What a day!! I was picked up by the lodge driver half an hour ahead of schedule (!) and got to meet a couple already seated in the car. They happen to be French but lived in Brazil for a year. So, the common language was Portuguese. This upfront.
We went to a different harbor at the Rio Negro where we were ferried onto a speed boat--btw, if the Portuguese call something has speed (as in "speed boat"), it will be fast. I hung on with all my might. We saw the meeting of the waters, i.e. where the Solemoes river and the Rio Negro meet to form the Amazon. it is just as amazing as I thought it would be. Dark wateers due to high acidy levels and cafe latte type waters because they are loaded with sediments meeting and not diffusing thanks to their different densities. This phenomenon stretches on for miles. For a short while I got to ride on the Amazon but then the boat turned and sped up the Solemoes. After half an hourwe got picked up by a van (the drive was probably for half an hour) and then we boarded a smaller speed boat belonging to the lodge. The ride up the river, eventually up the Juma river (which at times of low waters connects to the Amazon only via the Rio Madeira) was spectacular because we went through many flooded forests which can be used as shortcuts at times of high water level and seemed never-ending. We saw floating lily patches (small lilies) going downstream.
On arrival we found that our rooms were upgraded to rooms with a river view. The lodge is completely built on very long stilts connecting each room-hut with a sort of boardwalk on stilts. Everything was placed in the rainforest along the Juma River. No electricity during the day only at night till dawn. No problem! Cold showers only. It's warm here anyway.! No air conditioning, of course.
Primary language =Portuguese,secondary language = english, third language = rtSpanish (for me French). And then there is this German father speaking to his son exclusively in German which his wife doesn't speak. I was exposed to this medley of languages for 6 hours that we literally sat in our motorized canoe cruising the rivers and flooded forests.
We had a chance to visit a small mercado on some island. Not very well stocked but, I assume, with necessities- I saw oil, water, banana chips and bags of wheat, big bags. Canned food as well. The two bedrooms had a two hammocks and other very simple furniture, the kitchen was large and open to the back (mosquito nets). Once in a while a customer comes via canoe, comes to buy and talk and leaves again. No bathroom, no toilet! I wonder where the waste goes....
The person who seems in charge of many activities told me that he is a member of an Indian tribe on the Brazilian border with Guyana. He grew up speaking his native language of Wiki.... And then in school opted for Portuguese (English was an option). He learned English later when he decided to work in Tourism. 13 years ago he left his tribe but visited regularly up to 6 years ago when his mother died. He explained the tribe is now only 3000 people strong many of whom are old. The young do not wish to learn from the old anymore so a lot of indigenous knowledge gets lost as people leave for jobs.
We saw the following animals:
1) river creatures
- iguana swimming
-pink dolphins in a small group
- grey dolphins ( several groups)
2) Forest creatures
Igapo - seasonally flooded forests of the black waters
Varzea - flooded forest of the white (= cafe latte) waters
- Squirrel macaques, a monkey that is active during the day and moves in large bands around the e of the varzea forests/we saw it also along the agape forests
- capuchin monkeys moving around in big, noisy bands at all levels of the forest.
3) birds
-toucan, black body, white front, either Toco Toucan or Cuviers Toucan
- four green / red parrots not clear which
-brown hawk (black-collared hawk)
- jakanna - a whitish heron with a pale blue head and black eyes, yellow on its back.
- a swallow tanager = an aquamArine colored. Bird with dark wings
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