I will start my travel posts with the last time I visited the Amazon rainforest in November and December of 2022. During that year, I was making plans to visit the Amazon in the first couple of months of 2023, but due to circumstances, I had to adapt and change my plans. In October, I made the decision of bringing the trip forward as this was the only option to go. So, at the last moment, I had to change all my plans, to look for contacts and a place to stay in South America. I decided to go to Manaus, Brazil, as this is a large city with a lot of options to meet interesting people in the field of nature conservation and plenty of possibilities to delve into the forest. I booked a trip for six weeks, and off I went without any structured plan, and only one pair of friends / contacts in the south of Brazil.
The first peculiar experience started already in the plane during the last few hundred kilometers flying over the jungle. There were no clouds in the sky; it was only the vast forest for as far as the eye could see. I had never seen something like this before. Looking over the massive jungle gave me a feeling of being very tiny. I could even feel a lot of pressure on my chest from the energy of the forest, which was extremely uncomfortable, and hard to describe how it is if you have never felt it. It makes you feel that nature is in control of the area and that we, humans, are foreigners.
Before I left Europe, I contacted a few Dutch people in Manaus to see if they could help me on my trip, and a lovely couple even offered to pick me up at the airport. What was amazing! It’s nice to be in good hands, especially upon arriving after a long trip. Safety in Manaus is quite different from in The Netherlands. I wanted to learn about indigenous people, conservation of the rainforest, and agroforestry, so I contacted as many people as I could who potentially could help upon arriving in the city.
Visiting the city of Manaus was a strategic decision for the beginning of this trip, which seemed to be promising. The city is beautiful. It is very hot and humid, and they have completely different standards of safety to those I was used to. However, it was a perfect place as base to take day trips, whether to an agroforestry farm, a city park with lots of plants and animals, to the Amazon River, or indigenous tribes.
The center of Manaus has a beautiful theater and a fancy square, which makes it clear that it was a wealthy city in the past. The pavement on this square consists of black and white stripes, simulating the two famous rivers of the city: the Amazon River and Rio Negro, that confluence at a corner of the city. (In another post I will explain why they differ in color that much). There are plenty of cozy restaurants where one can savor the typical fish pirarucú and rucunaré. Aditionally, the city boasts a large market and tourist shops, offereing all sorts of souvenirs and trinkets.
The city harbors two million people. It is the capital of the Brazilian state of the Amazon. Roaming around, it often felt like a significant portion of the population was actually living on the streets, because every time I wanted to go for a stroll, people were sleeping on the pavements, blocking the pathway where I intended to go through. I never felt comfortable walking the short distance of 300 meters from the central square –where most of the activity takes place– to where I stayed, but taking a taxi for such a small distance also felt a bit ridiculous.
Now, I am sharing a curious anecdote of an evening event as example of things that can happen and that demonstrate that security standars are completely different from the ones we have in the Netherlands. One night, I went out to a terrace to grab some food after a long day of research–working all day long makes you hungry, after all. The terrace was completely full, except for one chair at a table where a Pakistani woman was sitting. I joined her, we each ordered our food, and a few minutes later, the waitress brought us delicious pirarucú fish served with rice and tomatoes.
In this square, it’s common to see poor people passing by the tables asking for money or any food. However, this time was different, a lady (or guy, we couldn’t figure out the gender) approached and stood next to us, staring at our plates. There was tension in the air, and suddenly, he/she grabbed our fish and began eating it right in front of us. Feelling bewildered by the situation, we decided to move inside for dessert as all the fun had gone. Despite the waiters’ attempts to intervene to get the person to leave, the individual persisted, threatening them with a broken bottle.
This killed the romance of the evening quite a bit 😊
And so, this was just a glimpse of my travels in the Amazon. As you can see, it is and will be, a combination of personal experiences with depictions of the Amazon and its inhabitants.
