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Friday 9 December 2011

Amazonia! Nossa!


I just went a 4 hour boat ride through the Amazon's Rio Negro to see Ariaú Amazon Towers and some pink fresh water dolphins! Normally, nature freaks me out but lately I have gained some serious bug killing skills and the Amazon is just too beautiful to miss.  Luckily the Rio Negro had no mosquitos because of the acidity of the water, and towards the end of the day there was a big storm since it's the rainy season now.





The boat ride was incredibly beautiful, the Rio Negro is so massive that at times you can't even see the other side. I never thought of the river being wavy and violent before, but the river looked more like the ocean when a heavy rain storm hit us.  The boat suddenly seemed like a small canoe and was almost tipped over by the huge waves!

Ariaú Amazon Towers is a very odd sort of hotel.  It is entirely built on stilts which creates a really nice view of the forest below. There are lots of macaco's (monkey's) running around, as well as lots of birds that I have never seen before.








Next we travelled to the small riverside community of São Tomé and a floating platform where we were going to swim with the the Amazon pink dolphins, named Boto-cor-de-rosa.  Unfortunately there was a really strong storm that scared the botos away so I didn't get a chance to swim with them, but I did get a good look at them.  The botos are really friendly and powerful - they can change directions in a second, so I was sort of glad that I didn't get whipped by some boto fin.