Global Health Adventures: Amazon Day 2: Meeting of the Waters, Piranhas, Caimans

Sunday, November 13

Our second day in the Amazon involved the beginning of our journey on the river. Our group included two Irish young women, an Australian, and a German couple, as well as our guide Herman. We were fortunate to have a great group that allowed us to really enjoy our time in the Amazon, as well as an excellent guide.

We began the day by heading by van to the port on the Rio Negro, one of the two rivers that meet near Manaus. The other river is the Rio Solimões, also known as the Rio Amazonas. After meeting just east of Manaus, they are referred to as the Rio Amazonas. We boarded a boat that headed across the Rio Negro to a location called "The Meeting of the Waters." This is not just a typical river junction, and was quite the impressive site. The Rio Negro is a very dark river, black in color. The Rio Negro travels at about 3 km/h, while the Rio Solimões travels at about 10 km/h. The Rio Negro though is warmer than the Rio Solimões. As a result of these differential temperatures and velocities, the rivers travel in contact with each other for 5-10 km without mixing, creating quite the impressive sight.

After viewing the meeting of the waters, we continued across the Rio Solimões to a port on the opposite side of the river. We boarded another van that carried us to another dock where we boarded a boat that carried us down a tributary of the Rio Solimões to our lodge. We made one stop en route during the 2 hour boat trip to view a very large tree adjacent to the river, and get our first look at the jungle. We arrived at our lodge just in time for lunch. Our lodge included a floatign house which served as the dining hall, and a few other buildings for lodging on the hill. We slept outside on hammocks each night, under the cover of mosquito nets.

During our first afternoon, after an incredible lunch of fish, rice, and potatoes, we headed out to fish for piranha. We used sticks with some fishing line attached to a hook, initially using chicken for bait. After running out of chicken, we began to use piranha as bait to catch more piranhas, which also worked rather well. I caught the first piranha within seconds of dropping my line in the water, and caught a second later in the afternoon. We also observed dolphins swimming in the water, including the beautiful pink dolphins. Unfortunately, these dolphins are not easily photographed, as they rise out of the water briefly for air, and submerge before one is able to photograph them. As a result, I have many photos of the water moments after a dolphin submerged...

We returned to the lodge, and after an equally incredible dinner of more fish, chicken, rice, and vegetables, we headed out after dark on the boat to search for caiman, which are reptiles similar to alligators or crocodiles. We were able to catch a small caiman, and spot some larger caiman. After caiman spotting, we retired to our hammocks for the night in advance of an early morning of bird watching the following morning to be followed by a jungle hike.

Meeting of the Waters (Rio Solimões brown and to the left, Rio Negro to the right)