children running about. One, Daniel, we tried to teach snap to without much success, but he was very pleased with a card game we invented with him. It was based on the principle that he would win every hand, irrespective of rules or logic - well worth it to win the friendship of a charming kid, with such a wonderful smile.

Approaching Manaus, a city of 2 million,
at the epicentre of the Amazon river and jungle

By the end of the five days, when we pulled into Manaus - the capital of the great state of Amazonas - we were really sad to get off the boat, even with all of our muscles atrophying from lack of exercise and the consistent nature of the food. Rarely can I say I lived as differently as I did for those few days, and I feel so much better for it.

The sounds, sights and smells of Bahia

Sounds

Pretty and peaceful.  Pelourinho, Salvador by day

‘Tuesday night is party night’ is what everyone tells you when you first arrive in Salvador, the Afro Brazilian capital of Brazil and Bahia region. Acknowledging it with some suspicion, you think back to your student days when Tuesday was a totally acceptable night to indulge in ‘all you can drink’ events, dancing until the early hours. But in a grown up city with grown up people, could it be true?

 

 

 

The samba reggae drummers of Salvador 

We got our answer loud and clear when we ventured out onto the cobblestone streets of Pelourinho, the epicentre of Salvador, a UNESCO world heritage site due to the preservation of its colourful colonial houses when Tuesday came around.  The pounding beat of the samba reggae drums echoes throughout the neighbourhood.  It lures you in like a Brazilian Pied Piper who has taken up percussion and got his friends involved. You turn each corner, it gets louder and louder, you step in time with the tempo until suddenly the band of drummers are in front of you along with a hundred other revellers parading and dancing along behind them, creating a mini version of the famous Brazilian ‘Carnaval.’ 

 



Fashioning my 'Olodum' souvenir vest

Samba reggae is the big thing in Salvador. It was put on the world stage when Bahia’s very own ‘Olodum’ group played in Michael Jackson’s ‘They don’t really care about us’ music video, which was shot with the group in Pelourinho. Coincidentally, Santa Teresa, the favela we visited in Rio was the other setting for parts of the video. You could not get away from Olodum in Salvador, from the drum and theatre schools to the branded clothing and accessories (a must have souvenir), they are a real brand of the city and state.

It was great to learn that the group was originally set up to offer cultural activities to young people (particularly those from impoverished backgrounds), largely centered on music. Founded in 1979, the wider aims of the group are to combat racism, encourage self esteem and pride among Afro Brazilians, and to fight for civil rights for all marginalized groups.



Tuesday night party in full flow

Back on the streets we discovered that the central square ‘Terrico de Jesus’, which by day sees tourists huddled round city guides or peacefully sipping on a café com leite watching the world go by, now had a full on stage erect with lighting and speakers and an 8 piece samba band were blasting out song after song.   Wherever there was an emply space music was playing, people were dancing and it was fully confirmed that Tuesday in Salvador is where the party is at!!

 

Sights

On top of Morro do Pai Inácio
(the one that looks like a snail)

After the party we needed somewhere 'away from it all' to clear our heads so leaving the coast we travelled to Lencois, a 7000 strong community some 7 hours by bus inland from Salvador. This town is the gateway to the ‘Chapada Diamentina’ national park, an area that was once famous for its vast diamond mines. The diamonds in Chapada unfortunately weren’t to be forever and these days the discovery and extraction of them is almost unheard of. Now appreciated by both Brazilians and foreigners for its magical caves, spectacular waterfalls and, most dramatically, vistas with hills that resemble living creatures, including the snail and the camel (if looked at from the right direction and distance).

 

At the start of the trail to the Cachoeira da Fumaca

The highlight was a 4 hour (round trip) hike from the village of Vale do Capao to the Cachoeira da Fumaca (translates as the 'Smoke (water) falls') due to the tiny amount of water flow which is sprayed up in to the air by the wind (like rising smoke) before it hits the ground some 340 metres below. We also met Armaund and Sylvie from Paris who we enjoyed both the scenery (and once the Tuesday night hangovers had subsided), several caipirinhas with.

 

 

 

Ian , on the deserted sands of Imbassai, Bahia

I could not write about the sights of Bahia without making at least some reference to its most famous assets – its beaches. The coast forms an endless unravelled golden scarf hugging the Atlantic Ocean for over 1000kms of Brazil’s eastern coastline. We spent a few days some 65km north of Salvador on one of Bahia’s most beautiful beaches, Imbassai. As far as the eye could see were deserted immaculate sands. It reminded us of the Gambian coast we visited earlier this year – a strange parallel it must have seemed to the thousands of Africans taken as slaves from Gambia and Senegal who ended up in the  sugar plantations of Bahia.

 

Smells

Outside SENAC in Pelourinho

The ‘Moqueca’, a stew of palm oil, coconut milk, vegetables and typically fish (but also shrimps, crab or stingray) shares many similarities with West African cuisine and is the most famous dish of both Bahia and the whole of the north east of Brazil.  The delicious smell wafts from the large cooking pots which are traditionally cooked over an open fire. We visited SENAC, a hospitality training school for young Salvadorians which housed a museum about the history of the Afro influence on culinary developments in Bahia and an all you can eat buffet style restaurant which was AMAZING. 

 

Sampling the Bahian streetfood, cooked by Mary,
one of the Baianas of Salvador

Delicious street food is served across the city by women in traditional Bahian dress - the Baianas. The 'Stuffed Acarajé' is the most popular choice. The Acarajé is made from peeled black-eyed peas, crushed and formed into a ball, then deep-fried in palm oil (similar to a large falafel in texture). Split in half it is stuffed with vatapa (a paste of peanuts, cashew nuts onions & coconut milk thickened by bread), a salsa of tomatoes, peppers and onions and topped with shrimps and hot pepper sauce.  The coconut 'Cocada' was  perfect to follow for those like me that have a sweet tooth.

We would highly recommend a trip to Bahia to anyone. A fusion of beautiful colonial architecture, mountainous landscapes, endless beaches and pulsating always with excellent music.  We also never went hungry!