Venturing into the Amazon basin is like exploring the heart and lungs of the planet. With one in ten known species on Earth and 1.4 billion acres of dense forests, the Amazon contains half of the planet's remaining tropical forests. Listen, and you can hear the world breathe.
Words and images Roderick Eime
Additional images as noted
I know that look. It’s that kind of cheeky half-smile, half snarl, like when you’re handed a peanut tin with a spring-loaded fake snake coiled inside. And like the 8-year-old sucker all over again, I fell for it.
“Go ahead, give it a shot,” Cicero, my ebullient guide, coaxes me while handing me the tiny shot thimble. Inside is a few mils of a clear pungent liquid. Down the hatch!
My tongue immediately electrifies. Imagine a sherbet bomb that transforms into a kaleidoscope of flavours, each detonating at predetermined intervals and lasting several minutes. I turn to ask Cicero what the heck I'd just sipped, and he's laughing uproariously. My reaction is a pleasure he clearly enjoys.
I discover that this lethal cocktail is called Cachaça de Jambú and comprises a base spirit distilled from sugarcane (the cachaça) infused with a local herb, the jambú (Acmella oleracea). This perennial flowering plant is widely used as a flavour enhancer. No kidding!
We’re at a tiny farm a short ferry ride from the Amazonian city of Belem, where Cicero is showing us many of the curious plants and tiny animals surviving amid the secondary regrowth.
Cicero (fabulous name, I say) at 64, is a true man of the jungle and makes our visit to Belem a truly enriching experience. He spent ten years living on a patch of primary forest way downstream and only came back to civilisation to put his kids through school.
“The government gave many people land when the highway was built about 40 years ago,” he tells us, “but that's all you got. 'Here's your land,' they said, pointing to the forest. ' Bye-bye. ' So for many years it was very hard work.”
Our day started with Cicero walking us through the local riverside market, a stone's throw from where Ponant’s luxury boutique cruise ship, Le Soleal, is moored at the old rubber-industry wharf, now long disused and slowly being converted into chic restaurants and retail.
All manner of peculiar fruit and vegetables unfamiliar to Western eyes are arrayed for our inspection. Names like cupuacu, bacuri, tapereba and acerola are piled in vivid stacks on the wobbly trestles. Like dense little apples, the acai fruit is the only one I recognise.
“This fruit has made the fortune of the river people,” Cicero says, “and we export this all over the world for its miraculous medicinal properties. Once we had rubber, now it's acai!”
Cicero's eyes light up when I ask to try some of these colourful extracts and I hand him a few rials (about $5) and ask him to buy some of the juices for us. The plastic cups are handed around and produce an amusing range of expressions as the unfamiliar liquids assail our taste buds. Our regenerating livers, revitalised synapses and vanishing kidney stones rejoice in unison.
Deeper inside the historic shed, we meet Batu, a feisty woman in her 70s who presents us with a baffling array of jungle remedies and potions. A small photo gallery shows her many celebrity clientèle from politicians to minor local and international TV and movie stars. Clearly her wares are sought after for all manner of ailments.
“She's a shaman, you know,” Cicero whispers with a glint in his eye.
I notice many intriguing little vials dangling in clusters from her stall when one catches my eye.
“What does this do?” I ask innocently.
“It makes you irresistible!” Cicero confirms, “and this, well, you put it on your ...” His forefinger dabbing vigorously on his upturned thumb. Batu reinforces its unique property with a most unambiguous gesture. Okay.
The seafood market next door offers an even more astonishing variety of produce, with several species of freshwater fish that look like prototypes for the next Ridley Scott movie. I swear these aquatic monsters are from another world.
If it weren't for the brown turbid waters and the little outboard-powered canoes, you'd think the city of Belem was a mini Miami or Surfers Paradise with all the slender high-rises piercing the low clouds.
This busy port was the site of the first European settlement in the Amazon, dating back to 1616, and is situated on the Guama River, one of the many arteries that comprise the massive Amazon Delta. Some 300 kilometres wide, this network dumps water into the Atlantic at the astonishing rate of one litre for every person on Earth every second – or so Cicero assures me.
