Big Nasty

Our arrival in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, found us both literally and figuratively in travelling wilderness. We were travelling blind without our trusty guide ‘South America A La Emily’, upon which I had become a little too reliant in Rio, but also Manaus was our entry point into the vast Amazon rainforest wilderness. It was time to see what Gillian McKeith was making such a shrieking fuss about.

We organised our jungle tour through the tour operator conveniently located in the back yard of our hostel, and despite being warned by the guide book of the unrelenting sales patter of the tour operators in Manaus, Andre in the office of Amazon Antonio Jungle Tours simply showed us some photos of Antonio’s beautiful eco-lodge and we were sold. Our cunning disorganisation served us well as we had unwittingly timed our four day trip to the jungle beautifully to coincide with a boat leaving the day after our return to Manaus, which would take us down the Rio Amazona to Tabatinga.

We spent the rest of the day in Manaus preparing for our trip to the jungle; changing travellers cheques in order to free up enough cash to pay for the jungle trip and the boat trip the following week, catching up with friends and family and sewing contraband salt and spices in to the crotch of my knickers a la McKeith. A pretty hectic and mundane day of “chores” was topped off wonderfully with a spaghetti bolognaise (traditional Amazonian cuisine) and a bottle of red wine.

At seven the next morning we were picked up at the hostel and after a hair-raising car ride (“the driver is laughing because this journey normally takes around 20 minutes and he has managed it in eight minutes” Andre explained) we were plonked on a bus with some pineapples, bananas and a watermelon and the promise that the bus driver would let us know when we had reached our stop. Three hours later and we were truly in the jungle, the mighty jungle. We were met at our “stop” by Otto who spoke no English and simply put the fruit in to the basket at the front of his bicycle and cycled off towards the river indicating that we should follow. Otto ushered us in to a waiting motorised canoe and we sped off down the river. Not a word had been spoken besides his opening line of ‘I’m Otto’, and I was already having the overwhelming urge to shout ‘I’m (practically) A Celebrity…. Get Me Out Of Here’, however when the mirador of Antonio’s lodge became visible through the canopy of trees my worries immediately dissolved.

Before we even had the opportunity to go for a pee, our newly introduced guide Francisco has whisked us off on a tour of the lodge, showing us the pineapple tree, explaining the water system and forcing jungle fruit down our throats. Whilst Forrest happily munched on some vaguely banana-tasting eyeball-textured fruit and I smiled politely and tried not to gag, Francisco informed us that lunch was ready which provided me with the perfect opportunity to wash down the offending fruit with something that didn’t taste like vomit.

After lunch we took a little walk around the outskirts of the lodge, looking upwards at every sign of movement expecting to see a family of monkeys swinging through the trees singing ‘I’m the King of the Jungle y’all, the Jungle VIP” however we saw nothing, and it didn’t take us long to realise that Planet Earth had given us a slightly unrealistic and unattainable impression of the Amazon. Talking with Francisco as we canoed around the floating forest later that afternoon, he explained rather patiently that we were in the Amazon, the largest rainforest on the planet that covers over half of Brazil and a large portion of South America. If we saw any wildlife we would be extremely lucky, but what tourists often failed to recognise was that the rainforest itself was enough.

Our first taste of the wildlife the Amazon had to offer came later that afternoon on a fish hook, had sharp pointed teeth and would later be served as dinner; Piranha! After canoeing around the peaceful and serene floating forest we spent a couple of hours fishing for our supper, and getting to know Francisco. Piranha fishing, as with most practical things, did not come easily to Forrest, and despite nearly managing to capsize us every time he threw his line out he only managed to catch one measly piranha compared to my rather magnificent three! Although in fairness to him, his one fish was huge and could probably have eaten all three of mine in one toothy gulp.



After caiprinhas and conversation with a Chillean-Argentine couple watching the sunset from the top of the tower, it was time for dinner. The food in the lodge, although simple meals of rice and spaghetti accompanied by salad, chicken and meat, was always delicious but that evening with our own freshly caught piranhas as the dish of the day, it was outstanding.

