Cloudy early, torrential rain later then cloudy, then light rain then...
We are now in Manaus, the furthest we will go up the Amazon.
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I am sorry to report that the Amazon is not at all like I thought it was, from when I was a small boy until the day we entered it a few days ago. It was all an illusion it appears.
The Amazon is like the Mississippi or the Fraser or any other big river in the world: it was populated then developed. Sure, there are small dots along the rivers where some folks live between cities and Megalopolises. Here, the small settlements are called villages, elsewhere they are called towns.
All along the Amazon every so often there are large ugly industrial complexes that could be in Germany, Canada or the USA. My mind does not want to see them so I often look the other way, sometimes to a far shore of bushes or trees, anything except an oil refinery or oil storage tanks please.
It also takes a while to get used to the weather here. One minute it can be muggy and cloudy, the next a rain that would soak you to the skin in one minute flat. 10 minutes later it can be blue sky and you wonder where the sun screen is! (Remember when we used to call it Sun Tan Oil!)
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Now to today and us four...
We walked off the ship and in about three minutes we were on a 50 passenger speed boat. Yup, there is such a thing. It is comfortable but a bit noisy and clips along at a 70 kilometre very nippy speed. [42 miles and hour].
We were full and plowed up the Rio Negro river, before it joins the Amazon, somewhere near Manaus. We zipped under the very long [3.6 kilometre] bridge, the first between here and the Atlantic Ocean.
Within 90 minutes [!] we are swimming with the Pink Dolphins. I asked Fellette why we were doing this and she said 'We have swum with sharks and sting rays with the Cutler's so we have to do the pink dolphins".
Swimming is a misnomer really folks. There is an underwater platform about 4 1/2 feet under the tea coloured water. The dolphins, who are not penned, but swim freely in the ocean, come to this location naturally and periodically a person will feed them small fish and the people on the platform can be beside the feeder person and stroke and feel the dolphins as they are trying to get the fish from the feeders hand. It is indeed a cool sensation to touch such a big and wild wonderful creature.
After all those that ventured in had had a shot at it, about 18 of the 50 on the boat, we were invited to feed the very beautifully fearsome giant pirarucu. Now this giant fish has no teeth but just sucks the food in and swallows it whole.
There apparently 17 of these giants in a cage like apparatus about 2 feet square. They tie dead herring-sized fish onto a 15 foot pole with1/4 inch rope and we dangle it in the water. Remember the water is tea coloured and you cannot see beyond six inches down. Suddenly this six foot long giant sucks the fish off in a vacuum-like motion and presto, it is gone. It is like a shotgun going off in your hands when you do not have your finger on the trigger, you just know its going to go off> Great fun.
Now these fish have giant scales, and I mean giant. The scales are about 2 inched long and 1 1/2 inches long. They are dried and sold as finger nail files!!!
After that we piled into our PT boat and went to a village, toured the village and ended up with a drink and had an explanation of how rubber was tapped and processed into latex.
Then the journey home in our PT Torpedo boat and quickly into a hot shower, a change of clothes and that was our day. Great day, a bit too much Torpedo Boat but a great experience.
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