Why I Went Into The Amazon

Last month I went to Amazon to Manaus and I spent several days anchored near Maués within the State, during the Feast of Guarana. What made me leave São Paulo, cross country and I get inside? I can not say for sure. Of course we had the opportunity to go check out the traditional festival of guarana along with journalists from all over Brazil. But that was not what attracted me. That was not what made me get on a plane. I travel with a frequency up decent for those who do not have many resources. Sometimes it's for work, others for fun and rarely on account of any obligation whatsoever. But these are never the real reasons that make me leave home, go to a distant airport and spend hours locked in a thing of tons of steel flying over places that are not imagine how. Not that I know the real reasons, but I have some clues. In the case of this trip, I think I discovered everything.

Arriving at the river Solimões (the other boats were part of our train).

It starts here in Sao Paulo. I wake up early and fix up a handbag that will last a few days, four to five. T-shirts, jeans, underwear and a cleaning kit, full staff. Rule number one for travel: only take what you can bear.

No training wheels. Baggage is to charge up as men much greater than we did in ancient times and continue doing. Nothing more ridiculous in an airport than grown men, dressed in tailored suits, concentrated on important e-mails on their BlackBerrys and pulling a suitcase with square wheels. No excuse. I've made long trips abroad carrying my bags. Wheels: no. While waiting for the idiots who like to stay in boarding queuing to enter the plane, I began wondering what the hell I was doing. Would cross the country and putting me back within a state that I know little. I did not know how he would come in and neither would do there. For a few moments I came to consider giving up the whole thing, there seemed to be a decent reason to continue. I realized that the reason was lack of enough. Life is boring and too long not to try. I swallowed the arrest teenager who took hold of me and got on the plane. After a few tablets of Dramamine, I slept almost the five hours of travel.

Our boat (left) and another in AmBev, anchored near Maués.

Fireworks in Maués. When the gate opens for landing at the airport in Manaus, the first thing I feel is an oppressive heat mixed with high humidity. It was night, about eleven o'clock, but it was hot as if there were rows and rows of ovens connected and opened on the street spewing masses calorentas up. It is almost unbelievable warmth that makes this region. Even for me, who grew up in rural Pará and consider myself accustomed to dealing with climate insane. For nearly half an hour just get worried about the heat. I wondered how to put up with almost my entire life a similar climate. I decided to walk away, sweating, wiping his forehead stand at all times and carry a water bottle and a towel with you wherever you go. Rule number two trips to: adapt silently and without fear. Nothing's going to complain every hour, scowling, of cynicism. Accept the region where you are. If it freezing cold or heat can melt clothes, deal with it. Adapt is very important. It is accepting that there is much to do - what? be locked in refrigerated environments, bathing in sunscreen, insect repellent and walking with a ventiladorzinho? how many years you have? Twelve? - And find ways to continue.

 Maués view of our boat. As I watched the view from the hotel, overlooking a huge Rio Negro, I realized that something was wrong. You could see a small green island in the center of the riverbed. A giant river, which at times is able to emulate the vastness of an ocean, seemed to be dry in the middle. I started asking questions and soon learned that the region is experiencing the worst drought in recorded history. Drought so big that people started to walk in the bed of these rivers just because, well managed. A drought that has channel funds and covered by dense vegetation on the sides turn a kind of doomsday scenario. The boat that would take me until Maués reached by that river. Anchored half a mile from the border. Only one boat could pass through a foot deep margins and drive you to the boat, the more there in between the River. It was like being in a movie. It was an unbelievable feeling. A melancholy seemed to take account of the huge river. The little water that there was enough for boats to navigate, but very carefully. The road Maués lasted about fifteen hours. As we left early in the evening, I planned to catch the sunrise the next day. I woke before the alarm sounds and went to the third floor of the boat, a luxury boat for freshwater, with about two dozen cabins with bathrooms, chef and own jacuzzi at the top, and stood there waiting for the darkness disappear. When the sun rose, we were already on the Solimões River. We stayed there for a short period and then flow into Maués-açu, the river that took us Maués. Compared to Rio Negro, Solimões seemed to be completely filled, the water reached to the banks and not seen the green islands in its bed. But with a little attention could see that the damage had come there as well: the water lapped at the edges but down there. A margin that was two or three feet high from the water, now had ten or fifteen feet.

 Even with the dry river, the sun can be unbelievable. Maués is a typical town in the interior of the region. Guarana move both financially and culturally to the region and Maués focus on large and medium producers, as well as factories and farms of AmBev, which produces the classic Guarana Antarctica. The festival takes place every year Guarana at the peak of harvest, when farmers are already able to project how it will be the harvest of the year and say if, after all, that was a good year or not. Three days of celebration, in which dance groups and theater in the city enact long pieces about the legend of guarana. The pieces are dull, as you might expect from the historical production of the inner city. But as the actors dance. Wow. I knew the photographer accompanying us that the main character of the play is interpreted by the same woman for years. This woman dances and plays like no tomorrow. If you watched the long cycles of dance pieces, it was because of her. It was something that clashed with everyone, his movements had a firmness and lightness that seems impossible to achieve when they dance. In her face, beneath a thick layer of makeup, I could see the light gnashing of teeth that she did. Few women dance like her, I can say.

The woman who danced like no other woman has ever danced (holding child).

The woman who danced like no other woman has ever danced. The party itself suffers from a schizophrenic feature of these celebrations, local bands playing covers strangers, then enters a DJ who can go in a psy forró the exchange band and there is a local band that sings traditional ancient songs over a batucada insane, a rock band takes the stage and make more covers, followed by a band of forró. All natural and mixed. As the party is assembled on the riverbank, one gets the whole time treading the sand and the view alternating between the stage and the dark river behind us. On the second day of celebration I did not want to see more shows or go there. I decided to stay on the boat and, by far, just listen to the bands playing. As the boat was stocked with beer and soda, I've gotten a little cooler and took it to the side of the jacuzzi. Only the sky above the Amazon and around me. The music could be bad, but the timing was good.
That's why I made this trip to find myself among the world's greatest forest in a boat drinking beer in the jacuzzi during the worst drought the region has already suffered. A moment that should not have lasted for one hour. But until today, writing this, I can recall the smallest details and sensations.

Scenario in which I contemplated all my insignificance before the universe. When you find yourself alone in the middle of something vast, there are not many options but to enjoy and meditate as you feel. And so I did.