And a not-so-global welcome

I have been roundly castigated for not including Bottesford in my geographical greetings. Well let me remedy this forthwith: welcome Bottesford readers one and all!

If anyone wants to know where Bottesford is, I suggest they get out a large-scale map of the north of England and a suitably strong magnifying glass...

(I would have put in an http link for Bottesford (if indeed one exists), but then I thought "why?")

"And the times...." II

Stop the press - times are not changing at all. Politically, they are standing still - possibly going backwards. Why? Well, it's mayoral election time in Manaus, and the glorious Manaus electorate is about to elect the most (allegedly) corrupt, ignorant, stupid candidate - and they have some experience on which to base their opinions, because he's already been Mayor once before - by a landslide! Calloo Callay!

"And the times...."

Times have changed. Here in the middle of the Amazon, and with a few notable exceptions, you can now just about get anything you can in Europe or the States. But then of course it’s the notable exceptions that get to you: no unsweetened peanut butter, for example; no biodegradeable poop-bags (for the dogs, you understand); and no Pool Devil Automatic Swimming Pool Skimmer. I can get (but I don’t need), a laser measuring-tape-spirit-level-and-nail-detector. I can get an AB-Stretch-rowing-cycling-pushme-pullyou-machine. And I can get an extendable multi-function-all-purpose step-ladder. But I can’t get a simple, straightforward Pool Devil Automatic Swimming Pool Skimmer. No, sir.

Deeply Held Beliefs

Here in Brasil the population is predominantly Catholic. It’s the kind of good, healthy non-state state religion that I like, in that for the most part no-one takes a blind bit of notice of it. And normally, neither do I. However, two things I found odd recently which I feel inclined to pass on. Firstly, the Catholic population is apt to call Protestants – of the evangelising persuasion (you’re right, I’m not quite sure what that means – but then frankly I couldn’t care a fig) – ‘Crentes’. This word comes from the verb Crer, ‘to believe’, which begs the obvious question, does it not..? Secondly, Naice was informed quite matter-of-factly the other day by one of the Protestant (evangelist) community that they don’t attend any of the Catholic festivals (this is the only part of Catholicism that most Brasilians take seriously – the parties) because they would be poisoned. The comment was made when Naice was organising the local ‘Festa Junina’ for our neighbourhood. Festa Junina is a Catholic celebration of some description or other (please don’t enlighten me, anyone) to which the whole local community is invited, and it takes the form of a very pleasant street party, with games for the kids, food and dancing and drinking and a bonfire. Unfortunately she was unable to persuade a considerable number of the ‘Crentes’ that they would be safe to attend, which left her mystified until the above comment explained all. So that’s fine, then.

It’s comforting to know that religious bigotry is alive and kicking in even the remotest corners of the world, isn’t it? What would we do without religion?

A global welcome

I have been remiss in welcoming new visitors from around the globe, so to those of you who have reached us from or via (not in any order):

India, Norway, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Botswana, The Lebanon, Bangladesh, Thailand, The Philippines, Taiwan, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Barbados, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Germany, or Bolivia...

...thanks for stopping by!

I've added a link to the guesthouse website now, under "Some Links", for those who were asking recently. And if anyone has any other site(s) or blog(s) they think should be added, please let me know.

Novo Airao

The trip to Novo Airao went well, in spite of some weird weather on the way up, with wind and current both from the northwest, and which whipped the river into rather an agitated state (sorry Hilary – no pictures of this). It was nothing too wild, but very tiring, as there’s a 20km stretch of open water which you can’t really avoid crossing, and you have to just buffet your way through. It also took me a bit by surprise, as I’d insisted that we leave just before dawn (pic) to avoid ‘the weather’. Anyway, once across the open stretch, in the lee of the first of the Anavilhanas’ estimated 400 islands, the whole thing quietened down considerably, and the rest of it was plain, um, sailing, as it were. But it did mean it took us around 4 hours to get to our destination. We stopped at the relatively new Anavilhanas Lodge to have a quick look around: it seems fine, and the people were friendly, so we’ll probably be recommending this as an option to guests seeking a jungle lodge. After this, we headed around the corner to the one-boat village of Novo Airao itself. And of course the primary aim of this was to see what all the fuss was about with these dolphins.

