Start of the Amazonas journey
After breakfast we left for Novo Airão accompanied by your wildlife guide and our driver for the day. The first 80km of the road was properly paved, and our driver hit it. The second part (about 130km, well, the pavement of about 2 cm thick had some holes, some mayor holes! Our driver hit it anyway. He made some interesting manoeuvres around the deepest once, but there was no possibility to avoid them all. Seeing some more of the surrounding almost got lost in keeping our eye on the road.
In Novo Airão we went to a carpenter. (Is this the term also for somebody working with old, making furniture and other stuff?) The initiative, in the first place, was focused on young people, who missed primary education. At this place, the learned about the handcraft as reading and math as well; taking those skills with them back to their villages.
In Novo Airão, we also stepped on board of the “Iara”, taking a quite private trip up the Rio Negro for our Amazonian experience. A little team on board, just for the two of us; including the most amazing cook, experienced wild life spotters and a very relaxed captain.
The crew welcomed us with warmth and a great lunch. We checked our cabins, relaxed on the upper deck and shared our welcome cocktail. The boat went upstream, to reach our first excursion spot. We stepped into the canoe for a tour in one of the smaller rivers, which feed the Rio Negro. We learned about the vegetation, saw some small lizards, a variety of birds. Just wonderful. And we got drenched on our way back to the boat, reminding us: we are in de RAINforest. According to our guide, in the raining season, it rains all day, outside the raining season, it rains every day.
We picked up our journey upstream, searching for a place for the night, protected from the changing weather by one of the islands in the archipel. Got a concert by frogs and cicades; stayed on the upper deck as long as possible and enjoyed just being there.
