Tenderfoot In The AmazonBy Norman MorrisonFrom 39,000 feet the sky’s reflection made the lakes and meandering rivers look like puddles and ribbons of molten lead. I was bound for Manaus and the mighty Amazon rain forests of northern Brazil. My ultimate goal was to sample the hospitality of a curious jungle lodge called the Ariau Amazon Towers. As usual, the service aboard Brazilian airlines is a study in professionalism and courtesy. They fed us about every 5 minutes and the drink cart was up and down the aisle all the time. You will become very fond of any Brazilian airline you happen to use. I was part of a group of travel folks invited to come sample TAM Brazilian airlines and the Amazon Towers. The vast checkerboard fields below, which rival the American mid-west, abruptly gave way to a sea of green as far as the eye could see. On and on the plane flew over the vast Amazon rain forest. I could but wonder at the mysteries and marvels that lay beneath the green canopy below.
Since the trip was in June, the river was at its high point, and I must confess, it is a wonder to behold. It is an ocean of moving water. From Manaus to the Towers is a straight shot, and just as the tallest building disappeared over the horizon, some 30 miles and two hours behind us, we caught our first glimpse of the Towers. It’s a funny thing, the Ariau, at first sight, is both more and less than you expect. The complex is smaller than the advertising pictures suggest. But as you learn your way around, only then does the magnitude of the operation become apparent. Ariau, by the way, sounds like Ah-ee-eye-oo. It comes easily to Brazilians and a little more difficultly to everyone else.
In all fairness, the reason I didn’t think of it was because they keep you running. Ariau is not meant as a place of rest, per se, though hammocks are everywhere. It’s a place of learning. Should you decide to go, you will be very impressed at the great lengths they go to teach you about the Amazon and it’s rain forest. That’s really what the trip is about.
The rooms are great, and are air conditioned. During the time I was there they were in a rare cool spell. The temps were down into the 80's. During the hottest part of the day though, the humidity gets really high, and you will sweat. Be prepared for it. The rooms are hardwood from floor to ceiling with a little screened in balcony where you can sit in and survey your good fortune. The screens keep the monkeys out, but you shouldn’t be surprised to see one stroll by occasionally. The maids are relentless. The moment you leave, they will be in your room straightening, and you’ll find a candy on your pillow when you return. A steady supply of liquids is a must, and water is taken from the bottle. The tap water is undrinkable, as you’ll discover upon brushing your teeth. It’s rather bitter, because of the pervasive tannic acid from the rain forest. The region undergoes an annual cycle. During the rainy season, when we are told it rains more, the river floods inland creating a myriad of waterways and swamps. The leaves and vegetation fall into the water and it becomes quite acidic from tannic acid in the leaves and tree bark. Because of this, mosquitoes have a very hard time of it. I personally never saw one, even though the whole area is a huge swamp behind the Towers. During the dry season, when we are told it rains less, the water recedes, leaving dry ground. If the forest survives, no doubt, this will be a dandy oil or coal field in a few million years. The Towers also sports a really nice upper level restaurant where you take your meals buffet style, several shops selling everything from fine junk to great jewelry, a fairly complete general store, a very friendly bar, and even a computer room where you can check email and send a "wish you were here" mail to your poor stay at home friends. In short, all the necessities of life and happiness are well provided for. All manner of famous people have visited the towers and they liked it. The philosophy of the Towers seems to be to get you in, tour you at a fast pace, and see you off. You can go there and lay around in hammocks up front or even a mile down in the swamp if you like, but you would be wasting your money if you did. The secret is to do the tours you are paying for. Starting with the boat ride to get to the Towers, you are in for a marvelous and informative time. One of our guides, a huge refrigerator (with ice maker in the door) of a guy, easily one of the largest and most muscled, but friendly Brazilians I have ever met, served two tours with the Brazilian Marines. Yes, even though Brazil has never been known to actually need Marines, they have them. He allowed that he had joined to learn jungle survival. The final test, he said, is straight forward - they drop you out in the middle of the Amazon jungle, and if you walk out, you pass. Your tours are not merely fun rides in the long canoes. They are a true learning experience. You will be much the wiser about the Amazon story by the time you are through. I don’t know that any of our guides were professors, but they should have been. They taught us a great deal about what makes the Amazon rain forest work.
The man with the vision who owns the Towers, we learned, is something of a mystic. Way out in the woods, he has constructed a power pyramid that you can sit in and gather rays. There is also a self supporting tree house that is constructed around a very tall tree. Here, you can climb into the rain forest canopy and above. In effect, you are living a National Geographic article. There is also a UFO landing pad with greetings in many languages. You can never be too careful, I suppose. There is also what the they call a moon observatory, deep in the boardwalk. I counted three rather expensive Celestron telescopes ready for use after dark. The boardwalk is minimally lighted, so you can find your way there and back after dark.
