NEGROS AND SOLIMOES COME TOGETHER
By Bob Van Leer

  (MANAUS, BRAZIL, OCT. 14, 1990) - Yesterday evening we went to dinner at a seafood restaurant, Timonares, and had more of the tambaqui fish, which is one of the better fish I have ever eaten, and a fish with a red flesh, good, but not as good as tambaqui. We were hungry when we arrived at the restaurant because the power at our hotel went off just before we were leaving.

  We had to hike down from the ninth floor. On the return trip three of the cabs carrying our party stopped side by side at a red light. The cabbies started needling one another, accompanied by obscene hand signals, and when the light changed the race was on.

  I've been on many cab rides, but that one was the hairiest. Tires squealed at every corner. At red lights our cabbie just honked. He was violating a dozen traffic rules per block. Anyway, our cab won.

  This morning we went north of Manaus, again on the unpaved highway, to Noah's Park, a wildlife park operated by a private foundation under contract with the Brazilian government. The park takes animals and birds confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade and reintroduces them to the wild. Many of the birds and animals run loose and our group had lots of fun playing with the monkeys. They would climb up on shoulder, go through women's hair and generally look for anything different. One found a plastic bag in a woman's pocket containing three aspirin and raced to the top of a tree trying to open the bag. The monkey resisted all entreaties to come down.

  If any of our readers would like to make a donation to help the Amazon forest in a way that actually gets the money to the forest to help, I have the name and address of the fund that manages the park.

Boating on Amazon

  This afternoon we went down to the dock to board a boat for a trip on the river. Rows of two-deck passenger and freight vehicles line the dock. Most seem to carry 50-100 passengers. These are the Greyhound buses of the Amazon. The river is the main highway and these vessels serve cities for a thousand miles in each direction. Tickets start in the $30 range.

  All passengers bring aboard hammocks for journeys may take several days. Passengers sleep in their own hammocks and are served meals. The boats sometimes carry cargo or livestock on one deck and passengers on another.

  Manaus, we find out, is not actually on the Amazon, it is on the Rio Negros. The Negros and the Solimoes River join at the east edge of town and the locals say that where these two rivers join is actually the start of the Amazon. The Negro is dark brown, almost black. The Solimoes is a light brown in color and comes down from the Andes. It is faster (3 m.p.h.) and colder by a degree from the Negros which flows from Columbia at just half mile an hour.

  The line of meeting in the water is quite visible and is detectable for 10-15 miles. Where the waters meet, the depth is enormous. Our guide says up to 400 feet deep. He said the river bottom is 300 feet below sea level. With this kind of depth, our boat pilot managed to ground on a concealed sand bar but work his way free. We saw some of the unusual pink river dolphins playing where the waters meet.

  From our guide, Jean-Paul, a Swiss who has been in Manaus five years, we got the best population estimate yet, 1,068,000. Manaus had an early boom when native rubber trees were tapped at the start of the rubber industry. The boom peaked around 1900 when trees taken from Brazil to southeast Asia thrived and produced better then Brazil.

  The city went into a slump and was revived about 20 years ago when the Brazilian government decided to start developing the Amazon. John-Paul said half the population is under 20.

  We went from the meeting of the waters to see a lake of giant water lily pads. This was a disappointment as the river is at its low and the lilies are nearly dormant. We returned to our hotel and had a sandwich for dinner.

  We have to pack up tonight to leave for Venezuela. Just as we finished dinner, the power went off again.

Climb Nine Floors

  This time we had to climb up to the ninth floor. Tonight our flight to Caracas leaves at 2:25 a.m. it is a 2.5 hour flight. The reason for the odd flight times is that flights don't terminate in Manaus. Flights stop at Manaus on the way to somewhere else and the arrival times are based on the time at the final destination.

  The stay here has been extremely informative. We know a lot more about the problems of the rain forest than we did last week. Like most problems, it is not nearly as simple as it looks.