Iberostar boat floats adventure, amenities on the Amazon

Thirty feet above, the penetrating whistles of a screaming pia bird broke the intense silence, beckoning my tour group to look up into the dense jungle canopy. But we saw nothing, even after repeated "wee-ooh, wee-ooh" calls by our Peruvian-born guide, Marco Dauila, who is a master field tracker with over two decades' experience leading groups through Brazil's beautiful yet dangerous Amazon rain forest.

I had expected monkeys swinging from trees, giant sloths and colorful toucans but Dauila, introducing 10 citified North American travelers to the rain forest, patiently explained our predicament. Most of the rain forest's animals, birds and resplendent plant life exist high in the canopy of the forest, where there's less predators.

Then there was the matter of camouflage: The small khaki-colored pia, likely siting right above us, was confoundedly indistinguishable from what seemed like a mass of tangled green clutter.

Dauila shifted our attention to the ground, pointing us in the direction of a hairy, black tarantula with its fangs splayed for attack at lethally poisonous bullet ants guarding their nest and at the life-giving plants and vine-draped trees that supply half of the planet's oxygen.

I felt engaged, but getting so close to the Amazon river and rainforest in this way was, at first, utterly overwhelming.

All aboard the Amazon

Luckily, I was traveling aboard the Iberostar Grand Amazon, a flat-bottomed riverboat that sleeps 150 in five-star comfort, with two pools and a Jacuzzi on its rooftop as well as a stocked library and meeting room for daily lectures.

Water levels were near the peak of their wet season rise in late May when I boarded the ship in Manaus, capital of the state of Amazonas in Brazil. About 1,000 miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean, the city is in the heart of the Amazon region and thus a great jumping-off point for jungle tours and river cruises.

The Grand Amazon, which made its debut in 2005 as Iberostar's first such operation in Brazil, is the most elegant vessel to head this far into the Amazon.

Cruise ships sailing in from the Atlantic do call at Manaus. But they don't operate year-round and they don't venture farther inland to the Negro and Solimoes rivers, two of the main tributaries of the Amazon River channel that Iberostar sails on its all-inclusive three-, four- and seven-day packages.

On our seven-day cruise, we covered roughly 160 miles in four days on the Negro River, turning around, backtracking to Manaus to take on new passengers and then picking up the Solimoes River for another 140 miles of upriver exploration.

The Rio Negro

Setting out Sunday afternoon from Manaus' busy port, we passed cargo carriers and double-decked passenger boats until, gradually, mile after verdant mile, the riverbank became a wall of tangled, green trees set amid flat, inky dark waters and an endlessly expansive horizon.

Sitting on the balcony of my stateroom, I didn't feel isolated from the landscape the way I often do when aboard larger vessels. All of the ship's 72 staterooms have balconies. All also have large, stand-up showers, hotel-style beds, individually controlled air conditioning and TVs with English-language programming.

When I woke up the next morning, we were at the mouth of the Anavilhanas Archipelago, encompassing 400 protected islands in a pristine realm of diverse plant, bird and fish life.

An eerie mist hung above the rainforest canopy and a feeling of unspoiled timelessness overwhelmed me.

Before long, the mist gave way to blue skies, distant towering clouds and a wet but tolerable humidity.

"Be prepared for rain and sun," Dauila warned us moments before we headed out on our first excursion. "You're in the rain forest."

We zipped along the Negro River, our 20-person motorboat encountering smooth, gentle waters in what felt like a giant, overflowing bathtub. We passed forested swamps, known as igapos, and wetlands, spotting red and green macaws hiding behind leafy branches and freshwater dolphins breaking the water's edge before we arrived at an inlet with a small clearing.

Amazonian trees grow straight as telephone poles, bearing broad, glossy leaves whose entwined greenery blocks out the sunlight and bring about humid conditions with very little ventilation.

It's an ideal hothouse and, according to Dauila, within one square mile there are more than 80 species of plant life. "But just because everything is green doesn't mean it will grow," he said, as he plunged his machete into the mulch-like soil known as humus.

"The soil is one of the poorest in the world," Dauila continued, removing a thin chunk of sod.

Sand lies just three inches below the rich, organic floor in this part of the Amazon, a result of the Rio Negro's high acidity. Apparently, there's a wide variety of river types -- of which I have only a faint understanding.

We walked slowly, with Dauila leading us to a huge tree whose flaring buttress roots have adapted well to the poor quality soil. Dauila's machete drew milky sap from a rubber tree, cut away a scorpion hideout and fashioned a shelter out of palm fronds.

At one moment he was climbing a tree using palm rope, then he was extolling on the jungle's medicinal uses, such as carapanauba bark for liver ailments, ground copaiba leaves for ulcers and the milk of the amapa tree for bone fortification.

