Category Archives: Kayaking the Amazon

2 weeks kayaking, hiking, and eco-relaxing in the Brazilian Amazon.

Day 4: Bungle in the Jungle

Today is July 4, Moe’s 40th birthday, the reason we’ve all gathered here in the Amazon.

I woke up feeling groggy and off, like I was still full from the night before, and I couldn’t keep a train of thought going. I popped a multivitamin, which I’d forgotten all about so far, but barely touched breakfast.

Foggy and groggy

In the end it turned out all I needed was a good shot of adrenaline.

The 1st four hours of the day were scheduled for kayak exploration of 2 nearby “lakes.” Eric got a 20 minute head start, and we didn’t run into him at all out on the water. He must have hit the other lake first. Moe and I hit the south one, more like a tributary river, and followed it until I spotted a cool “tunnel” through a passable wall of trees to another section of lake/river. Moe followed, as a Moe does. (“Moe-cuts” are his specialty!)

Plants vs. People

We kept exploring well beyond the point where Moe asked, “Benj, what is the probability you’ll remember our way back out of here? My memory’s not that good.”

“100%” I assured him.

It was a valid question. The river had turned into a pinball machine of bushes, I guess you could call them, that we navigated around while maintaining our same rough direction. [Future Benj: We thought maybe one of the bushes was the canopy of a Brazil nut tree, with the “lids” still on the tree, but turns out to be a relative, Eschweilera coriacea, known as machimango in Peru. Brazil nuts don’t live where it floods.]

Not Brazil nut

Some twists and turns later, we reached what we considered a dead-end even by our low standards. More importantly, we were due back at noon, and it was almost 10am. We had been kayaking since about 8am.

I confidently marched us back through the turns and twists, back through the pinball bushes, and straight down into some other river. Maybe 20 minutes into it I finally admitted to Moe that nothing looks familiar. (I had been thinking those words for a while already.) Moe agreed, noting that the long grass dangling from the trees here was new to us. It clung like Velcro to your clothes, and according to Maurice the micro-barbs also cut skin. So we realize we’re lost on the Amazon while tangled in human-devouring grass.

Razor grass from a safe distance

Mind you, we had no maps, no internet to get maps, no compass, and our one survival tool, a machete borrowed from Erikes, Moe had accidentally dropped overboard. It was a total Blair Witch moment. “I kicked the map into the creek!” The water here was deeper than 10m: that’s how much the water is up now from it’s low season. [Future Benj: The Amazon is 320′ at its deepest. The Jatapú tributary is indeed 30+ feet deeper in the wet season than dry. But since we were lost over “dry” land, it’s not easy to say for sure whether there was 30′ of water below us. We could have been over a hill. All we can say for certain is it was deeper than Maurice’s paddle!]

Is overboard machete within reach?  Nope.

But what I had done is taken a screenshot on Apple Maps of our farthest point, the dead-end, before we turned around to go back to camp. That map was very low-detail, not showing us on water at all — thanks to the wet season we were kayaking through the treetops of what’s dry land the rest of the year — but we could use it for comparison to at least get back to somewhere we’d definitely been. And far away from razor-grass town, please. Consider it a dot on a map where we’re lost, but don’t know it yet. This should save us, right?

Dead-end

Moe stayed perfectly calm, at least on the outside. We agreed on the general direction of our farthest dead-end point, and figured we’d head back to it, trying alternative directions, or really more like different off-ramps, from bushy pinball land. Off ramp #2 looked promising, but 15 minutes down that one we weren’t recognizing anything there, either. And then, you guessed it: more razor grass! Survey says? XX

The third off ramp we tried from bushy pinball land looked the same as the others initially. And to be honest, nothing I saw was recognizable beyond doubt. And we had so much doubt at this point. Part of it is we were seeing everything from the other direction on the way out. But I also kept looking back for some glimpse of something, anything I remembered from the way in. Instead, it was all beautiful green generic jungle along the banks. But no razor grass thus far, so Maurice and I were content to give this 3rd attempt the benefit of the doubt.

I was pleased to know, barring any more stupidity, that we would both be returning home to our families (eventually) once I saw that sweet, sweet tunnel through the jungle wall straight ahead. And we still had an hour left before lunch, so we started exploring another branch. 🤠

Freedom! We made it back to camp.

Let its spirit carry me

And just in time for this surprise: a birthday cake made of couscous (some finer Brazilian variety, apparently, but yellow like cake), frosted with something chocolatey, and sprinkled with coconut. How sweet of our crew?! We sang to Moe and he blew out a candle. Happy birthday, Moe, and happy birthday, USA! May you both prosper in the coming year and learn from mistakes of the recent past.

