The Amazon

This as been a long time coming but better late than never. Last year I was fortunate enough to go work in the Amazon on what was meant to be two 40 day long canoe trips. To say the briefing was daunting is an understatement. We were warned and told how to manage; Jaguars, Anacondas, Piranhas, Electric Eels, Vampire Fish, Caiman (Crocs), Fresh Water Stingrays, Bees, Tropical Infections and Fungus. Towards the end it began to sound like a joke surely there couldn’t be all these things waiting to eat us in the jungle…
Then there was getting the equipment and food together for the 40 days. This is no easy task in Brazil apparently we needed 40 zip ties per canoe just to hold the collapsible boats together.
  

Organising the mountains of food for the trip

We were going to paddle down the Juruena into the Tapajoes then catch a boat from Jacareacanga down to the confluence with the Amazon at Santarem. The river at this time of year flowed at around 60,000 cfs and we would be covering a total of 600 km.

After meeting our students we did the best we could to give them an idea of how challenging a trip they were about to embark on. I don’t know if they fully understood but they were all still keen to come. So we loaded a bus with everyone and everything we would need and drove for two days towards the Amazon basin.
The drive was an adventure itself. I was surprised at how long it took us to get to the jungle, there were just cleared fields for miles. I was beginning to worry that maybe the jungle was being cleared faster than what we were approaching it as the illegal logging trucks kept passing as going the other direction.

Would there be some jungle left time we got there?

At one point we got to a bridge that had been burnt down. Apparently this is what the locals do when a bridge gets too warn down. They burn it so a new one has to be built. Luckily they don’t mess around and a new one was built in a couple of hours as we watched on.

No bridge, no problem

Eventually the road disappeared into a river so we unloaded the bus, built our canoes, threw the mountains of gear we had in and herded the struggling beginner canoeists to an island to camp just as it got dark.

Now how do these things work?

Home sweet home for the night

We had roughly ten days to teach our students how to camp and canoe. After that we would pass our last point that we knew we could run an evacuation from and enter the section of the ‘big six’. The big six are large rapids that we would need to be an efficient and competent team to portage, line and paddle our way through safely.

We were always being watched by something

‘Aggressive self care’ became a catch phrase of the trip as we tried to wash with antibacterial soap everyday, always keep ourselves dry, hydrated, covered from the sun and bugs.
 

One hour without bug spray

Macaws

Lesson time

So many butterflies!

Also lesson time!

Looking good just in time

Before we knew it we were at the point of no return. We spent a few days above the pinch rapid that marked our entry into the most remote part of our journey. At this point one student choose to be evacuated by plane from the airstrip at a fishing posada. This also meant that we got to meet the locals that lived there. Which was an awesome experience to see what life is like living at the remote posada.

Staple food source the Manioc Root

So when we couldn’t put it off any longer we packed our boats and headed into the pinch rapid. It was to be the first time that we experienced paddling our boats fully loaded in big water. Would the zip ties hold?

Zip ties held the canoes together but we were definitely sitting low in the water.

The first of the ‘big six’ was Salto Augusto. Salto Augusto is one of the most amazing pieces of white water I have ever seen. For at least a kilometre out the roar of the rapid had me convinced that we were about to drop of the edge of the world every time we approached a corner. Luckily we all made it to the side above the rapid and unanimously made the decision to portage
(carry our canoes) around. We also decided to spend a lay over day here as it is an amazing place.

The journey through the big six was luckily pretty uneventful. It was a lot of hard work but good times and awesome scenery made it unforgettable.

One morning termites had taken over our stove. ‘Come on guys I just want to make coffee!’

Lining our way around a rapid

Yes it is a fishing spider

Where do we go now?

Stormy weather

Living with bees … just go to your happy place

The last of the big six

When we reached the bottom of the last huge rapid we entered the territory of the animals that couldn’t swim up the rapids. That included electric eels that are very territorial of their eddy, freshwater stingrays and the large caimin. We were also back where there were people, both settlers and indigenous tribes.