About 10PM, jungle time, fireworks lit the night sky beside the two story tower dance hall. They were calling everyone to come see a musical play about the history of the native Indians meeting the white man. We learned that they always have musical concerts of some variety on the weekends. The round hut contained a stage decorated, naturally, in a jungle motif. The dancers used the middle of the hut, and the audience was seated around the periphery on bleachers. The center floor was perhaps 100 feet across. The top was made of wire with thick vines for a ceiling. The props were set behind the stage, so the dancers would emerge from stage left .. do their thing ... and then retreat, stage right, to get dressed for the next dance. The show lasted an hour and a half. Two men sang the entire time...nonstop. One set would finish and the other would begin. I have no concept of how they accomplished what they did with the little space they had. There were no tractor trailer rigs containing props parked behind the hut, as they would have been parked in the Amazon river. The prop room was relatively small and the costumes extravagant and large. The show could play anywhere in the U.S. to standing room audiences, and here I was in the middle of the jungle having the time of my life. Morning comes early at the Towers, and you can expect a knock on the door around 5AM. (By the way, Manaus is on New York, Atlanta, and Miami time. No jet lag. You don’t have time for it.) You’ll jump into your canoe to set sail to watch the sun come up over the Amazon. The guides take you on a quiet reconnaissance of the backwaters, now in daylight, with the hopes of spotting jungle critters in the process of looking for breakfast. You weave thru narrow tall grass backwater corridors and down slim rain forest breaks. It’s best to keep your camera handy at all times. After the morning safari comes breakfast, Brazilian style. No bacon, but plenty of eggs, fruit, bread, cheese, ham, and even boiled corn. Also lots of freshly squeezed exotic juices, and of course you can have a Coke, if you wish. The next tour was a jungle hike to check out the flora and fauna. Being the brave and debonair guy that I am decided to skip this one and have a short nap instead. Afterwards, I ate one of the small and ultimately delicious little Brazilian bananas I had pilfered from the restaurant that morning, and headed out to do the boardwalk by myself. Surprisingly, I didn’t get lost in the boardwalk maze and had a really great time walking at my own pace. I took a turn we had not made the night before and after 45 minutes of walking arrived at the shore of the mighty Amazon and a new, unfinished, tower. Except for a porter pulling a suitcase behind him headed for who knows where deep in the forest, I had the whole Amazon to myself. I’ll cherish the memory always. Back for lunch, eating some very delicious and salmon-like freshwater fish, I unfolded my itinerary and saw that the next stop was a tour to a local’s home to see how they live out in the sticks, fishing, and watching the sunset over the rain forest.
The house on the river where our host family lived and worked, was a simple affair with a two boat garage. It was a shotgun shack, which for those of you who don’t know, means that you could stand in the front and shoot a load of buckshot through the house without ever touching the walls. Their back yard, which was slightly improved jungle only, held a treasure trove of tasty plants. Our guide, a sawed off little fellow named Max, who was beloved by our group, and a wonderful lecturer, showed us where Heart of palm comes from, some various berries, and of the most interesting to me personally, a monstrously large tree sporting some half-coconut sized round pods far up in the distance. Later, producing one of the seed pods, he whacked it open with a machete to reveal about a dozen Brazil nuts. Since I have always wondered where they came from, and not even my Brazilian friends and partners knew, it was a real treat. I asked about 20 questions about the nuts and he patiently explained all, but I think he already had me pegged as the trouble maker of the group. I did ask a lot of questions! Did you know that Brazil nuts are not cultivated? Each and every one is harvested from wild trees by entrepreneur natives. Your Christmas nut has quite a bit of history. Max grasped a little twig of a tree, growing only about 5 feet high. Underneath, he said, was the manioc root. If you recall your National Geographic Magazine (Which is the only reference most Americans have ever had to the Amazon), you might remember that it is a staple in Brazil, much like wheat flour is in the U.S. They use it like flour, and as a sprinkle on food. It’s called farofa. It has the consistency and color of Parmesan cheese. It tastes like...well, like nothing much at all, but they love it. In a low shed behind the house they had constructed a fireplace of brick and mud. In the center top sat the largest cake pan I’ve ever seen. It must have been four feet across. They grind the manioc root and soak it for a day. The raw product is poisonous, and the soaking removes it. Afterwards, the gruel is put into the pan and cooked until it is dry and powdery, and then put into a large burlap sack to be carried to Manaus to be sold for cash or goods.
So how about a little fishing? Max could teach on a doctor level about the Amazon in any college in the U.S., but I think as a fishing guide he left a little to be desired. We anchored on the shoreline in the mouth of a large slew not far from the Amazon and unlimbered our cane poles. The poles had regular monofilament line tied on with a 16 gauge copper wire leader on the end with a small hook. The bait was steak. When was the last time you used round steak as bait? The quarry was piranha. (Pronounced pee-ron-ya). Unlike what you have been taught about fishing, which is to be very quiet, the proper method of attracting these nasty little fish is to bait up, cast, and then flail the water with the end of your pole, really frothing up the water.
