Amazon rainforest

An Eco-Resort in the Amazon

This is the fourth article in a series about the Amazon region of Brazil featured in my illustrated picture book, Alexander the Salamander. This one is about the Amazon Ecopark. Previous posts highlighted the Amazon River, the city of Manaus, Brazil and piranhas, a well-known fish native to the Amazon. Upcoming articles will focus on its rainforest, indigenous groups, and wildlife. Enjoy these travelogues with photos and stories from one of the world’s mightiest rivers.

An hour-long boat ride upriver from Manaus brought us to the Amazon Ecopark Jungle Lodge, an eco-resort on the Tarumã River, a tributary of the Amazon that flows into one of the main branches of the Rio Negro.

Nestled in a quiet cove, the lodge was our home for five days in July 2008. When we arrived, I thought we had been stranded on Gilligan’s Island until we saw the carved wooden sign near the dock confirming that we were in the right place.

The site was only accessible by water, and I felt like we were being marooned in the jungle until a boat took us back to civilization.

The Ecopark offered plenty to see and do in the small area where we were permitted to wander without a guide (not that I had any desire to get lost in the jungle, mind you). We could walk on the beach, enjoy the view, or swim in the cove – an opportunity that my family reluctantly avoided. Other visitors were brave enough to take a dip, but we weren’t about to swim with the caimans, piranhas or needlefish. Instead, we walked around the lodge and snapped photos.

The beautiful scenery whispered “Amazon,” coaxing me to tell its story and inspiring me to write Alexander the Salamander. The still pool of water from a small stream made an idyllic backdrop for the creatures featured in the book.

Unplugged with no Internet or phone access that would have made ardent tech addicts stir crazy, the lodge made up for it with leisure activities. My son and I enjoyed many a game of pool and chess. While he had some trouble getting the pool stick to connect with the cue ball, the little chess whiz beat his dad over and over.

Once in a while, dad got the upper hand.

The Ecopark offered several off-site excursions to introduce visitors to the Amazon, including boat cruises to an indigenous village and the Meeting of the Waters at the confluence of the Rio Negro and Rio Solimões; rainforest hikes; visits to a monkey sanctuary; piranha fishing; and nighttime animal spotting. During a moonlight cruise, our guide suddenly sprang from the boat onto the shore and caught a small caiman that he showed us and later released. I marveled how he found saw glint in the creature’s eyes in near darkness.

Before and after a long day of touring, we retreated to the dining hall for dinner or to the lounge for drinks. I still remember the caipirinhas I enjoyed on the veranda overlooking the cove as my wife sipped on margaritas and tropical juices. My son enjoyed the juices but liked playing with the tiny cocktail parasols even more.

Local residents occasionally popped by for a visit. A large lizard searching for dinner crossed our path. We steered clear of a parrot and macaw that hung around the bar. While they were the inspirations for the characters Polly and Molly in Alexander the Salamander, these one were quite aggressive. Molly the Macaw was downright ornery, shooing away visitors wherever she landed.

The Amazon Ecopark Jungle Lodge is just one of many resorts along the Amazon’s many tributaries. Other resorts offer similar amenities. We enjoyed its ambiance, activities, price, and close proximity to Manaus. We were grateful that was located on the mosquito-free Rio Negro, where the high acidity from decaying vegetation and low oxygen content prevents mosquitos from breeding. Although we contended with our fair share of spiders, ants and other jungle critters, the bloodsuckers left us alone.

About Alexander the Salamander

A young salamander named Alexander living in the Amazon River Basin joins his friends Airey the Butterfly and Terry the Tarantula for an unforgettable jungle adventure. Come along with Alexander and friends as they meet birds, monkeys, and other creatures, enjoy the beauty of the rainforest, and face danger along the way.

The first book in the World Adventurers for Kids Series, Alexander the Salamander is an illustrated story inspired by the authors’ visit to the Amazon in 2008. Fun for kids and adults alike, the story teaches children the importance of listening to teachers and other authority figures.

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The Amazon River

This is the third article in a series about the Amazon region of Brazil featured in my illustrated picture book, Alexander the Salamander. This one is about the Amazon River. Previous posts highlighted the city of Manaus, Brazil and piranhas, a well-known fish native to the Amazon. Upcoming articles will focus on the rainforest, indigenous groups and wildlife in the area, and the Amazon Ecopark, an eco-resort. Enjoy these travelogues with photos and stories from one of the world’s mightiest rivers.

