Our one day in Rio was pretty busy with the obligatory visit to Christo Redemptor on Corcovado Mountain with a great view across the city. We had lunch in a nice beachfront restaurant before returning to Copacabana beach for Caparina´s at sunset. Our flight to Manaus was 4 hours, plus another hour sitting on the runway in Rio getting us here at the cheery hour of 4am. We crawled out of bed about midday and set out to book a jungle trip before dinner at a Brazilian bbq restaurant with all you can eat meat.....
Our jungle expedition began with a boat trip across the Rio Negro to the ´meeting of the waters`. The point where the black water of the Rio Negro meets the coffee coloured water of the Rio Solimoes and becomes the Amazon River proper. The result is the world´s largest colour change which made my casting finger itchy! We then headed up the Solimoes a bit before getting in a combi van (yes they still make them over here!) and heading south on the central amazonas highway past the smouldering remnants of the rainforest which were soon to become cow paddocks, before another boat transfer to our `jungle` lodge. I was just starting to wonder when we would get to the rainforest proper when we pulled up at a farm, perhaps for supplies, before we left civilisation behind. As it turned out, this was our ´jungle´lodge. A floating restaurant with accommodation up the bank above, but sitting in a field surrounded by cows and looking across the river at another field with yet more cows at the entrance to Juma Lake.
In the jungle, the (once) mighty jungle,
The cow sleeps tonight.....
You get the picture. It was actually quite a nice spot, just not what we had imagined. On the plus side you could swim in the river which was a nice change from the Top End where it isn´t such a good idea.
Despite our initial disappointment there is always a silver lining - this time it was fishing. We did a lot of fishing, catching Peacock Bass, Jacunda, Aruana, Traira and of course piranha. Unfortunately I didn´t get any large bass, but we caught plenty of smaller ones up to about 2kg. I didn´t manage to land a black piranha, but did feed them several lures. Despite the confidence of my guide that rubber lures wouldn´t work I caught quite a few fish on snap-backs. The underwater razor gang made short work of squidgies though, with them having about the same life expectancy as a cup-cake at a fat kids picnic. We also spent a couple of nights camping in the jungle (there was some around between the farms) in hammocks which was pretty cool and gave us to opportunity to explore a bit more of the lake and get a visit from a troupe of howler monkeys. These critters make the most ungodly noise, like a bunch of budding ghouls competing for a key role in a zombie movie.
Once again the worldwide law of tour guides held true – and our guide was a world class tosser of which I have never seen the like. Apparently, aside from being a guide for Steve Irwin, BBC and National Geographic, he was; a pro fisherman, a medical student, a physio student, a paramedic, worked in the mines, was in the military (and had been offered work by Blackwater as a mercenary), in search and rescue, an aid worker, a motocross rider, a boat tour operator and spoke 6 languages (of which we only witnessed Portuguese and English). I probably forgot a few in there but you get the picture. Unfortunately he spent so long telling everyone how good he was that there wasn´t really much time for pointing out wildlife or things of interest. We also had a young Swiss fellow along who was a kung fu exponent and made sure everyone knew by variously meditating on the front of the boat (with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth), practicing his techniques on unsuspecting trees during our jungle walk and during the long slow boat trips upriver. Sadly he left early, I think mostly because Nicole was nasty to him.
Anyway, we are now back in Manaus having survived our 6 days in the Amazon `jungle´. Tomorrow we head for Cuiaba for a week in the Pantanal.
No comments:
Post a Comment