Most fish, fruit and fauna are known by their Native American names, said Dauila, and much of what is known about the forest has been gained from ancient Indian customs. Native Americans now number little more than 300,000, only 0.2% of Brazil's population. While small groups of isolated tribes still wander the rainforest, most live in towns and cities.

After lunch aboard the Grand Amazon, the rest of the afternoon was spent on the water -- spotting a three-toed sloth slowly moving high in a towering kapok tree, a pack of spider monkeys swinging across a narrow channel and a flock of white-necked herons taking flight in the last minutes of the setting sun.

With the river so high, we were able to explore far off the main channel, ducking in and out of narrow passages just wide enough for our boat to squeeze through. It was there -- in a vast and seemingly uninhabited space -- that the scale and beauty of the Amazon began to hit me.

Iberostar cannot possibly cover all the Amazon but the company does its best, offering a variety of excursions that include numerous rain forest treks, a swim with the celebrated pink dolphins, piranha fishing at sunset and a visit to an Indian village where smiling introductions break the ice and a tour of the villagers' manioc fields and crafts shop reveals a poor but self-sustaining community.

Rio Solimoes

The Rio Solimoes is geologically very young, nutrient-rich and home to a great many more species than is the Rio Negro. There's greater marine life and, consequently, more human habitation along the riverbanks.

We saw caboclos, descendents of Spanish or Portuguese settlers who intermarried with indigenous Indians, fishing with nets or spears, washing clothes on slabs of wood and tending to small gardens.

After a rain-forest trek in the Manacapuru River region, we dropped in on an elderly caboclo by the name of Francisco, whose small farm is planted with cane, jute and manioc. Most of Francisco's income is from making farinha, a staple of the Brazilian diet. The bulk of his time spent pressing, grating and roasting manioc roots in a giant metal frying pan in a shed just beyond his house.

With a pig, two chickens and plentiful fish and wild game, Francisco seemed to have all that he needed.

People such as Francisco who practice slash-and-burn agriculture are not a great threat to the rain forest, Dauila told me. Activists working to stop deforestation are actually more concerned with ranchers, logging companies and soy farmers.

That night, on the riverboat, we watched Al Gore's movie, "An Inconvenient Truth," and suddenly the Amazon's precious biodiversity took on a whole new meaning.

The Amazon has been experiencing drier conditions since 1998 as rain forest destruction continues. But more rain forest areas are also gaining protected status, and there's been a generational shift in thinking that gives Dauila reason for optimism.

"We can't change the minds of old people because they don't understand what can happen to the world," Dauila said. "But the new generation, now boys and girls in school, they are making campaigns."

Dauila told me that after spending 24 years as a field guide, he wanted to devote himself to lecturing on the deforestation of the Amazon River basin.

"With the passage of time, this is my project," he said, acknowledging the difficult task of advocating for rain forest preservation.

ABCs of Amazon travel

Whatever fears I had harbored prior to my arrival in Manaus were quickly put to rest by the Grand Amazon's well-trained and friendly crew.

There are dangerous things in the river waters: piranha, anacondas and caimans. On land there are mosquitoes, but more people have a problem with the small fire ants, whose itchy bites can be avoided by tucking cuffs into socks. 

As for the heat, the best antidote I found was the caipirinha, a drink made from lime, sugar and cachaca, an alcoholic beverage made from sugarcane. Drinks were served at the riverboat's roof deck bar. A sampling of local fish was prepared daily by the Grand Amazon's master chef. At roughly $200 a day, the cruise was an all-inclusive tonic that seemed too good to be true.

Travelers averse to high humidity and wet weather should steer clear of the Amazon basin from December to February, when the heaviest rains arrive. The end of the wet season, from May to July, allows for deeper exploration, while September to November is a great time to see birds and turtles nesting along the low riverbanks.

As for Manaus, the town's busy waterside markets burst with activity and give insight into the commercial products being cultivated inside the rain forest.

Up a hill, the Teatro Amazonas opera house, with its pink facade and blue-and gold-tiled cupola, stands as testament to the turn of the 20th century, when Manaus was the only source of rubber in the world and the town was drenched in money.

Tours are offered every 15 minutes and opera performances span a two-month season beginning in April.

Downtown Manaus offers a range of places to stay, but the city's aggressive commercial atmosphere can be somewhat discomfiting.

More to my liking was the Tropical Hotel. Located 10 miles northwest of town, this five-star hotel overlooks the Rio Negro and includes fine river beaches, a pool, tennis courts and good nightlife.

Brazilian airline TAM Linhas Aereas offers one daily flight from Miami to Manaus, and Copa Airlines offers service from Miami and New York connecting via Panama City, with fares starting around $1,000, depending on season.

To contact the reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to destinations@travelweekly.com.