On the return journey, past the many little stilt houses and moored ferries, we discuss the radical changes in the jungle he has witnessed over a lifetime, and not all of them tell a cheery tale.
“Our president (Lula) introduced palm oil a few years ago,” he says through a furrowed brow, “and now we have these [expletive] green deserts that have destroyed hundreds of jobs for our people.”
Our shore excursion today is just one snapshot of life in tropical northern Brazil. Cicero is an exceptional guide and one of the standout of the entire journey, proving that expedition cruising is much more than just sightseeing in exotic locations. It's a chance to meet and interact with local communities and hear their stories. Listen and you soon start to understand their triumphs and challenges and how the ripples of change spread all around the world, affecting others at the farthest reaches of the planet. Something to ponder as you push your trolley down the aisle at the supermarket.
Our 18-day Amazon & Orinoco expedition began a few days prior at the city of Recife in the north-east corner of Brazil. This major port and commerce centre shares a similar history with so many coastal cities of Brazil. From an official foundation in the early 16th century it soon developed into an important Portuguese trading port that attracted unwelcome attention from the Dutch. He we toured the outlying cultural centre of Olinda, listed by UNESCO in 1982. The little cobblestoned streets and squares are interrupted by churches and civic buildings painted in a variety of pastel hues without the influence of incongruous modern structures.
Another UNESCO-listed city, São Luís, featured next. Here we wandered more ancient cobblestoned alleys and squares and were entertained with a region variation of the famous carnival, known locally as Bumba Boi after a quaint folk tale.
From Belem, our splendid vessel under the command of Captain Debien and his team, have expertly navigated the comparatively massive Le Soleal through the jungle-lined waterways as far inland as Santarem, stopping at least twice a day to launch our Zodiacs on excursions into the dense undergrowth lining this powerful river, the largest by volume on Earth.
Birders, in particular, are rejoicing in the diversity of species sighted on every outing. Waders, raptors and waterbirds of every sort are ticked off. Too many toucans to count, we even sight the bizarre hoatzin, a bird so ancient it has more in common with dinosaurs than any of the rest of its feathered genera. Sublime pink dolphins and caiman pop up regularly to check on our progress while howler monkeys, sloths, iguanas and bats survey us from above.
This entire region is populated by people with ethnicities that include predominantly Portuguese and indigenous indian heritage. And there are plenty of French, Dutch and Spanish genes in this deep pool as well. The port towns of Santarem, Mojuizim and Guarja support thriving populations with their multitude of satellite stilt villages that are connected, not by road, but by busy little ferry 'buses' zig-zagging across the torrent to transport workers, students and entire families back and forth.
It's widely known that the Amazon basin, from here to Peru, Ecuador, and beyond, has been brutally exploited for mankind's short-term needs, such as timber, minerals, soybeans, and cattle ranching. While wholesale ravaging of Brazil’s jungles has eased, it wasn't long ago that they were vanishing at the rate of a soccer field every 8 seconds, leaving an area the size of Turkey (750,000 sq km) stripped of important biodiversity.
All the regions we visit are long since denuded of their primary rainforest and valuable timbers. While these vast tracts are now listed as 'protected', that protection extends only to a few hardy forest species that have regenerated after initial clearing. Imagine a Renoir or Monet painting in black and white.
While it is encouraging to see such luxuriant growth and a great many native plants and animals living untroubled in the new foliage, many critical species will never return, exiled to those declining areas of primary rainforest hidden deep in the bosom of Brazil's Amazon basin.
Even though this may sound like a depressing tale, it nevertheless underscores the urgency for those with an inquisitive passion to see for themselves the state of our Earth, for better or worse, and to gather those observations and memories for future generations.
Yes, I know I sound like a broken record, but if it weren't for adventure cruise and travel companies like Ponant prepared to invest and seek out these special locations, the enrichment and experiences contained in such exceptional ecosystems, environments and civilisations may well never be seen by the likes of me.
The writer was a guest of Ponant
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