After a couple of very strong caiprinhas, I had forgotten that we were to go out again on the canoe and it was on rather unsteady legs that I climbed in to the canoe in the pitch black to go and search for Caiman alligators. Speeding down the Amazon in the darkness, ‘illuminated’ only by fireflies, was an experience I will never forget, and was only awoken from my reverie of how amazing it was when Francisco slapped the tails of three baby Caiman on my bare legs. They say a picture paints a thousand words, and I believe this is certainly true with the photographs below when describing how we felt about our encounter with the Caimans…



The next morning we were woken at 5:45 by Francisco to hear dawn breaking in the Amazon, and to see if we could spot dolphins. We were in luck and spent half an hour watching the pink river dolphins surface on the calm water of the ‘lake’ where they were hunting for fish (probably with more success than we had had the day before) which was an amazing experience. The sounds of the Amazon waking up provided the perfect soundtrack to a beautiful early morning canoe trip. A great night’s sleep had wreaked havoc on my hair however which provided Francisco with great amusement as he described it as a birds nest, although with his accent it sounded more like he was calling it ‘big nasty’ which I feel is going to be how my hair is going to look and feel for the remainder of our Gap Yah.

The rest of the morning was spent on a jungle walk where Francisco explained the medicinal properties of various trees and plants and their derivatives in modern medicine which was very interesting and after lunch we got ready for our overnight stay in the jungle. They don’t call it the rainforest for nothing, and our two hour hike to our jungle camp gave us a very wet experience of this! Francisco showed us an enormous tarantula on our way to camp, and even through the pouring rain its massive fangs and poisonous bristles were clear to see and did nothing to alleviate my nerves for the night ahead. Arriving at the camp, soaked to the bone with rain and sweat with puddles in my (inappropriate as always) shoes, I felt pretty miserable but once the hammocks were hung, the fire was roaring, the sausages sizzling and clean dry clothes in place of our sopping wet ones I couldn’t have been happier. As bright green fireflies floated past, Francisco set about whittling spoons and making plates out of leaves for our campfire dinner and we chatted (probably not wisely) about the killer snakes in the jungle and his experiences with them (his own grandmother and uncle both dying from snake bites!). After a fulfilling and filling meal of rice, vegetables and sausages we settled down for the night in our hammocks and drifted off to sleep listening to the sounds of the jungle.



I was woken early by Francisco throwing leaves and twigs in to my hammock in an attempt to scare me, and after a breakfast of boiled eggs, crackers and fruit, we set off back to the lodge, thankfully in the dry this time! Although we had only been camping for one night, our dishevelled and dirty appearance gave the impression that we had been lost in the jungle for months, and after a wonderful shower we washed our filthy clothes and I even had the opportunity to sunbathe. The afternoon was spent fishing with an American couple, Amy and Julie, who were working on a floating university campus called Semester At Sea which takes its students all across the world in one semester. I was very successful in my piranha fishing once again catching five fish, whilst Forrest had improved slightly and caught three. The sunset that night from the lodge was breathtaking and I started to feel sad about leaving the next day after having such a wonderful time.

The next morning we explored some of the smaller channels off the river, and said goodbye to the jungle and to Francisco, who we absolutely loved and had made our experience entirely unforgettable. With the promise that I would come back and work on the tiny bar in the lodge one day, we said a bit of a tearful farewell. My tears soon turned to tears of pain as I stumbled getting in to the canoe and after what seemed like about an hour tripping and slipping I finally managed to get upright again with the help of Forrest, who said I was a millimetre from the water, and with a bruised toe and a very bruised ego we set off with Otto to catch the bus back to Manaus.

That evening back in Manaus we met with Antonio and Andre on the off chance for a drink on the Praca Sao Sebastiao, as they had an after-work drink overlooked by the stunning Amazon Theatre. We gushed about our jungle experience, and after a few drinks we headed off for an all you can eat buffet at a Brazillian churrasco restaurant. Forrest was in heaven.

Manaus is described in my Rough Guide as ‘a city in the midst of the jungle, consciously designed to show the mastery of man over nature’. With more shops than Oxford Street all crammed in to one tiny space, the commercialism and consumerism could not have been more different from the tranquil serenity of the jungle. As I waited for our transfer the next morning to take us to the boat which would take us down the river to Tabatinga, and observed the chaos in the hostel and listened to an American complain about not seeing any monkeys on her jungle tour, I couldn’t help but agree with the Italian trapeze artist who had been at the lodge with us when he whispered to me, “I think I preferred the jungle”.