The port of Novo Airao is very small, with hardly room to squeeze the Shamrock in between a few other local boats, and when you get off your boat you’re greeted with a dusty street, a few ramshackle bars and a kind of terminal for people to get on and off the regional boats plying their trade between Manaus and Barcelos or Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira. Across the little harbour is a white flutuante where they’ll sell you a (very small) fish for (very much – R$15!) money, to feed the dolphins; and at the back of the flutuante, you can just hop in the water with your fish and hand it out to your new-found friends. Naturally, I had to have a go – so it was off with at least some of the togs and straight into the water. I didn’t have any fish at this point, and the dolphins wouldn’t let me forget it – they nudged, flippered and generally cajoled me until Naice arrived with the (somewhat frozen) fish.

It was amazing being in the water with these wee beasties. I thought they would be gentle, shy, intelligent Flipper-like beings who would uncannily understand me as if telepathically and so on (a bit like my colleagues at SEELB, maybe…). Not so – they behaved like spoilt dogs and spent their time bullying everyone into handing out the fish; and as soon as all the fish was gone, well, so were they. But it was still a fantastic experience, and thoroughly recommended. You can see me being flippered in one of the photos, which should amuse some of you.

On the way back, we strayed into the Anavilhanas reserve itself, and pottered along one of its totally deserted canals, with the river like a mirror and the undisturbed, primary rainforest towering along its banks. Apart from an occasional flock of red Macaws, screeching on their way overhead, when we stopped the engine it was so quiet all you could hear was a faint ringing in your ears (or maybe that was tinnitus). Wonderful. One of the photos shows how difficult it can be sometimes to figure out quite where the river ends and the sky begins.

The NW breeze had dropped almost completely and we worked out that the speed of the current (now in our favour) was about 2.5 - 3kph, so we were fairly skimming along at around 45kph on the way back, and made the whole journey in 2 hours 45 minutes, even with our stop in the Anavilhanas. Average speed on the way up, 28kph; on the way back, 41kph – a record I doubt I shall ever beat in the Shamrock.

p.s. Some myths debunked, following the trip: 1) the deepest water in the Negro is 150ft – nonsense - we measured 285ft at one point; and 2) the widest clear stretch (i.e. no islands in the way) of the Negro is 9.8km – rubbish, we realised this on the way up, and if you measure in Google Earth, you can see that the widest stretch is approximately11.98km.

Bug of the Month (2006)

Kirstie, the beetle you were asking about that I photographed in Rio Preta da Eva (June 26th) is a Harlequin Long-Horned Beetle (Acrocinus longimanus, as you'll probably know). If you follow bugs, as it were, you'll probably also know that it was selected as "Bug of the Month" by godofinsects.com in June 2006. I quote:

"A fantastic Neotropical longhorn beetle, conspicuous for it's large size, beautiful colors and the amazing length of the front legs on the male. These elongated limbs (much reduced in the female) are a secondary sex characteristic, used in mating. It should also be noted that it aids them in traversing the tree trunks on which they can be found. Females seek out old trees, such as Ficus, that are infested with bracket fungi. An incision is made in the bark and an egg deposited. Larvae bore into the timber for 7-8 months and then pupate for the remainder of the year, to emerge and start the cycle anew."

So there you are.

Novo Airao

The first boat trip up the Rio Negro is planned for this Friday, setting off at 05:30 on the 110km run up the left bank. We’re doing this a) because I want to do it, b) because we’d like to visit a jungle lodge there, and c) because apparently there’s a floating restaurant up there where they’ve managed to train some of the river dolphin to eat from your hand and where you can swim with them. Of course this isn’t organised along your typical European standards – it’s a case of you buy some fish, jump in the river and hope for the best. If you drown/get eaten alive etc., well that’s your problem. I like it.

