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narrow gangplanks/walkways, boats
Sep. 4th, 2022 02:15 pmI realized it's September, which means this little access stream, which is where we boarded all boats to get to the Amazon, will have dried up, or is about to. You can walk to those stilt houses across the way. (And those stilts tell you how high the water will get. Right now, though, the people in those houses are cultivating crops** that will mature in the months between now and the river rising, using the 40 centimeters of alluvial deposits the Amazon leaves behind as it recedes.)
Note: I'm linking all these photos from Flickr. You can click through to see them much larger.
And all the floating buildings in the photo below will have been pushed out to the main river, or are about to be. "How do people know when to make the move?" I asked. My guide shrugged. "They just decide."
But I want to call your attention to those planks that connect to the floating buildings to the shore. Notice how narrow and unsecured they are? Everyone is so casually badass here, just casually balancing on those like it's no big deal.
And, not to put too fine a point on things, but it rains a lot here, and as you can see in the photo below, things tend to be damp:
But the most casually badass walkway of all was the one I walked along the day I went solo (well, not solo: I had a husband-and-wife pair of guides, plus their youngest daughter, who was three--but I didn't have Wakanomori with me) to see the giant Victoria Regia waterlilies:
Way out in the distance, almost out of sight, is the river. And all this way where there's a walkway--that's how far the river is going to rise when it breathes in. And you can't tell how high up the walkway is, but it's about15 feet up [ETA: I think I'm exaggerating in memory. It felt high, but 15 feet is ... too high, as your reactions are making me realize. I wouldn't have been brave enough to walk it if it was 15 feet. It was taller than a person, but not taller than two people, which is what 15 feet would be. So let's say 8–9 feet up.] Please appreciate that the ~ single plank ~ for walking on is about 12 inches across and that there's no rail, just that rope on the right. And jolly good thing that rope is there, because guess what you have to do if, on the walk from the river to the reserve (or back the other way), you meet someone coming in the other direction? One or the other of you has to step on the platforms on which the planks are resting and lean back on that rope while the other people walk by! I experienced both other people giving way for me this way, and doing it myself for others.
(Also casually badass about the Amazon is machetes everywhere. Kids playing with machetes, a woman walking home carrying a wooden chair on her shoulder with a machete in her other hand. Or here, this machete currently at rest in this boat--see it nestled there?)
So many different sizes of boats. Bigger ones have canvas/plastic sheeting lashed up, like in this boat that's delivering eggs. That way when the rain comes, you can lower it and keep from getting so wet.
But the boat we went to see the water lilies in was a little one, like the one with the yellow roof in the photo below, with no side curtains:
On our way back to our boat, we knew a downpour was coming:
And it came, wind and buckets of rain. The husband half of the guide team and the boatman were up front, with only life vests as a rain barrier. The wife and I were in the back--she with her three-year-old on her lap--with a big blue tarp pulled up over the front of us. And in all that wind and rain, the three-year-old ... drifted off to sleep on her mother's lap. Perfect.
A few more lovely boats for you. You can see some are powered just by oars, but many have what I call dragonfly motors: a propeller at the end of a long stem, and then the actual motor part affixed to the boat. (You can see a dragonfly motor up close in this photo: the propeller is tucked into the boat right now because it's not in use.) You change the direction of the boat by swinging the propellor to one side or the other. But there are also boats with fixed motors, such as you see in the United States--we traveled in both sorts.
**rice, cassava, tomatoes, corn, soy, watermelon, Brazilian peanuts, black-eyed peas, and plantains, for example.
Note: I'm linking all these photos from Flickr. You can click through to see them much larger.
And all the floating buildings in the photo below will have been pushed out to the main river, or are about to be. "How do people know when to make the move?" I asked. My guide shrugged. "They just decide."
But I want to call your attention to those planks that connect to the floating buildings to the shore. Notice how narrow and unsecured they are? Everyone is so casually badass here, just casually balancing on those like it's no big deal.
And, not to put too fine a point on things, but it rains a lot here, and as you can see in the photo below, things tend to be damp:
But the most casually badass walkway of all was the one I walked along the day I went solo (well, not solo: I had a husband-and-wife pair of guides, plus their youngest daughter, who was three--but I didn't have Wakanomori with me) to see the giant Victoria Regia waterlilies:
Way out in the distance, almost out of sight, is the river. And all this way where there's a walkway--that's how far the river is going to rise when it breathes in. And you can't tell how high up the walkway is, but it's about
(Also casually badass about the Amazon is machetes everywhere. Kids playing with machetes, a woman walking home carrying a wooden chair on her shoulder with a machete in her other hand. Or here, this machete currently at rest in this boat--see it nestled there?)
So many different sizes of boats. Bigger ones have canvas/plastic sheeting lashed up, like in this boat that's delivering eggs. That way when the rain comes, you can lower it and keep from getting so wet.
But the boat we went to see the water lilies in was a little one, like the one with the yellow roof in the photo below, with no side curtains:
On our way back to our boat, we knew a downpour was coming:
And it came, wind and buckets of rain. The husband half of the guide team and the boatman were up front, with only life vests as a rain barrier. The wife and I were in the back--she with her three-year-old on her lap--with a big blue tarp pulled up over the front of us. And in all that wind and rain, the three-year-old ... drifted off to sleep on her mother's lap. Perfect.
A few more lovely boats for you. You can see some are powered just by oars, but many have what I call dragonfly motors: a propeller at the end of a long stem, and then the actual motor part affixed to the boat. (You can see a dragonfly motor up close in this photo: the propeller is tucked into the boat right now because it's not in use.) You change the direction of the boat by swinging the propellor to one side or the other. But there are also boats with fixed motors, such as you see in the United States--we traveled in both sorts.
**rice, cassava, tomatoes, corn, soy, watermelon, Brazilian peanuts, black-eyed peas, and plantains, for example.
