Why the Amazon rocks

Socially, this place has been a bit miserable for me. But fortunately, the days pass in a sort of languid, hazy pace, just like the creeping flow of the Jauaperi. Time just sort of dissolves, so I hardly notice that I've been having a miserable time of it for over a week now.

But that's the first thing I like about being here - that for the past 10 days, I've hardly used my watch at all, I have no idea what day it is, and I haven't made any transactions of buying or selling at all. It's just a totally different lifestyle that most people from the "developed" world never get to experience or appreciate.

Then there's the jungle, and the immense amount of life within it. Everything seems more vivid here, despite the slow pace. The jungle seems especially green, and the sky seems to sit especially high or especially low - depending on whether or not there's a storm passing through. And when one does, it's torrential sheets of rain, thunder and lightning, and whole new rivers being formed - for about 15 minutes, and then the sun returns, the humidity rises, and tranquility sets back in. At night, the darkness in the miloca is more complete than anything I'm used to, maybe even than anything I've ever experienced - I can't even see my own hand in front of my face. My senses defer to sound, which picks up bats burrowing in the roof, and bugs, crickets and monkeys in the jungle around me.


Being in the Amazon, everything is both sped up and slowed down, simultaneously. Nothing seems in a hurry here, but at the same time, there are more daily reminders of life and death than anyplace I've ever been. One day, after a hard rain, the resident flock of vultures were crouched in dead trees, their wings spread wide. They were just trying to dry them off, but the effect was ominous. The jungle constantly reminds you that death begets life, and vice versa. Anyplace you go, there are pythons eating dolphins eating baby cayman eating fish eating spiders eating bugs. Trains of ants that can devour the remains of a small mammal in no time at all. Pirhanas eating smaller fish, and people eating pirhanas. Old, decaying trees with new saplings growing out of them. Circle of life, and all that (cue the damn song).


There is a praying mantis the size of my hand that lives in the miloca. Anytime I take a canoe, river dolphins come up for puffs of air all around us, and at night, bats circle overhead, feasting on those nasty little bastard black flies that leave large, bloody welts on my pale skin. The fiery red eyes of cayman glow beneath the beams of our flashlights. The eery, wailing screams of howler monkeys invade my dreams, and never fail to make me shudder during the day - they sound like the dead trying to rise from the grave. On one walk in the jungle, we saw toucans loudly and joyously saluting the coming rain, spider monkeys, brightly colored pairs of macaws, and fresh peccary foot prints - followed closely by jaguar footprints(!). Oh yeah, and our guide machetied off a vine-like tree branch with marbled, chocolatey flesh inside, and we drank water out of it. It was pretty special.

During the day, hordes of butterflies swarm around the end of our dock, a fluttering parade of orange, yellow, black and white. And, for arachnaphobes, there are spiders everywhere. They come in all sizes, but while I had this image of the Amazon that there were huge, hairy spiders everywhere - lurking in the bathroom, hiding in your shoes and bedsheets - most of the spiders are quite small and harmless. But they WILL be on you much of the time, because that's how the jungle works (the translucent ones a little smaller than the palm of my hand that skitter around and jump across the water or whatever else they're on creep me out the most).


Under my regular house arrest at the miloca, I haven't gotten to spend much time with the locals here, which is a shame. But I have noticed that they seem happy - many of them came to this community to see their lives much improved by luxuries such as three meals a day, electricity, and medicine - and closely knit with their families and communities. They are not particularly religious - while they say they believe in God, they also continue to follow the animist beliefs of forest spirits and such. There is no church in the village. Lacking proper supplies, they use notebook or computer paper to roll their cigarettes, and most of them smoke either tobacco or marijuana, or both. The men, who are laborers and river guides, have fit, muscular figures from paddling canoes all day. They also act as guides around the reserve, although I would't exactly call them Noble Stewards of the Sacred Forest - Alonho, my guide, wasn't above indiscriminantly hacking at plant life with his machete for no apparent reason, and the village boys have a grand time teasing and catching baby caimen at night. The women are large and jubilant; the children seem happy and playful (they even seemed happy to be in school, which I filmed some when it started again today). It is rude to wear your shoes inside, but they don't seem to keep the floors very clean - the floor where I'm typing now is littered with cigarrette butts. Strange? I think so...



I leave this place after lunch. I'll arrive in Manaus tomorrow afternoon, and my flight to Natal is late tomorrow night. There are things that I will miss about this rare, strange area of the world. Other things I will miss not so much. I am excited to surf! I will burn in the sun, but that is the price I suppose. Au revoir, Amazon.