4th of July birthday cake

After lunch was a nice long siesta in hammocks on shore, since our boat hammocks, where we usually sleep, were being set up in the jungle. I’ve read over half my book, Everything Matters, a gift from my friend Matt about 3 years ago that I’m finally prioritizing. (Love it!) Mid-afternoon I was served a coconut with a hole drilled in it and one of those flimsy plastic cups. Delicious, as always!

My hammock needs cup holders

Late afternoon we packed up and kayaked over to the same trail head we hiked yesterday, except this time, after dinner, we hiked up to find our hammocks hanging higher than usual over the ground, and with mosquito nets and rain tarps over them. That’s where I’m blogging now. We saw a tarantula hanging out in an armadillo hole on the way up.

Tarantula in an armadillo hole
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Sleeping with the monkeys

Moe had an epic birthday. Mission accomplished!!

Day 3: Some actual kayaking on our kayak trip

Last night the snoring was real bad. Who knew Eric had it in him? I tried watching Netflix (The Break with Michelle Wolfe I downloaded while back in civilization) for a while, but the snoring only got worse. It began to pour around midnight, but Eric’s snoring drowned it out. Even when the crew came up to batten down the hatches, headlights a-blazing, Eric snored through that, too. Uncanny! I don’t remember sleeping at all. Just dreaming of ways to smother Eric… Maybe I was sleeping while dreaming of that?

Breakfast of Champions
photo credit: Maurice Ribble
Benj gracefully mounting his steed
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

After breakfast, which included fresh papaya, we set out in our kayaks. I had picked up a flexible tripod that can clip onto anything, like the edge of a kayak. But it broke to pieces in my hands as I tried to clip it on. Luckily my camera wasn’t attached yet! Suffice it to say, no cool kayak POV time lapse videos on this trip. 😢

We explored a side-stream which is everything kayaking in the Amazon should be: narrow, full canopy overhead, not so much light sifting down to the bottom. Ma would love kayaking here, a lot like the mangrove swamps in the Keys where it’s fun to pick your way around and find critters (or ancient vehicle carcasses, which there aren’t a lot of here).

This is what I imagined kayaking the Amazon would be

Macaws chillin'

These reminded me of C2C alum Ealish Wilson's textile art (ealishwilson.com)

Bird

Butterfly

Several dolphins followed us in from the main part of the river to see what we were doing. The dolphins here are curious, playful, and abundant. One even did a full on vertical jump like you’d see at an aquarium show. I didn’t know they pulled stunts like that in the wild!

Dolphins

Dolphin Show

We had lunch, including a yummy Matricious (sp?) fish, Erikes’ favorite. Super good. Just watch out for those harpoon bones!

Grilled Lunch
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

After lunch we had some down time.

Down time
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Then at 2pm we set off for our afternoon adventure, a hike in the rainforest. We collected sneakers, socks, long pants, and long sleeve shirts. All I had with long sleeves was a rain jacket from Budapest (another trip Maurice happened to go on), so I put it on. All the rain would happen on the inside. I was sweating like Pat in The Silver Linings Playbook, jogging with a trash bag on. But we hiked up to the highest point in this region with a great view of the Jatapú valley, and saw some impressive spiders and a dead monkey along the way.

Sentinel spider at the trailhead
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Vine worthy of Tarzan

Hike Summit

Summit Selfie

Back down near the river, we tested out a natural sunscreen made from little berries that you squash between your fingers. Moe went overboard, as usual.

Moe just ate a baby something

Flower power, literally
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Now we’re looking for caimans in the water next to tonight’s camp, a friend’s house, Renaldo’s I think. (Apparently he’s in town collecting his paycheck for providing emergency medical service on the river, but probably also watching World Cup.) If you shine a light out into the water, their retro-reflective eyes beam right back at you. They’re out there! Erikes is trying to catch one as dinner is simultaneously being prepared.

Cayman Hunting
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Word on the street is that tomorrow we’ll be setting up camp off the boat, in the rainforest. Wheeee!

Day 2: Motoring

The boat was awake around 5:30am. I ignored everything and managed to sleep until 7am when breakfast was announced. We had grilled banana (pacoba), some local variety of orange, scrambled eggs, and some kind of biscuit. Delicious! Also a thermos of coffee I tapped into a couple times during the morning. We drink every liquid, whether water, juice, or coffee, out of the same little cups that feel like they’re made out of cellophane. (Even though you feel compelled to reuse them, not so fast! They disintegrate upon 2nd contact with your hands or more liquid.)