So anyway, we’ll set off at the crack of dawn and cross the widest single stretch of the Negro (9.8km) right at the mouth of our little River Taruma. Then we’ll tootle up the left bank, skimming over the deepest part of the Negro at something like 150ft, until we get to the narrowest part of the Negro, which is always a bit bumpy (naturally). Here we make a dash for the start of the Anavilhanas Archipelago – the largest freshwater archipelago in the world, and a nature reserve – and pass along its left-hand-most islands. At this stage we’ll also be keeping an eye out along the way for any interesting jungle camping terrain (as requested by some of our more adventurous future guests, Dawn). After passing three small tributaries and various settlements, we should finally reach Novo Airao around 09:30 or thereabouts. Following a visit to the jungle lodge, lunch and a swim with the dolphins, we’ll head back, maybe taking a little time out to admire some of the Anavilhanas, and with luck we’ll be back around sunset.

Pics to follow, and if we have any, um, difficult or “interesting” moments, I must get them on camera for Hilary, who complained that all she ever sees are the nice, picturesque parts of the journey. So don’t blame me if the next caption is something like “this is us being eaten by piranha. Naice is in the foreground and to the left you can just see part of my lower leg.”

"We're busy doing nothing, working the whole day through..."

All is tranquil at the Guesthouse. We have no guests until 16th August, so we have a kind of summer holiday on our hands. As usual on one’s summer holiday (unless one can afford to go somewhere), what else is there to do but paint and decorate? We are planning a boat trip to the town of Novo Airao on Friday, and we have a barbecue for some of Naice’s friends on Sunday, but other than that it’s the maintenance season. I have already started wiring a light in the downstairs loo, and have finally managed to get the swimming pool looking good again after a looong battle with it; and next week the roller is coming out and I’ll be starting with the floor paint outside. Joy. On top of this, our gardener is on holiday until the end of August, so I’m cutting the grass myself, and we also have a few other tasks to get organised, like getting some rendering done round the back of the house and fixing the guttering where the rain’s coming in in the wet season. Okay, so maybe it’s not that tranquil at the guesthouse, after all...

For a bonus point, from which film are the lyrics in the title taken?

Rei dos Rios

The Brazilian magazine Veja has published an article about research conducted by the Brazilian national space institute, INPE, showing that the Amazon is the longest river in the world. So for those of you who thought it was the Nile, please amend your text books. Apparently the Nile is (only – hah!) 6,852 km long, whereas the Amazon is 6,992km. No doubt most Brazilians are very proud of this fact, even if many of them have only the sketchiest idea where the Amazon is (but to be fair, it’s probably a bit like asking your average Eastender where the Humber Estuary is…). National pride can be a good thing, and I think in Brazil it’s pretty healthy. I would go so far as to say that it should be encouraged (here), and I have often felt aggrieved on the Brazilians' behalf that whilst the Wright brothers are synonymous with the first manned flight, in fact (according to Brazil) it was Santos Dumont. There are probably other examples, too. So you tell ‘em, Brazil.

A Whole Year of River Level Statistics!

Yes! It's true! I have now amassed 365 (366?) days worth of river level data, and to prove it, here's the graph. The level peaked at 28.62 metres on 19th June (2007: 28.18m) and has now started receding, not unlike my hair. We have already lost a whole millimetre.

We now have two good months to get out on the river and mess about in our boats. By September, we'll have lost around 4 metres, and then in September we'll lose another 4 or more, making the igapo unnavegable, but revealing the Rio Negro's lovely beaches.

There, now wasn't that worth waiting for..?

Adoption

A lot of people have asked us about how we’re doing with this. Well, it’s taken us a year to get to the point where we have some sort of verifiable income, so now we feel we can proceed. We are at the stage of putting the paperwork together, and then we will be approaching the children and young persons agency here to register our interest. This will hopefully happen before the end of July. After that we need to go through the hoops of interviews, assessments etc., and when we emerge at the other end we will hopefully then be eligible to adopt and be placed on the register. The whole process is a bit long-winded but there are other things going on at the same time which may shorten the process somewhat. I’ll provide a further update when some progress has been made. Thanks to all for asking.

