Hannah Peterson

The Amazing Amazon

It has been done.  I can finally say that I've been to the Amazon Rainforest!  Most people have their idea of what the Amazon will be like, as I did mine.  I pictured this awe-inspiring, species rich forest with huge trees and lots of animals.  While it was this and more, there were things that were different from what I expected.  For example, I never imagined how hard it was going to be to find wildlife, but it makes sense when you actually get there.  The forest is very dense and most of the things that we found were small and camouflaged.  You have to have your eyes peeled at all times so that you don’t miss anything, but even with the most vigilant observer, many things will be overlooked.  That being said, I did get some decent pictures of some camouflaged things, so we’re going to play a little game!  I am going to put the camouflaged pictures on here, and you have to find the hidden things.  I will give you the answers at the end of this blog.  Good luck!

1. Can you see me?

2. Where am I?

3. This one should be obvious!

4. This guy is good

5. This one is a bit tricky...

Of course everyone pictures the Amazon being hot and humid, but the weather was even more intense than I expected.  In a sense it’s like Texas in that when you step outside you start sweating, but this was ten times worse.  You would step “outside” (our rooms were not air-conditioned), and be drenched in a couple of minutes!  It’s not so bad when you’re engaged in an activity, but just sitting around in the heat could definitely make you restless.  

Because of this weather, our hammock sleeping was very welcomed.  It would have been difficult to comfortably sleep on a thick insulated mattress because you would just sweat all night!  It was interesting to find the right position on the hammock so that nothing would have a kink in the morning.  It is better to sleep diagonally so that your body is more flattened out, but you also have to be able to support your head, so you have to mess with it for a while.  Most of us had four good nights of sleep, and we all got to keep our hammocks so we can experiment with them later!  Here are some before and after picture of our rooms when we put the hammocks up.  The mosquito nets were only added protection, but there really weren't many mosquitoes in the Amazon.

We also spent two nights in Manaus before and after we went to the reserve, which was an experience all in its own.  The first evening we were determined to get to the “meeting of the waters” before dark.  The meeting of the waters is where the black water of the Rio Negro and the white water of the Rio Solimoes meet and mix to form the Amazon River.  As we flew into Manaus, we could see it from the airplane and got some pictures!  Our determination to see it paid off when we were successful in getting a boat ride out there, but we were bummed when he told us that we couldn't swim because there were “peixes grande” (big fish).  We did get a pretty awesome view of the river bank and all the boats though.

View from the airplane of "Meeting of the Waters"

View from the boat of the river bank

Manaus is a very interesting city because there are some very nice buildings, but then the rest of the town is run down and dirty.  During the late 1800s there was a huge rubber boom, and Manaus was one of the cities that felt the effects.  They built the famous opera house there, which is still in very good condition today, but soon after that the boom crashed because the rubber tree seeds had been taken by the English and were being farmed elsewhere more efficiently.  This left all the Brazilian cities that had relied on this income to fend for themselves.  While the city was dirty relative to what we’re used to, it was rich with life and culture.  There were numerous street vendors and tons of indigenous shops with neat souvenirs.  The one crazy thing I did see though was that most streets didn't have any lanes!  Cars were just weaving in and out of one another, and they all seemed to know exactly what they were doing.  I’m not going to lie that I was scared once or twice as we passed a bus with 4 inches to spare.

The opera house from the huge rubber boom in the 1800s

No lanes??  No problem :)

I feel that I barely scratched the surface of the great Amazon Rainforest.  I don’t think it will ever be known completely, and maybe that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  But as long as we’re able, we should try and understand this crazy ecosystem.  If anyone ever wants to go, don’t forget to take me with you!

Answers to the camouflaged pictures:

1. The snake's head is right in the middle of the picture.
2. There is a lizard that looks like leaf litter in the middle of the picture.
3. This huge white moth looks like lichen.
4. There is a frog in the middle that looks like a leaf.
5. In the bottom left-hand corner, my friend Wendy is peeking through this huge tree!

The Forgotten Forest

The red soil of Brasilia overpowers everything it touches.  I almost felt like I was in one of those country songs that talks about "red dirt roads," but this stuff was definitely not confined just to roads.  The Brazilian cerrado (se-ha-tho) reminded me of home because of the heat and the aridness, but really there were too many differences to even compare it to Texas.  The red soil was only the beginning and as we soon found out, there was also gold/yellow soil.  The most prominent features in my opinion were the termite mounds.  They were scattered everywhere throughout the landscape, some on the ground and some built onto tree branches.  They were hard to the touch, but they crumbled easily if you exerted enough force. 

Red dirt road in Brasilia's botanical garden

A classmate inspecting an arboreal termite nest

Cerrado vegetation comes in many shapes and sizes, ranging from full on grassland to beautiful canopied riparian environment.  The most common type, however, is called sensu stricto which I would basically describe as scrub-brush. The trees aren't very tall, and most have corky gnarled bark and thick leaves.  The grasses are tough and hardy.  The plants have good reason for these traits because the cerrado is a fire adapted community.  Apparently cerrado fires can spread at a rate of 1 meter per second, and some may only stay in one spot for as little as 2 minutes.  We visited a site that had only been burned a month ago, and things had already started to resprout!  It was amazing to see charred bark with little green buds coming out of it.  It was very interesting to go to this environment because most people don’t even know about the cerrado, and it’s definitely not what you imagine when you think of Brazil, hence the “forgotten forest”.  

Cerrado vegetation after a recent fire

Aside from the habitat, we had an interesting time in Brasilia.  This is a planned city, but the “planned” part was sort of confusing to me.  Apparently it is in the shape of an airplane from the sky, and the streets are organized in different sectors.  They have the hotel sector and the restaurant sector and the business sector.  In theory it’s a good idea, but in reality it just makes it really hard to get to places because you can’t walk anywhere unless you want it to take all day.  We also had to eat lunch and dinner on our own, which was hard with no car, but we made things work.  Even more of a challenge was that all we had was a mini fridge and no microwave, so we had lots of cheese and crackers.  However, Wendy and I managed to ask for hot water for tea so we had tea parties in the evening!

 There was one section of the city right on the edge of the lake that was definitely catered towards tourists because they had manicured grass, really nice restaurants and plumeria trees!  Although I don’t think these are necessarily Brazilian (they are also found in Corpus Christi’s botanical gardens), they were so pretty so we took a couple pictures with them.  

Some other things we did in Brasilia included meeting with an NGO about their work they do with indigenous tribes and small farming communities, going to the botanical gardens, and eating at an artisanal ice cream shop with flavors of cerrado fruits.  We fit all this into two days, so just imagine what we will be getting ourselves into in the coming weeks.  Amazon, here we come!