Double-bagged Cellophane Cup

Today was another big-boat day. We left at 8am, and motored up the Jatapú tributary until about 5:30pm. I spent most waking hours in my hammock working on Black Belt KenKen. It was extremely relaxing! I haven’t felt this much at liberty to waste time in months. We did build a bit of a sun shade, so we weren’t total slackers.

Throwing shade
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Notice my clothes out to dry...

Lunch was primarily delicious leftovers from last night’s dinner. Yum! But beef was the protein, so I supplemented with some salmon jerky I brought. I didn’t know what the food situation would be like for a pescatarian, so I brought two boxes of the stuff, but at this rate I’ll maybe get through half a box. The food on the boat is fantastic! Also, we didn’t realize they’d be providing alcohol. And since Moe doesn’t partake, that means 50% bonus for me and Eric.

This Devassa's for you

At one point in the afternoon, the sky got dark and the wind started gusting. I saw one of our blow up star-gazing mattresses take flight, and I jumped out of my hammock to save it. I caught the mattress, but not the two articles of clothing laid out on it to dry: my red bathing suit and white Charitocracy running shirt. We circled the big boat (with big turning radius) around. By now it was full on rainforest raining, too! After I failed to pull it out with a kayak paddle, Moe jumped in and retrieved my bathing suit. The Charitocracy shirt was nowhere to be seen. I’d like to pretend it’s in a better place now, maybe with my wedding ring.

When in Rainforest...
photo credit: Maurice Ribble
Let it rain!
photo credit: Maurice Ribble
The payoff
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

When we arrived at our parking spot for the night, we got back in the kayaks again for exploring. Since we’ll start downriver in the kayaks tomorrow, we went upriver a ways this evening. Though the river appears calm, it actually had a decent current pulling us back toward camp. Moe and Eric tried to swim after, but the current was too strong. [Melia, not because it was cold. 😘]

Day 2 Motoring

Wouldn't want the kayaks to stay dry!

For dinner we had rice, spaghetti, soy meat substitute like veggie crumbles, salad, and whatever the local root vegetable is that they make tapioca from. [Future Benj says, “Manioc!”] Also a soda made out of some local fruit. (My Portuguese is not improving.) During dinner they ran the boat’s generator. The moths loved this lightbulb, and I managed a slow enough exposure to get their trails.

Go home, moths, you're drunk.

This is as far north as we’ll go on this river. The real kayaking part of the trip begins in the morning as we slowly head back south to where we started!

Day 1: Nope, it’s the destination

Maurice described the hotel shower as being like a waterfall, so I had to make this last one count. He was not wrong. At 7am we were walking down the long halls of the Tropical Manaus Hotel, where Erikes +1 would collect us.

Exiting the hotel, we saw the river, the river, for the first time. It was a glorious view. But way bigger than the vision in my head. For some reason I imagine a relatively narrow river with the rainforest canopy covering it, and all the wildlife up in your face out of sheer space constraints. What was I thinking? It was a giant sun-drenched river with the wildlife density of an ocean! (I know my children will fact-check this later, so I’m just claiming whatever I want here.)

Benj and Moe at the Amazon
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Much of the day was spent driving to the portion of the river where we’d begin. 330 km in about 5 hours. I don’t know what the mph equivalent is, so I’ll leave that as an exercise for the reader. But I’m pretty sure this will prove the most dangerous part of our Amazon Tour. Erikes drove like a bat out of hell, probably max speed around 80 mph, but this was on roads of mixed quality with giant pot holes, where the minefield slowed us down to 10 mph. We spent about 20% of the time in the left (oncoming traffic) lane. Speed bump slow downs are optional.

Manaus
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

May include unpaved roads

Unpaved road
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

We did slow down for lunch. The national sport is having some sort of televised international tournament.

World Cup lunch

After arriving at The Boat, it was already time to eat lunch. Some amazing fish, beans and rice, and salad. After lunch, Erikes’ S.O. got back in the car for the long slog back to Manaus. The 4 of us +3 additional crew embarked on our journey.

The Boat
photo credit: Maurice Ribble
Lunch with Eric
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

The boat has 2 levels. Below is the engine room, kitchen, head, and open area we used for dining.

Engine room
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Below deck

Upstairs is a sun deck, shaded area for our hammocks, and the “bridge” with a cute steering wheel.