We caught only one that day. A New York city boy who had never gone fishing in his life hauled in a hand sized one which Max took great joy in showing around. He reached overhead and snapped a pencil sized limb from a tree and inserted it into the fish’s mouth. The piranha proceeded to chomp and with each bite whittled the limb down a couple of more inches as neatly and easily as your grandma cuts cloth. Piranha have teeth that would make any dentist proud. Max claimed that you can swim in the Amazon in safety. No one took him up on his offer. I’m afraid the piranha fishing tour made all of us look on the Amazon with more respect. Finally, a lady snagged one and when it flashed to the surface you could see that it would have gone about a pound and a half. She didn’t land it, because it bit through the metal leader. We all did our best to comfort her on her loss, but I don’t think anyone was the least bit sad that she missed it. As the sun sank beneath the clouds on the far horizon we were parked about a mile from shore on the Amazon. Another canoe passed us and stirred up a pod of fresh water dolphins. We watched them play for awhile and then raced the other boat back in, the guides talking on their FM walkie talkies swapping lies about who caught the most fish.
Afterwards, we were invited to sample some delicious BBQ jacaré which tasted a like pork, and sample some homebrew beer. We later learned that the natives had recently come down river to seek a better life, and were hired by the Towers. In a way, I felt like I was prying and being nosy, sitting there in that long house watching their dance, but they were so friendly and happy, maybe it was just me. They were actors, yes, but they were acting what they had grown up doing, and recently.
Picture credits: Norman Morrison, Vincent Favoriti, Rick Mangi If you are thinking of traveling to Brazil, your best source for all |
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From the Manaus airport we were taken by bus to the Tropical Manaus Hotel located on the shores of the Amazon. Awaiting us was a double decked boat similar to a party fishing boat that you have seen at seaside 
The Towers is a collection of huge rounded huts, with a 7 kilometer boardwalk through the surrounding jungle. Service is magically provided by what must be a huge, but unseen staff. In this respect it reminds you of a theme park. It is, by its isolation, a logistical 8th wonder of well oiled workmanship. Not only did I 
The first thing I noticed when I stepped off the boat were the monkeys. They are everywhere! The 
The starting tour is the boardwalk. We walked a goodly distance into the forest. One of the first things we saw was a three toed sloth agonizingly slowly ascending a tree. Now, you don’t see one of those every day. 
After supper at the Towers round restaurant we came to the high-brow portion of our trip as we were invited to a Broadway musical, jungle style.
We were back into the canoes. The novelty had already worn off and I was feeling like an old hand riding along, Tarzan style. Of course, everyone in the 10 man canoe, except for the guide and driver were always thoroughly lost all the time. They would be going down a creek and then zip into a narrow passage through the high grass and come out ... somewhere. 
We piled back into the boats and ventured into what passed for the river man’s back yard, a narrow little slew. Just a little way in, we passed a boat with a couple of what must have been his kids, little jungle entrepreneurs, who were hawking some bead necklaces. I guess it was old news to the boat driver, because he just kept going. 
We arrived at the back end of the slew at the foot of the largest tree I had ever seen. It would have put a California redwood to shame. You couldn’t see the top. It was a balsa wood tree. I could only marvel and wonder how many wind up airplanes or model rocket nose cones could be made from this giant of a tree. Beside it was a much smaller rubber tree. 
Piranha, it seems, are a lot like our crappie. They school like crappie and are about the same weight, all the way from spoon size to slab sided. The piranha is considered a trash fish, but are eaten if nothing better is caught that day. The piranha is the fish from hell. I want to be very clear on this point. 
After supper, we boarded the canoes again for our final foray, this time for a bit of what they call Caiman spotting. A Caiman or jacaré is the local version of alligator. They grow from petting sized up to non-petting sized. We idled back and forth in the marshes in total darkness, save for the spot light, the Milky Way overhead looking like a glowing cloud, until the driver, who must have had built in radar (I never understood how he saw through all of us to drive) cut his engine and we drifted to shore. Max leaned over and made his strike and came up with a baby caiman about a foot long. He passed it around, demonstrated how you could put it to sleep by rubbing it’s tummy, and then gently placed it back into the water, unharmed. 
From there we went somewhere ... we never knew where ... to land at a place that contained a large square building made of wood lashed together sporting a palm thatched roof. I suppose it was the Amazon version of an Indian long house. A real Amazon Indian gentleman met us at the door and welcomed us in. The inside was dimly lit with small smudge pots swinging from the supports. After all the boats arrived, we witnessed a native dance. There were perhaps a half dozen couples, all decked out in jungle wear just like in the National Geo. The men had a gourd tied to their right leg which rattled when they stepped and each had a flute. The man who met us at the door grabbed his partner and started running around the room blowing his flute and keeping time with his gourd. The others joined in forming a samba train, literally running and dancing, snaking this way and that, and the whole thing lasted for a half hour. The melody was short and haunting, the rattling gourds adding to the mystery of the dance-run, and on and on they went. I marveled at their stamina. They apologized for the abbreviated dance ritual, saying that normally it lasts three days.
I have only briefly touched on all the things I saw and learned on my Amazon journey. My notes run on for 22 pages. As it turned out, the Amazon is nothing like I thought it would be. It was at the same time more, and less, than