The Amazon Jungle

They Have Some Big Trees in Them There Amazon Jungle

Since I've been on the road, I've tried to keep any complaining down to a minimum. I fully recognise the fact that I’m living a dream – that I’m taking advantage of an opportunity to do something so many others would never consider, let alone do. I willingly – and with eyes fully open – gave up my creature comforts, and my support network back home, to be able to traipse around the world, to experience new sights and sounds and tastes, and to spend a not insignificant amount of time treating every day as if it were a Saturday.*

Travelling through South America – really, travelling anywhere – isn't all fun and games. I've felt the need to complain once in a while. But every time I've suffered through a thirty-five-hour trip through Northern Brazil, on a crappy bus whose air-conditioning has broken down; or been propositioned by creepy gay men trying to prostitute themselves on an Amazon riverboat; or spent four sleepless nights in a row, because I’m in a dorm room with a guy who snores, screams and thrashes around whilst asleep; I eventually have to go Zen and smile. Speak to just about any long-term traveller and we'll tell you the same thing: that any bad experience still beats being back home, working for a living; and that hardship – as long as it doesn't result in death, severe injury or losing all our stuff – is the foundation for all our best stories.

Now – all that being said – I have to admit that the Amazon jungle turned me into a total whiney bitch.

If the blog entry I posted immediately after emerging from the jungle didn't quite make it clear, the Amazon jungle was oppressively hot, disgustingly humid, and full of freaking mosquitoes.

I hate the heat. I hate humidity. I fucking loath mosquitoes. Obviously, something had to give on the complaining front.

I went into the jungle for four days and three nights, staying at a jungle lodge about three hours, by road and waterway, from Manaus. Two van rides and two boat journeys later, I arrived at the Ararinha Jungle Hotel, located on a small clear-cut area on the shores of a tributary of the Rio Solimões (one of two rivers, along with the Rio Negro, that join to form the Amazon River at Manaus). 'Hotel' makes it sound much more luxurious than it is – though I suppose any place in the middle of the jungle, with mosquito netting, running water as long as the roof-top reservoirs are full, and gas-powered generators supplying electricity for four hours a day, has to be considered the height of luxury.

The View from My Hammock

Joining me out of Manaus were Brian, an Alaskan; and James, an Englishman who doesn't really get nature. We were all assigned hammocks in the common living area above the dining room and kitchen.

What we found out very quickly was that there is no happy medium out there in the jungle. Everything, I mean everything, comes at a cost.

During the day, there are no mosquitoes in the open areas, but the same beating sun that makes it too hot for mosquitoes to be out and about leaves humans running for shade, where it's only a touch less sweltering. One can jump in the river to keep somewhat cool (really, just less hot), but then one faces coming out of the water covered in a thin, brown film of, well, whatever. During the night, there is obviously no blazing sun, but then the mosquitoes emerge in full force. When the temperature finally starts to drop in the wee hours of the morning, the already high humidity somehow manages to rise even more, which leaves everything clingingly damp in the morning. While out into the forest, one can wear short-sleeves and shorts to keep cool, but then one risks being eaten alive by mosquitoes. Keeping covered up slows down the mosquitoes, but leaves one dripping in sweat within thirty seconds.

Speaking of the mosquitoes, Amazonian mosquitoes are vicious little fuckers. They bite through clothes. The few that found their way into our sleeping area managed to cover my back with bites, getting me through the bottom of my hammock. High-DEET insect repellent only kept them at bay for so long – you had to remember to keep applying it every fifteen minutes or so – because we were constantly sweating the stuff off.

When Jen, Elaine, Emma and Karin (three Scots and another Canadian) joined us after our first full day out in jungle, they must have thought they'd discovered the three biggest pussies on Earth.

However, as much as I complained, I actually enjoyed my trip into the jungle.

I would go back.

I swear to God I'm not lying.

Our time in the jungle was organised into morning and afternoon outings – we would go wildlife-spotting from boats on the river, piranha fishing, out to visit a native Amazonian homestead, or on treks into the jungle.

An Inadvertent Anttrap 

(An Amazonian woman we visited had brought the abandoned bee's nest into her house because she thought it looked nice. Then it got infested with ants. But she kept it in her house anyway. I'm not making this up.)

Cruising the Flooding Sections of the Jungle, Looking For Wildlife.

We saw quite a bit of wildlife: iguanas, monkeys, tarantulas, lizards, bats and a lot of birds – kingfishers, hawks, red-chested blackbirds and the like. There was a hint of a rumour that a three-toed sloth sat in one of the trees we passed. I got to handle a cayman alligator. We even saw a lot of mosquitoes.

Our Guide, Matteo, Handling a Rather Beaten-Up Looking Iguana

An Amazonian Jumping Lizard

The jungle treks were especially interesting to me. We learned how to set up traps for edible Amazonian rodents, anteaters or armadillos. We were taught how to spot and pick out edible Brazil or palm nuts. We picked up a little bit of knowledge about the medicinal value of certain roots and leaves. We came away from our walks able to find water from jungle vines. And we had it hammered into our heads that a machete really is an essential piece of equipment out in the jungle.

A Tarantula Hole, With a Tarantula

James, Activating the Trap

I even got to experience Amazonian deforestation, and slash and burn, firsthand. The area across the river from our jungle lodge was being cleared for farming purposes. Being a conservationist – thus not automatically opposed to carefully-managed clearing of parts of the jungle – I was nevertheless moved to consider aggressively pushing for the total preservation of the Amazon forest when confronted with huge plumes of black smoke billowing into the sky. So says the guy that was living in a lodge, on a clear-cut piece of shoreline.

Slash and Burn

Smoke, Rising

The Amazon jungle was a good experience; one that I can definitely recommend to people – though not without thoroughly informing them – ad nauseum – that it's an experience that they will suffer for. After four, hot, sweaty days out there, my first shower, after arriving back to Manaus, was one of the most glorious thirty-minute periods I've had during my travels. If I remember no other positive about the Amazon, I'll remember that.

Related Entries:
1. Goodbye to the Jungle
2. Happiness Is…
3. The Long, Slow Boat Ride up the Amazon

*(Note: I blatantly stole this beautifully succinct description of the carefree attitudes adopted by long-term travellers from the documentary, A Map for Saturday.)