Thursday, April 10, we docked at Santarem on the Amazon River. Santarem is a city of 250,000 people. At one time it was wealthy because of rubber, but that has gone bust. Now they grow soy beans, but that requires clear cutting the rain forest, and, therefore, is quite controversial. To minimize the damage caused by clear cutting, the government will only allow the farmers to plant 20% of their land with soy beans.
We rode an old bus (shown here) partly on dirt roads to get to the rain forest.
Then we hiked through the jungle on primitive trails and occasional boardwalks.
This is a rubber tree. Rubber is made from the sap. They cut the bark to get the sap. Our guide has made some cuts on this tree to show us.
The rubber tree is very tall.
The largest and strongest tree in the rain forest is the Brazil Nut tree, shown here. Our guide told us an interesting story about the Brazil nut tree. Some years ago the local bush pilots all used Cessnas, same as in Canada. They were in the habit of overloading them, which would use up their gas more quickly and cause them sometimes to run out of gas before reaching their destination. Where do you land a plane in a dense rain forest jungle if you run out of gas? The answer is you land on the top of a Brazil Nut tree. This was actually written in the pilot's training manual. The reason is that the Brazil Nut tree is the tallest tree in the jungle, and is also one of the strongest, so it would not break and would support the weight of the plane. Moreover, when the plane is sitting on top of a Brazil Nut tree, it would be visible to other planes and thus easy to find. Much better than being away down on the jungle floor.
Tomorrow is a day at sea as we leave the Amazon River and sail up the coast to French Guiana and Devil's Island. Stii hot and muggy, but no rain.
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