We were shown how to make manioc flour

Teaching the kids how to throw a frisbee

Unfortunately somewhere I had picked up a parasite and by this stage I was beginning to be really sick. I had abdominal pain, was dizzy and extremely tired all the time. After two weeks feeling like this we made the call that I should be evacuated at the first possibility. This was both a relief and scary in itself. Life had been pretty miserable trying to keep paddling everyday in the heat while feeling sick. However the prospect of being evacuated by myself into a frontier town where no one would speak English was daunting. So at the first road head we paid a man to drive me to Jacareacanga. I would meet the group at the river in threes days when they paddled down to Jacareacanga.

My last sunset on the river

The ‘hospital’ of Jacreacanga

The hospital was a frustrating and frightening place as I tried to talk to the doctors in Portuguese with the help of a guidebook. I don’t think they ever really figured out where I had come from and what I was doing there. But after jabbing me with needles I think they told me that there was something wrong with my kidneys, gave me some pills and sent me on my way. I then spent the next three days hanging out by myself in what was a pretty sketchy town. Day light was pretty full on so I always made sure I was locked in my room time it got dark. Needless to say I was pretty happy to meet the group at the river when they got there. We then travelled by boat the rest of the way to the Amazon River itself.

I didn’t start to feel better before I was due to head out on my second trip so the call was made that I shouldn’t go out for round two. When I did start to feel better I went on a trip to the Pantanal and got to see some amazing wildlife.

Capybara Family

Jaguar!

Giant Otter

Brazil and the Amazon is an incredible place and I would love to go back one day. Hopefully no parasites next time though!

California so far…

Arriving in California this season I was expecting warm weather and lots of paddling however things haven’t quite worked out that way. The unusually large snow pack and late season have meant cold weather and high water. There has been some good paddling though. After paddling a few runs around Coloma we decided to head south to paddle the Tule. Unfortunately nothing really went to plan on this trip, the 5 hour drive turned into 9 hours after the ‘short cut’ was closed due to snow, we then had car problems and had our vehicle broken into while we were on the river. However there was a little bit of good paddling and an awesome campsite one night.   

Curt Lamberth on the Tule River

Our campsite in the Sequoia National Park

After that I decided to try something else and went on a road trip North. We had a good trip with good people and no drama which was nice. I also got to paddle some new rivers doing a section on the Salmon, Clear Creek and the Scott.

Me on Clear Creek – Photo Laura Farrell

After that we headed back to Chico where Sean and Scott were kind enough to let us stay. Which was awesome because this is when the weather got really bad and pretty much rained for a whole week.

We headed out to paddle the South Branch of the Feather. It was really cold at the put in but despite frozen fingers we still put on. As we paddled down it started to snow and the river was rising on an already high flow. We made the call to walk out early just above a rapid called 99 Problems as we were concerned about portaging in the slippery conditions and having to do a a ferry above the 100 foot waterfall with all the extra water. We also thought it maybe an easier walk out from there but in the end I don’t really think it was.

Tomass Marnics running one of the first waterfalls

   

David Ernst boofing – Photo Laura Farrell

After sitting inside for a day we decided to brave the weather again and headed out on an overnight trip on Devils Canyon.

Packing gear into the back of my kayak – Photo Laura Farrell

We decided to do the trip in two days instead of the usual three as the weather forecast made it clear that we wouldn’t really want to just hang out off the river. So after finishing the bottle of tequila we had got for the trip the night before, we packed our boats and headed downstream.

  The team at the put in

Sure enough it rained steadily pretty much all day however we made good progress downstream with a lot of fun rapids and incredible scenery.

We arrived at where we thought would be a good place to camp at 2pm and spent the rest of the day huddled under a tarp watching the rain fall and the river rise. The rain stopped briefly in the evening and we were able to explore around our campsite.

Watching the rain fall – Photo Laura Farrell

When we woke up in the morning the river had risen but seemed like it was still an alright flow to paddle. It turned out to be another awesome days paddling with some great rapids, incredible gorges and of course rain!

Laura Farrell dropping into one of the bigger rapids

Below the portage

Despite the weather it was a great trip and I will definitely go back one day and paddle it again in the sunshine. 

It has finally stopped raining and snowing in California which is great. The warm weather has a downside as well though; the huge snow pack in California this year is now melting making most rivers here too big to paddle. However that wont last forever and maybe soon the California paddling season will really get going.