The day after we arrived in Manaus, we boarded a small green wooden motorboat with our luggage and headed about 25 kilometers up the Rio Negro to the Amazon Ecopark. The aging vessel was driven by a kindly Brazilian man who spoke no English but smiled a lot and helped us with our baggage. My son, wife, and I were the only passengers on the watercraft designed to hold 12 people plus luggage stowed in the aft. I chuckled at the sight of our bags lounging with a bird’s eye view of the river.

As the city of Manaus disappeared on the horizon, the rainforest surrounded us and left me transfixed on its emerald beauty. The wake behind the boat blended in artistically with the swirling clouds.

I’d seen other tropical forests, but the allure of the Amazon played with my mind and made the scenery utterly magical. The excitement of being in an almost-mythical place that I dreamed of visiting as a child grew as the boat glided deeper into the wilderness.

The occasional bungalow and sagging structure along the waterfront reminded me that we hadn’t quite left civilization behind.

More powerful boats zipped by us, throwing waves in our path and jostling our craft. I dreaded to think what we would find in the river if we fell overboard.

Half an hour later, the boat slowed and veered away from the Rio Negro into a channel that took us to our resort hidden in a cove. The calm, serene water mirrored the rainforest that pressed in on us from all sides.

The afternoon faded and the sun set behind the trees, casting its golden rays through the breaking clouds. The shadows deepened, painting the landscape in dark hues that blurred the outlines of the sky, forest, and river. Aside from the rumble of the outboard motor that sounded taxed by the hour-long journey from Manaus, the jungle was quiet. Life was all around us, but the stillness was deafening when the motor cut out.

During our five days in the Amazon, we ventured up and down the lifeblood of the rainforest. The melding of trees, plants, wildlife, river and sky instilled a sense of natural harmony. I was grateful to have experienced this wondrous place in person, albeit as an outsider looking in.

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Piranhas!

This is the second in a series about the Amazon region of Brazil featured in my illustrated picture book, Alexander the Salamander. This post is about piranhas, a well-known fish native to South America. Upcoming articles will focus on the Amazon River Basin, the rainforest, indigenous groups and wildlife in the Amazon, and eco-resorts. Enjoy these travelogues with photos and stories from the world’s largest rainforest. They lurk in the dark waters of the Amazon River, elusive but potentially deadly with their razor-sharp teeth that can tear into flesh. They swim in schools, but their curriculum is survival by finding innocent victims to eat. They are attracted by the scent and sight of blood floating in the water, and when they attack, they swarm and subdue prey through death by a thousand bites. They are the PIRANHAS! Deadly, dangerous piranhas! Be careful…do not go into the water! I’m kidding…sort of. The perception of piranhas as prone to aggressive behavior when it comes to feeding may be true, but their reputation as bloodthirsty, rapacious killers is overblown. The image of these members of the Characidae family that movies such as the 1978 film Piranha and its spawn — most recently Piranha 3DD — portray outstrips what these fish can really do. They certainly aren’t as docile as my buddy Percy the Piranha featured in Alexander the Salamander, who nibbles Alexander on the nose to say hello. They are predators, scavengers, and even herbivores, and there have been confirmed cases of people killed by piranhas. However, the fish are also prey for other animals higher up on the food chain, including the cormorants, caimans, dolphins, and humans. Humans? Certainly. Humans kill and consume far more piranhas than the other way around. When we visited the Amazon River Basin in July 2008, we went piranha fishing. Floating in a skiff in the murky waters of a tributary, we dangled raw beef cubes as bait from fishing poles and snagged some. An unorthodox means to catch fish for sure, but it worked. We caught a couple large ones and ate them for dinner. They were tasty but quite boney. The face and gills were the only remnants after we finished feasting on them. Piranhas make a good prop when you tell your friends at home that you went piranha fishing. The dried and lacquered fish mounted on wood stands made by local souvenir vendors are great desk ornaments, especially the red-bellied piranha reputed to be the most ferocious of all. Here my son holds up mounted red-bellied and gray piranhas. He wasn’t scared of them in spite of their wide, toothy grins staring at him. Piranhas also make good key chains, although their teeth have a tendency to catch on clothing. I didn’t see any piranha Christmas tree ornaments, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to swap the key chain for a hook. No trip to the Amazon would be complete without a piranha fishing expedition or souvenir. Before you go overboard and jump in to swim with them, however, consider this — the most feared fish in the Amazon isn’t the piranha. It’s the candirú, also known as the toothpick or vampire fish, a parasitic catfish with a lethal reputation for invading the internal organs of fish, animals, and humans and feeding on blood and tissue. Best stay out of the water.

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