Forest, at last! Once past the port of Miritituba, the Trans-Amazonian started changing. Gone were the pastures, now it was just a brown dirt track cutting through the jungle for hundreds of kilometers. Imposing lianas and foliage formed an impassable vegetal wall on both sides. After a long week of travel through livestock farming areas, we were pleased to finally be in the heart of the jungle.
The 4x4 was trying its best to continue the "rollercoaster" ride down the bumpy road, strewn with treacherous cavities and endless ups and downs. "It rained last night," remarked our driver Gabriel. The good news? Much less dust for us. The bad news? We risked getting stuck in the mud. Even worse? In about six or seven hours, we had passed only half a dozen cars. The rusty "Do not overtake" sign in a bush seemed like travel humor.
In all truthfulness, we were not alone at all. We were occasionally forced to slow down to give way to a small black cat or a family of monkeys, to observe the flight of a couple of blue-and-yellow macaws in the distance or the slithering of a coral snake. In this region, the Trans-Amazonian crosses a national park that was delimited in 1974 during the construction of the highway. The area is famous for its hundreds of species of birds and thousands of insects of incredible proportions. Some butterflies and beetles are over 30 centimeters in size.
Landscape of deceptive beauty
At a bend in the road, one could see northward an azure ribbon glistening under the sun. This is the Tapajos, an 850 kilometers long basin as vast as Spain, with a flow twice as large as all French rivers combined. It is often considered the most beautiful of the Amazonian rios. More importantly, it is a refuge for unparalleled biodiversity. Fishermen regularly come across large manatees ("boxfish") and pink dolphins with pointed beaks.
However, this purity is deceptive. As we crossed the numerous igarapés, the small tributaries of the powerful Tapajos, bliss soon gave way to concern. During the first few kilometers, we discovered crystal-clear rivers. Then, little by little, they turned whitish, viscous and milky. "Sujissimo!" ("super dirty"), Gabriel said indignantly. The surrounding igarapés are polluted and toxic, just like the veins of a sick body. This was a sign that we had just entered a hostile territory: that of the illegal gold diggers, the garimpeiros.
The next day at sunrise, we left the city of Jacareacanga, or jacaré ("the city of the crocodile" in Portuguese), named after a nearby hill shaped like a reptile. After leaving our 4x4 at the port, we boarded a voadeira (literally "that which flies"), a swift boat with an aluminum hull typical of the Amazon. The few passengers on board were silent. Two young women had brought pillows and were sleeping in their pajamas. As for the pilot, he could make this trip to the garimpo, the gold-mining areas, with his eyes closed.
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