March 23 – Cruising the Amazon

Today was typical of the days we’ve spent in the Amazon, rainy in the morning and clearing up in the afternoon. The rain most often was light and didn’t deter activities, including walking and swimming. It did help keep the temperatures bereable. Some final facts and impressions about the Amazon: The Amazon actually becomes 11 different names when it is all said and done and runs over 4,000 from Peru to the sea.(As a reference it’s only 2900 miles from San Francisco to New York.) Every year the Amazon deposits 1.3 million TONS of sediment into the Atlantic Ocean. Some trees in the Amazon basin stand 120 feet tall with the tallest soaring up to 22 feet. There are 8,000 species of insects and 1,500 fish species that live in the Amazon. It is still believed that there are small bands of “undiscovered” groups of traditional Indian people living in such isolated outposts that they have probably never had contact with anyone other than their immediate group. Today we crossed the Equator again on our way out of the Amazon. It's located where we dropped off our river pilots in Macapa and of course the necessary ceremonies took place. As for my general observations: I didn’t do any research so I came into the Amazon with the perception that it was maybe a mile wide at the widest and had only really small villages. I've mentioned in past posts the size of both the Amazon and the cities. I also thought we’d be swarming in bugs and I wouldn’t be able to spend a lot of time outside. To the contrary we’ve had very few bugs, on ship and shore, and the ones we’ve had have been mostly beetles, moths and dragonflies. I hope I get back here in the near future and I think I would actually do some of the jungle walks next time. We’ll see as I always opt for the boat tours and I’d have a hard time passing those up! Tomorrow: Devil’s Island – I watched “Papillon” last night in the theatre to get ready.