Immersed in the Amazon

Exper­i­en­tial tour­ism allows people to act­ively and mean­ing­fully engage with a place’s his­tory, people, cul­ture, food, and environment. 

I recently jour­neyed to the Brazili­an Amazon and exper­i­enced three days immersed in the envir­on­ment and cul­ture with the help of Wel­ling­ton, my inter­pret­ive guide. 

I hope this blog post inspires oth­ers to take sim­il­ar exper­i­en­tial jour­neys. I believe that not only are they more mem­or­able for trav­el­lers but they also encour­age the tour­ism sec­tor to be more sustainable.

The inside track

Angelo Sciacca is a sus­tain­able tour­ism con­sult­ant work­ing “at the cross­roads of sus­tain­ab­il­ity, tour­ism and com­munity devel­op­ment”. For his PhD at Edin­burgh Napi­er Uni­ver­sity, Angelo is focused on “the bar­ri­ers and ena­blers to a cir­cu­lar eco­nomy faced by tour­ism businesses”.

Manaus is the cap­it­al of Brazil’s Amazo­nas state and the gate­way to the Amazon River and rain­forest. Approach­ing by plane is an emo­tion­al exper­i­ence as you glimpse lush rain­forests, the start of the fam­ous river, and the Rio Negro. Upon arrival you notice as you leave the air­port the dens­ity and diversity of the forest that sur­rounds the city. 

Manaus has a strong, wel­com­ing char­ac­ter. Street food, chaot­ic neigh­bour­hoods, busy har­bour, and out­stand­ing archi­tec­ture make this one of my favour­ite cit­ies in Brazil. 

The high­light of Manaus is its sur­rounds: the Amazon Rain­forest, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon River. The encon­tro das águas, where the Rio Negro meets the Rio Solimões and where the Amazon River offi­cially starts, is a short boat ride from the city. The col­our of the two rivers is sig­ni­fic­antly dif­fer­ent. The Rio Negro’s dark waters are due to less sed­i­ment churned up by its slower flow.

Although day tours give you a taste of the beauty of the Amazon, for an unfor­get­table exper­i­ence you should head to one of the forest lodges in the Rio Negro. I stayed at the Manati Lodge. Here you can fully exper­i­ence the rain­forest, the river, and the cul­ture of the com­munit­ies liv­ing on its banks. The lodges here are mostly only access­ible by boat, and the trip is an exper­i­ence in its own right. 

Dur­ing my three-day stay at Manati, I was accom­pan­ied by a loc­al guide, Wel­ling­ton, who was born and raised in a nearby vil­lage, or comunid­ade. An inspir­ing source of loc­al and tra­di­tion­al know­ledge, Wel­ling­ton has been work­ing as a tour guide since the early-mid 2010s and he def­in­itely knows how to make your stay mem­or­able. All of the activ­it­ies he organ­ised were highly exper­i­en­tial and gave me the oppor­tun­ity to be part of them. 

Dur­ing our forest hike, for example, Wel­ling­ton applied an integ­rated inter­pret­a­tion approach. This means that not only did he guide us in how to find and observe wild­life respons­ibly, but he also shared some of his rich rep­er­toire of loc­al stor­ies and legends asso­ci­ated with much of the forest’s fauna and flora. Wel­ling­ton’s approach allowed me to appre­ci­ate more intensely my moments inside the rain­forest, while sim­ul­tan­eously pre­serving his cul­ture’s intan­gible heritage.

I learned about the past and cur­rent uses of some the forest’s nat­ur­al resources, such as the plants and trees used to pro­duce glue, nat­ur­al rem­ed­ies, and build­ing mater­i­als. I was invited to taste forest foods, such as the açaí and oth­er fruits and seeds, and to learn about some unusu­al tra­di­tion­al uses of some plants. The seeds of the urucu fruit, for example, pro­duce a beau­ti­ful bright red dye when squeezed. The indi­gen­ous peoples of the area use it for paint­ing and dec­or­at­ing their bod­ies, crafts, and tools. 

Anoth­er unex­pec­ted use of a plant is the one in the video below. The sound was tra­di­tion­ally used by hunters to attract birds.

It was really fas­cin­at­ing for me, des­pite my sub­stan­tial travel exper­i­ence, to see the deep and respect­ful integ­ra­tion of the loc­al com­munit­ies with their sur­round­ing forest eco­sys­tem. Wel­ling­ton helps pre­serve much of this know­ledge while shar­ing it with vis­it­ors in a very inspir­ing way. His wild­life watch­ing activ­it­ies are mostly unplanned, impro­vised by Wel­ling­ton based on his forest skills and his know­ledge of the forest and its sea­sons. He would knew when and where would be a good occa­sion to spot sloths, mon­keys, many bird spe­cies, and caimans.

My jour­ney with Wel­ling­ton con­tin­ued with oth­er cul­tur­al exper­i­ences, such as tra­di­tion­al har­vest­ing and cook­ing meth­ods. I vis­ited a fam­ily that pro­duces cas­sava flour and par­ti­cip­ated in the entire pro­duc­tion pro­cess, from tak­ing the cas­sava root, grat­ing it with a tra­di­tion­al machine, remov­ing its juice, and fil­ter­ing the flour. We cooked the tapioca on a mud-made stove and topped the meal with forest-sourced Brazil nuts.

My three days at Manati Lodge were filled not only with nature- and cul­ture-based activ­it­ies but also lots of inter­est­ing stor­ies. Loc­al stor­ies are jour­neys through time; the fourth oft-for­got­ten dimen­sion of a place.

My jour­ney to the Brazili­an Amazon taught me much about exper­i­en­tial travel in prac­tice. Above all, it allowed me to appre­ci­ate once again the love and pride that drives com­munity guides to pre­serve their cul­ture and her­it­age for future gen­er­a­tions. In the Amazon they do so with an out­stand­ing respect for the nat­ur­al world.

I would recom­mend a jour­ney to the Amazon to any­one. How­ever, I would strongly recom­mend enga­ging a loc­al guide as pas­sion­ate and know­ledge­able as Wel­ling­ton. He helped make my exper­i­ence of this part of the world truly amazing.

Where is this?

Manati Lodge
Lago do Aca­jatuba, SN, Rur­al Zone,
Man­acap­uru – Amazo­nas, Brazil
Tel: +92 995 256 792 | E‑mail: reservas@manatilodge.com

Fea­tured image (top of post): Manati Lodge on the Rio Negro. Pic © Angelo Sciacca.

Where next?