The Amazon - Part 1 of 2

When we started planning our trip last year, it became clear quite early on that visiting the Amazon was something we both had on the top of our wish list. 

Rather than writing endless paragraphs about how great the Amazon is, here is a list of some key facts about its river system and vast rainforests. This is well worth a read, as it might come in handy when you next discuss Amazon trivia with your friends & colleagues:

• The Amazon baisin covers some 7 million km² (that’s almost 20 times the size of Germany for crying out loud) and 9 countries (Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, and the 3 Guyanas)
• As such, it is by far the world’s largest ecosystem and the green lung of this planet, offsetting significant portions of the carbon emissions of all those 25-year-old jet-set business consultants and easyjet-weekend-away-in-Prague-ers*
• The Amazon region boasts by far the largest biodiversity on this planet, with 10% of all living species being represented. According to Wiki, it is home to some 2.5 million insect species (!!), and at least 40,000 plant species, 3,000 fish, 1,294 birds, 427 mammals (including pink freshwater dolphins), 428 amphibians, and 378 reptiles have been scientifically classified in the region
• The river Amazon is really a river system, made up of the main rivers Solimoes & Rio Negro, many smaller rivers, and ~2,000 islands
• At its max, the main river is 2 km’s wide and 100 meters deep 
• While probably not the longest single river (even though Brazilian scientists like to claim that it even beats the Nile), it is by far the world’s largest river in terms of water flow, with some 300,000 m³ reaching the Amazon estuary at the Atlantic every second. That is more than the next ten largest rivers combined, and represents 20% of the world's total freshwater flow into the oceans. 
• Today, some 20 million people live on the Amazon river(s), with Manaus (~2 million inhabitants) being the largest city

If you want more info on the Amazon, I’m confident you’re capable of doing the Wiki-work yourself. For further reading, there’s also a great online store with many books on the topic - www.amazon.com (it's a bad joke, I know, but I just had to write it. It's also funny 'cause it's true).



Anyway, back to our story. When we landed in Manaus, the Brazilian capital of the Amazon, we were greeted by some 35° C (it’s winter, that’s why it’s so cold) and some 96-98% humidity (now that‘s what I call tropical). Manaus is a fun place. Being a free trade zone, most of the city resembles a giant marketplace, with cheap clothes, Havaianas flip-flops, and great fruit juices unknown to the Western world. 

 

After two days, we hopped onto our speedboat to the border towns of Tabatinga (Brazil) & Leticia (Colombia). We had long discussed if sleeping in a hammock on one of the traditional boats would have made more sense, but given our need to travel upstream and our time constraints, 5-8 days on a slow boat just wasn’t feasible. Anyway, we thoroughly enjoyed our two-day speedboat ride - with one exception. At 4 am in the first night, our boat tried to stop at a floating gas station (like the one in the pic). However, something went wrong with the gears. Rather than putting the engines in reverse (to slow down the boat), the boat sped up like crazy. We first rammed the gas station, and after a sharp turn headed straight for the river bank, where we crashed into a mud wall. Fortunately, nobody was hurt and we were able to continue our voyage after the dirt had been cleared off the boat.

 
In Leticia, we first relaxed a couple of days in a nice hostel to get used to the heat, the impressive rain showers & the mosquitoes. We also prepared for our upcoming trip to the jungle by buying heaps of insect repellent & long sleeve shirts. At the time, we didn't expect that this 3-day trip into the jungle would turn out to be one of our most impressive travel experiences ever. 

Day 1 of the trip was a bit more mainstream than the following days. We went on a boat and travelled several hours upstream. Among others, we saw pink dolphins (this has nothing to do with my drinking habits), the world's largest leaves & many, many birds.
 





 



We also stopped at the Ilsa de los Micos, the Monkey Island, where more than 5,000 of these banana-loving mammals live.

 













There seems to be a limit on the number of pics I can upload per post, therefore I will spit this into two. The juicy stuff is about to come in the second part,so be prepared.


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*) If you do fun trips like that, why not offset your carbon footprint with a reliable organisation like www.atmosfair.de? It hurts your wallet, but that’s just fair. We are offsetting our round-the-world-ticket (and that really hurts, believe you me)