Wildlife update

We found this earthworm trying to get into the house the other day. There’s a pound coin there for perspective, and I guess the thing was about a metre in length. That’s some worm. He was rescued after his photo shoot and deposited gently at the bottom of the garden.

The other shot is of an impressive chap we found lurking on a wall when we visited the town of Rio Preta da Eva (80km East of Manaus). Nothing available for perspective, but I would estimate his body length at about 4 inches head to tail.

Kelly, our Heinz 57, had a bit of a fight the other night when she unearthed a Common Opossum near the chapeu de palha. Poor thing (I mean the Opossum) was pretty beaten up by the time we got there, but lived to tell the tale after we pulled Kelly - who is not much bigger - off it. Kelly will eat anything (hence having to rescue the worm, too), although she’s not stupid enough (yet) to have a go at snakes. She found one of those in the chapeu a few weeks ago, but apart from barking and growling at it until I got there, she didn’t attack it. Fortunately for all 3 of us, the snake did a runner as I approached.

Finally, our gardener, Claudionor, was bitten by a black scorpion last week while tidying the garden. Fortunately it was a relatively small one and he got away with losing the feeling in his right side for a few hours. Next time he has promised to wear his boots while working, rather than go barefoot. Good idea, methinks.

Trip to Casa da SIlva

Here are a few pics of our recent visit to Naice's parents house on the other side of the river. This was the first time we had tyaken our own boat, and although the total distance was 71km, it took us 3.5 hours to get there after a short-cut we took turned out to be blocked by floating grass (capim), and we had to paddle the boat through the igapo (flooded forest): it's all very well in a dug-out canoe with a wee motor you can haul inboard, but with a 6m aluminium boat with a 50hp 4-stroke stuck on the end of it it's a not-to-be-repeated ordeal involving cuts, bruises, extremely painful red ant bites (they don't call them fire ants for nothing) and profuse and profound cursing and sweating. On the way back...we got stuck again, this time in the middle of another floating grass blockage we couldn't avoid, but fortunately a young guy came past in a dugout and pulled us free. We avoided the same route we'd used on the outward leg and further problems were avoided. It still took us 3.5 hours, although knowing the way (and without getting stuck) I reckon we could do it in 2.5.

Anyway, once on the Rio Solimoes, and all the way through to the Rio Negro, the water was as calm as you like, and during the 10km crossing of the Solimoes, it was like being on a lake. Marvellous.

The next planned trip will be to the small town of Novo Airao, on the west bank of the Rio Negro, about 110km upstream of Manaus. There to find lunch and swim with the dolphins. I'm hoping we can do this before the end of July.

The pictures show a few of the igarapes we passed through, a couple with Naice. The others show journey's end (Casa da Silva), and Naice's parents and brother Romulo inspecting the boat.

Voltamos!

We are back on the air again, after a considerable amount of time waiting for the local telecomms company to sort out our phone line. It’s still not back to normal, but it will have to do. I know, I know – “But what about the river levels?” I hear you ask. Okay, well we’re approaching the peak water level now, which will occur on June 22nd. Although it’s higher than last year, it is not going to get anywhere near record-breaking levels. At present it’s sitting at around 28.6 metres (the Port Authority website is down at the moment – perhaps they’re having the same problem we had), and will probably rise to about 28.7 or thereabouts. Anyway, it’s high enough to make the those parts of the Amazon not normally reachable, reachable. We have about two months to make good use of this, so we have trips planned to Careiro do Castanho, Naice’s parents’ house via Anveres, and to Novo Airao. I’ll let you know how we get on.

I notice there seem to have been a number of visitors coming to us from China while we've been off the air, so hello to you and thanks for coming. I would write "hello" in Chinese, but don’t know where to begin – perhaps someone can help?

A lot has happened since my last post, so this will be a (relatively) long one. I would break it into smaller individual posts, but then someone will complain that they missed some of them. So you’ll just have to wade your way through it.