Above deck
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Wheelhouse

Our first 2 days involve chugging up the river to a place we can start the kayaking part of the adventure. Then each day will involve kayaking to where the boat parks each day. I’m guessing 4 hours of kayaking each day?

First wildlife photo!

Cue: Dr. Seuss inspired plants

I took a 1.5 hour nap to test out my hammock. It worked! And I needed it. 3+ nights in a row of less than my usual 8 hours was weighing on me. I’m hopeful for tonight, too.

Benj and Eric in hammocks

Today we parked in front of a termite-eaten tree. I don’t know how else to say where we are. There’s a few abandoned “houses” along the shores, but I’m sure they don’t have addresses, since there are no roads here. Maybe I’ll be able to pull up maps using photo GPS coords once I’m back in civilization and can post these blog entries? [Future Benj says, “Yes! I’ve sprinkled in maps!”]

Day 1 Boat Ride

Some context for our journey so far

We all went for a swim (warm water, but with refreshing streaks of cold) and then explored our “neighborhood” on kayak. The kayaks are the open top ocean variety, painted camo, and with comfy mesh seat backs.

Sunset on the Amazon

After dinner, we lay on blow up mattresses on the sun deck to watch the stars. They are overly bright here. Like, unnecessarily show-off bright. “There’s the rest of our galaxy right there. Yup.” I’m thinking this close to the equator we’ll get sunrise around 6am and sunset at 6pm. We went to bed and I started blogging at 7pm. It’s 8:30pm now and feels like midnight! It also sounds like the jungle. We have natural white noise, and it’s louder than my usual! Here’s hoping for 8+ hours…

Eric testing out the air mattresses
photo credit: Maurice Ribble
Candlelight dinner
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Day 0: It’s the journey that matters

It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about a good adventure! Now that I’ve uploaded my photos from Maurice‘s 40th birthday trip to the Amazon, I’ll post the daily diary entries I wrote while in Brazil the first half of July. But if you want to wait and binge the whole trip at once, come back in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, you could read about my 40th birthday coast-to-coast hike across England on the Wainwright Walk, or my hut-to-hut hikes through New Hampshire’s White Mountains portion of the Appalachian Trail.

[Future Benj says, “It’s all up there now! Also, hover over images with your mouse cursor to read insightful captions. Or on Chrome mobile browser, press down on the photos for the caption to pop up.”]

I woke up to my alarm (which is actually just the fading out of my white noise) at 7:29am. I had been up until midnight at Maurice’s house doing final packing after enjoying dinner and ice cream at Kimball’s, and then a round of pre-birthday ice cream cake, too. But now it was game day! A shower and a banana later, and it was time to order our Lyft. Only $60 from Lancaster to Logan!

Our Lyft driver, Paul, was clearly nervous about driving into Boston. He repeatedly reassured us about how he’d get us there one way or another. It was 8:30am on a Saturday… He was reassuring himself, poor guy. By hook or by crook — or simply by following his smartphone’s map — he delivered us there safely and comfortably. And 3 hours early for boarding.

Luckily we were upgraded on the first leg to Miami. So we spent the extra hours in the Admiral’s Club getting in our final web activities. I posted an out-of-office Facebook and Instagram message for Charitocracy, finished a hair-raising last-minute 24GB data upload for my day job, and drank a fancy coffee.

Admiral Benj
photo credit: Maurice Ribble

Both flights were uneventful, and I watched the last episodes of Mr. Robot season 2. Halfway thru we met Eric in Miami, where he’d flown separately from Wisconsin. I don’t think I’d seen him since the Wainwright Walk (coast to coast across England). But we hugged it out like it had been yesterday. I’ve got a solid adventure crew.

The Journey

Arriving in Manaus, we were met with the shortest passport control line I’ve ever seen. The officer didn’t even open his mouth. Just looked at my visa, stamped my passport, and that was that. The other thing we were met with, unexpectedly, was our tour guide, Erikes, and his partner. We weren’t expecting them to pick us up until the next morning, but they came out late to the airport and saved us a cab ride.

They dropped us at our hotel near midnight, where we sat in the lobby while Maurice gracefully performed damage control on a reservation he accidentally made for two beds instead of three. 45 minutes later, we were in a small room with three strange small beds each with one small pillow. That’s all we needed! White Noise on, though I was informed there would be no white noise on the river. [Insert foreshadowing here.] [Also insert PTSD flashback.] “Alarm” set for 6:29am!