Amazonia

Alter do Chao sits on the banks of the Rio Tapajos, just before it joins the Rio Amazonas. The place where the rivers meet is in the neighbouring larger city called Santarem (of the-airport-where- we-lost-our-baggage-fame). The town really is sleepy, and everything closes in the middle of the day when the sun is at its hottest, and opens again in the evenings. Things are generally open until late at night. It is not uncommon to be able to buy your groceries or stroll over to the riverside to eat some sorvete (icecream) after dinner around 10 pm.

The first day we spent at Alter do Chao was Sunday, and the riverside beach was extremely crowded, with tourists and locals from nearby towns. The next few days we saw very few people and we had the beach almost to ourselves. The Tapajos forms a bay at Alter do Chao; the sand is clean and white, and the water is calm and blue-green. The word picturesque sums it up perfectly. Various riverside restaurants have their tables and chairs in the water itself - it is extremely comfortable and pleasant to sit with your feet in the cool river water while the afternoon sun blazes overhead.

Alter do Chao is not a common tourist destination (the gateway city of Manaus, or the port city of Belem are more popular with international tourists) but it is the spring-board to visit Floresta Nacional (FLONA) do Tapajos, a 6500 sq km primary rainforest reserve. Our day-trip started off with an hour-long boat ride on the river to the Maguary community. The boat was tiny, light, and could seat 4 people. Maguary is south of Alter do Chao, and the people earn their living by working rubber. There were many seringa (rubber) trees all around. The Maguary community doesn't actually collect the rubber (surrounding communities do that and sell the unprocessed rubber to them), they make products out of it. We saw the painstaking ways in which rubber sheets, bags, slippers, and other products were made. Everything is done by hand, there are very few tools, and it takes a long time. We should not neglect to mention that everytime one needs to enter or leave the community, one needs to wade through an ankle-deep bog.

We then took a 20-minute boat ride further south to get to the Jamaraqua community, whose forest we hiked into. We were accompanied by a guide from the community (this is a requirement of the Brasilian government). Unfortunately, the guide spoke no English (except for the word "Bambi" when he was trying to explain that there were deer tracks), and our limited Portuguese greatly restricted the benefit we got from his knowledge of the forest. Nonetheless, we were awed by the forest itself, and our guide's observation skills. For instance, he suddenly stopped while we were hiking through the forest, pointed to the ground and said aranha. We froze in our steps and waited quietly as he moved a few leaves and suddenly there emerged a tarantula! It was amazing and enormous. Or another time, he suddenly pointed into the dense foliage and said cobra verde (cobra is the Portuguese word for snake). We started off on a torrent of onde? onde? (where? where?) and finally noticed it lying peacefully amidst the leaves. We saw giant trees, enormous creepers entwined on trees, brilliantly coloured butterflies, and monkeys leaping across branches. We heard many birds. It was truly a magical experience.

Our trip ended with a canoe ride through extremely clear waters with strange and wondrous plants growing under it and schools of fish swimming through including some small, harmless varieties of piranha. One did not need to snorkel to see the plants or fish. The water was so clear that the plants photosynthesize until several feet underwater and extend their tendrils up to the surface for air. The green and red plants, with large mossy tendril like things underwater, and had big leaves that floated to the top and formed a carpet of leaves on the surface. There was also a plethora of river-birds - egrets and herons were the ones we recognized, the rest were mostly just called passarinha (small bird!) by our guide.

Lunch was in the home of a local family who made a huge effort to prepare vegetarian food for us. It was a delicious spread - made even better by the tiredness of the long day - of spaghetti, rice, beans, salad, egg and soy. The sun was setting and the moon rising as we were getting into our boat to get back to Alter do Chao. The river was pitch dark, there were storm-clouds and lightning bolts on the horizon and our ride was guided by moonlight shimmering off the river.

Baggagem perdida!

A long and roundabout flight with many connections dropped us off at the Santarem airport, from where we were to take two buses to Alter do Chao, a sleepy riverside town in the heart of the Amazon. We waited at the baggage collection area in the Santarem airport sleepily at 5:30 am, and were jolted awake when the carousel stopped and our bags had not arrived. Frantic thumbing through our phrase book brought us to the "baggage lost" page, and we explained to the staff waiting around that we didn't see our bags. Our confidence levels did not rise when everyone looked panicked and ran to the flight we were just on, waiting on the tarmac to take off to its next stop. Unfortunately, our bags were not found by the staff quickly rummaging through the plane's baggage compartment, and we found ourselves filling out an airline form with the help of two staff persons who spoke some English. I have to say that the airline (TAM) and airport security staff was extremely helpful, and we filled out the Portuguese form and made our way to the bus stop to take our bus to Alter do Chao.
Despite our grim situation (no change of clothes, no underwear except what we were wearing, no spectacles/contact lens solution, no medicines, no soap) the bus ride to Alter do Chau cheered us up immensely as we drove through the rainforest, and the cool breeze whipped through the windows bringing respite from the sweltering heat of the Amazon. A treat awaited us when we reached the pousada we were to spend the next indefinite period of time (until our bags reached) - for very little money we were given a palatial room in a charming garden setting (an arara (macaw) serenaded us from the neighbour's trees), with a sumptuous breakfast every morning, and best of all, the nicest and kindest owner! After feasting on a huge breakfast we made our way into the praca (which is about 3 blocks long) to purchase some underwear, clothes meant for this weather, soap, and contact lens solution. After a few tries, we managed to get all! In fact, it felt kind of good to have so few things to take care of. We enjoyed this simple living for the next two days while our baggage remained missing, taking turns to mope and be cheerful. More than the loss of the baggage, it was the indefinite stalling of the rest of our trip through Brasil that we were ruing.

Luckily, our baggage reached us in a couple of days, and we enjoyed our stay in Alter do Chao (and our visit to the Amazon rainforest) tremendously.