First of all, we’ve now been here a year, incredible though it may seem. We’ve had our ups and downs, but all in all we’re in pretty good shape. Financially, this month will be the first month we will break even on our costs, so we’re happy about that. Emotionally, I suppose I’m still struggling to adapt, but I’m definitely getting there. And anyway, when I’m having my doubts I only have to look out over the forest to feel good about the whole thing again. The house is in good shape, the dogs are fine, we’re in good health, we still have some money in the bank, the phone’s working again; the house, car, bike, boat and furniture are all paid for, and there’s food on the table. Can’t be bad, can it?

The challenge at present is to decide what direction we’re taking: opportunities have begun presenting themselves, and most of them are mutually exclusive. We’ll let you know what develops.

So what’s been happening? Well, we bought a mobile beer cooler (see earlier post), and I’ve passed my test to ride it. We’ve had lots of people staying at the guesthouse, and are fairly well booked up through to 6th July. The guesthouse website has been updated, and we’ve started charging in Brazilian Reais instead of the declining Greenback. We’ve had two wonderful guesthouse reviews written up on Trip Adviser, which is really nice. We’ve finished a third bedroom for ourselves downstairs, and I’ve been reasonably successfully wiring and/or re-wiring various bits and pieces (this 110v stuff is easy!). We’ve finally managed to stop the rain leaking into our office. Our beautiful Brasileira tree (I think it’s called a Brasileira) has been attacked by some sort of mite. I broke our Sky box, so now we have no TV. I also scraped the car, and a friend of ours reversed into it on the same day. This was after one of the brake discs cracked. Fun fun fun. We’ve managed to get Skype working with a landline call forwarding option now, so if you want to phone us for free you can (e-mail me if you want the details). Naice is starting two new courses this month – tourism and logistics management - and I’m well on with the soon-to-be-bestseller ‘The Wisdom of Oz’. Someone has put me forward for teaching Portuguese, which is at the very least amusing (well, probably not for the student), if not terrifying. We’ve had a couple of Golden Tegus (pic) visit the garden, as well as a rash of Sauim de Colera monkeys (pic). The horn and voltmeter on the boat have stopped working, but I’m sure I’ll get it sorted out soon (anyone know how to wire a voltmeter?), and I had to replace the prop after I pranged it on some iron rails. Tsk.

We had an old friend of mine visit us from Boa Vista, which was great fun and naturally led to much drinking and singing and what-have-you. Although he’s now gone back, there may be a joint project for us coming along, and I’m looking into this at the moment.

And I think that’s about it. To those of you awaiting an e-mail, our apologies. We figured we should do the blog first and then tackle the backlog. We will be catching everything up over the next week. We miss all of you back in Ireland. Yes, even you. So take it easy and enjoy your woefully inadequate summer, and remember we’re ready for your visit whenever you can come.

Wildlife Update

This one’s just for Peter. Naice came across this banana spider in the kitchen, so I leapt into action, bagged him in one of the dogs’ food storage buckets and took a photo before releasing him near a suitable banana plant. There’s a 20p piece in there just for perspective, although this chap would probably be considered a smallish specimen (but plenty big enough when you find him crawling over your pots and pans). Just don’t ask for any photos of jaguars please Pete...

The other shot I took on the way back from spidey’s photo shoot. The frogs and toads like to gather around the swimming pool of an evening, presumably to catch flies or mate, or sing "half way up the stairs" or something. This wouldn’t be so bad, except that they also like to crap in the pool from time to time, and well, you know, big frogs = big frog turds. So I have to get the pool vacuum out every morning to get rid of it all. Most annoying. Anyway, I noticed this chap was stuck in the pool. To explain, I cleaned the filter today, which means pumping water out of the pool through the filter. If the water drops below a certain level, the frogs, once they’re in the pool (they jump in to avoid the attentions of Ozzie and Kelly), can’t get out again. So I scooped him out, subjected him to a few photos, and left him to it. No doubt he is even now pooing in the pool, the ingrate.

As usual, click to enlarge the photos.

