The Amazon River, 200 Miles Upstream from the Atlantic

21 November 2012
(The day before Thanksgiving)

When I remember the Amazon years from now (assuming I’ll be able to remember anything), what will come to me most strongly is the smell of smoke. It’s the smell I woke up to yesterday morning as we approached our anchorage off Makapa, Brazil, at the Amazon’s mouth. It was the smell outside the 6^th-deck garden lounge as I ate lunch (tacos!). It was the smell forward on the 7^th deck as we watched the sunset last night. And it’s the smell—especially strong today—as I sit out here on my small balcony getting ready to grade the remaining cover letters and resumes from my business communication students.

And, of course, there’s the constant haze that accompanies the smoke. Without the haze and smoke, the Amazon is very much like the Saigon River we sailed up three years ago enroute to Ho Chi Minh City and my adventures in Vietnam during the fall ’09 voyage. The muddy water—orange-brown, looking like thin gruel—is lined on both sides by triple-canopy jungle. Occasionally, a small house surrounded by a miniature cultivated field, appears on the bank. Every now and then, a covered ferry—more like a large rowboat with a canopy—sails by taking people to the nearest village, I guess, for shopping, doctor visits, or to see family and friends. Occasionally we pass a dugout, a small outboard motor at the stern, carrying one or two fishermen. And this morning, we sailed past a very picturesque village sitting, like one block of a main street shopping strip, directly on the north bank of the river.

But the river is very wide, varying, I’d guess, from a little over a mile at its narrowest to well over 3 miles at its widest. The channel we are following weaves from one side of the river to the other, so at times when the ship is sailing close to the north bank, putting the starboard side close to shore, I can see the faces of people walking to their boats or down to the river’s bank to wash clothes or, I guess, to get water for cooking. At other times, when we move closer to the south bank, my balcony is well over a mile from shore, as it is now. Because of the smoke, all I can make out on the north bank is a strip of green outlining the river’s muddy water.

Yesterday morning, I figured the smoke was coming from sugar cane farmers burning the dried stalks to prepare their fields for the next planting. But according to several people who have been up the Amazon before, the smoke originates from burning forest. Fire is what the people here use to clear large tracts for cultivation. In the US, clear cutting is the preferred method; in the Amazon, it’s fire. The result is that a sail up the Amazon is an experience in a cloud chamber. Today is hot, muggy, and cloudless. Even with the heavy air, I should be able to see 8 to 10 miles clearly. Because of the smoke, my view to the stern ends in thick haze no more than 3 miles downstream.

Sergio Carvalho told us that Brazilians resent very much people from other countries lecturing them on the need to preserve the Amazon forest. It is, after all, the world’s oxygen tank. And when the lectures come from US environmentalists, they’re especially resentful. “You’re the only country who didn’t sign the Kyoto protocols, and you lecture us on carbon pollution and environmental destruction?!” But it’s impossible not to be concerned when, for hundreds of miles along the Amazon rain forest, the senses are exposed to acrid smoke and thick haze.

At the same time, I can’t stop staring at the brown water, the tiny boats, the thick jungle, the huts, the villages, and (when I can see them) the faces. This experience was worth waiting for.

We arrive in Manaus tomorrow morning. Other than a reservation for one night at a Holiday Inn (it’s all about location and the internet), I have no plans.  I think Sergio’s contacts have finally been exhausted.