I had to get up at 5:30 am to catch my 9:00 am flight to Manaus. I did not sleep well. There was a really bad thunderstorm in the middle of the night, which created lots of noise. The result of the storm was that several major highways were closed due to flooding. Later I found out that it was actually the tunnels that were flooded because two homeless guys stole all the cables from the pumps, so they did not start when it began to rain. No pumps no way of getting the water out of the tunnels. The police checked the video tapes of the surveillance cameras and caught the guys in no time. Well, would you not think some body would watch those pictures from the cameras all the time? Anyways .... The traffic was really, really bad and only thanks to our local driver who knows all the secret short cuts did we make it to the airport by 8:30 am. The lines were really long, so I had to approach the first airline representative in uniform and to my surprise found myself in front of the counter and checked-in in no time. The flight to Manaus was smooth, I found the hotel pick-up quickly and we were taken by bus to the Hotel Tropical to wait for our boat to leave for the hotel. Ooops .... almost missed the boat to the lodge. I found the business office in the hotel and checked my emails quickly to see if there was any feedback from the Spanish schools I had contacted in Buenos Aires. Somehow I lost track of time and when I showed up at the meeting point 5 minutes late nobody was there. At first I thought, well , this is South America nobody will be on time, but when still nobody else had showed up a couple minutes later I checked with the front desk. They said there was a problem and that they would be back. Well, I found out I was the problem. Thank god I bumped into our tour guide while looking around and she led me to the boat so that we could take off. The boat was actually a really big river boat that could probably carry around 100 people and cargo, not just a little put-put that I was expecting. The ride was about 2 hours and it was quite stunning. The river is so bark, almost black and that is why it is called Rio Negro (The black river). At times it was so wide I would guess over 1 kilometer, lots of little beaches, lush green shores, almost no other ships. Slowly we moved on towards the sunset ..... awesome!!! Later I found out that close to our hotel the river is actually 18 km wide (low water level) and during the rainy season it is almost 24 km wide with an average depth of 30 m. Finally we arrived at the hotel and were received almost "Hawaiian style", a guy in Indian clothes playing the drums while a girl in a hula greeted every new arriving guest with a necklace. The rooms were very basic, a little dark and tight but everything was clean. Overall the hotel complex is quite amazing. They must have miles and miles of elevated walkways connecting the buildings and towers. Everything seems a little run down and past its prime, but in this climate it is probably not easy to keep up with the maintenance. My tour guide was assigned to me and to my surprise he was actually from Germany, Christopher from the Chiemsee, but he has lived in South America for over 22 years. He actually lived in Peru for a while, in Arequipa and he new about Volker and his orphanage. He gave me a brief introduction about the hotel and the activities that were planned for us. He mentioned that he had worked in several different hotels along the Amazon and that the Ariau Towers was the best of its kind .... whatever that means. After dinner we left in little boats to look for Caymans. We had several attempts to catch one, but initially they all failed. It seems there was a little between the spotter and catcher in the front and the canoe driver in the back. He seemed not to have his best day and had several problems steering and controlling the boat properly. I enjoyed the ride up the Ariau river (which actually connects the Rio Negro with the Río Amazonas (or Solimões). The night was beautiful, warm, the mosquitoes stopped bugging me and the stars were so bright, no artificial light around..... gorgeous.
Finally after more than 90 minutes we caught a small female caiman and Christopher explained the differences to other species such as crocodiles and alligators. It was really interesting to learn how big the caimans can get, especially given our small example (the Black Caiman can get up to 6 m or 18 feet long), how they control the sex of the babies with the temperature of the nest etc.
It was a long day and I was really tired, so I just had a quick beer and went to bed
The boat we took to get to the hotel
The arrival area of the hotel.
The tower in which I had my room facing the Rio Negro.
A view of the main area of the hotel, with the reception hall, restaurants etc.
Yes, yes I know .... it is very hard to see, but I wanted to show you the little caiman that we caught (and of course release later).
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