Latest News

“Irreverent, mischievous, fun”, they said about Boris Johnson. I used to think so too, until I read his biography. It would seem, based on this, that in fact “arrogant, cynical, elitist” would be more appropriate epithets. Born into a privileged family, cosseted and pampered through Eton and Oxford, competence far outstripped by ambition, he has spent his life totally isolated from most of the issues the populace confront. In fact I suspect he has about as much in common with your average Londoner as Atilla the Hun. But you have to hand it to him – he acts up wonderfully. Best of luck London.

Meanwhile, back in Amazonas, we are told that it has become common practice for mayors to move around from place to place in order to continue their professional mayoral careers (a euphemism for sustainable white-collar crime). Although in Brazil the basic principle is that you can’t run more than two consecutive terms, there’s a slight loophole. If you move to the next city down the road, you’re eligible to run for mayor there instead. So that’s what they’re all doing. It’s like a mayor-fest, with the same people popping up –now here, now there – time after time; and the record is currently held by Yves Ribeiro, who is up for his fifth consecutive mayorship. Well, if you ask me, just like their London counterparts, the electorate only have themselves to blame.

The biggest domino competition in Amazonas starts today. Hundreds of people will compete for the chance to be one of the 64 teams to go on to the next phase in June and ultimately compete in July for the top prizes: 2 new cars and 2 freezers full of beer. I’m almost tempted to compete myself.

A new Latin American dancing season is upon us, and the dance schools have opened their doors once more to any beginners who fancy their chances on the dance floors of Manaus. Why is this news, you may ask? Well, chiefly because Naice and I have taken the plunge and signed up for a bit of Salsa. After two lessons we can both already move forward, backward and sideways, although regretably not always at the same time. Never mind - with two lessons a week over the next couple of months, we hope we’ll be successfully Salsa-ing through the Amazon summer.

Hello, Hola, Privyet.

Just like to welcome our new readers from Australia, Argentina and Russia. Oh, and konnichi wa to Andrew in Japan. Thanks for stopping by folks!

Front page news this week

Viagra consumption amongst young men (25-32) in Manaus is on the increase. The use of such stimulants is not controlled in Brazil, so anyone can buy them, which may be part of the problem don't you think? Anyway, apparently the latest thing is a product called Vivanza, which alledgedly lasts for 12 hours and can be taken with alcohol. I see in the newspaper that in the photograph they have of the product, the boxes are clearly labelled "Amostra Gratis", or "Free Sample". Hmm. No doubt someone is making a bob or two on these. Well, boys will be boys I suppose - making money, having (lots of) sex etc...

...but perhaps if they could just rest up for a while they might have time to look at the filthy state they're making of Manaus. Apparently Manaus spent R$4m last year on cleaning 2.8m tons of cr*p out of the city's streams and rivers - everything from fridges to dead dogs, and no doubt empty viagra boxes and used prophylactics. To the outsider, it is no doubt depressing that there is no apparent sense of responsibility amongst the majority here with respect to litter and hygiene. And of course the local government is right to complain about it. But then the lack of education, lack of infrastructure, lack of money, lack of opportunity and lack of healthcare probably don't help the situation, and who is it that provides this...?

A local politician and his wife have been charged with 8 counts of, amongst other things, operating a gang, corruption, fraud, contrabanding and money laundering. I can't see what all the fuss is about, given the propensity of the majority of Brazil's finest for, um, the opportunistic diversion of such goods, cash and services as may be required for the maintenance of a pleasant lifestyle - but it seems at the moment that the problem is this pair have been put in a clink along with common criminals. Shock horror - that really is front page news, isn't it...

Iranduba

Last weekend we took a trip to Iranduba on Charlie’s intergalactic battlecruiser the Sammy III. Owing to the relative absence of beer on board, I actually arrived sober for a change, and in spite of Robson’s ability to mix cachaca, limes, sugar and water into some excellent caipirinha, I managed to maintain my relative sobriety for the whole day. Indeed the weather was excellent, the company good, and all was generally sweetness and light. And I must add that Naice caught her first fish - and we even managed to get it on camera. There is nothing quite like a trip down/up the Amazon to recharge the batteries and put things in perspective. I’ve nothing to add to this except some photos which I managed to snap en route. So there you are. Have a nice day and all that sort of thing.