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We left the US a month early so that we would get an opportunity to go on this trip. Apparently, a waterfall was discovered about 120 miles from the lodge in a mountainous region of Brazil along the Venezuelan border. It was previously undiscovered and an expedition was planned to measure the falls and study the flora and fauna atop the plateau from which the falls fell. The trip embarked from Barcelos. A research team, film crew, and two mountain climbers were a part of the team and joined us and Dr. Gibson on the Amazon Queen for the trip upriver. I thought that the trip would take about 2 weeks to get to the falls. Actually, the Queen couldn't go very close to the falls because the river narrowed too much. Ultimately, we got to within about 30 miles of the falls. My estimate of 2 weeks to the falls was not even close. I though we would leave from Manaus. Again, what did I know, we left from Barcelos and the trip took about 4 days to get to our stopping point. GPS measurements showed that we only traveled 60 miles, as the crow flies, from Barcelos, but the Queen covered many more miles than that. The river was anything but straight and the river boat pilots kept swerving from one side of the river to the next, and not because they were drinking. One of the members of the research team was a botanist named Miranda who spoke very good English. He explained to me that while the river just looked smooth to me and him, the boat pilots were very experienced on the river and that there are thousands of names for the "skins" on the river. The swirls and eddys in the current all help the pilots know if it is safe for the boat to go over that part of the river. While I'm sure that helps, the depth finder that kept going off couldn't be hurting, either. Once we were at our stopping point, we were met by 2 helicopters that would take people up the top of the plateau. The people who had priority over lookers on went first. It was looking like I wouldn't get a chance to even see the falls. We sat around for a few days, walking around the place that the queen was docked. About a quarter of a mile from the Queen was an old airstrip that was used by drug dealers to get drugs from somewher to the river to ship them downstream, apparently to Manaus. It had been blown up by the Brazilian government only a few years back. On the third day that we were stopped, Phil flew in from Manaus in his float plane to the Queen. He arranged for me to fly by the falls. There wasn't any rivers big enough to land in on the plateau, so we just flew by. The falls were incredible. Unfortunately, I don't have any photos for the web site because I only took pictures on slide film that has yet to be developed. This was my first flight in a small plane (4 passengers) and I almost threw up. It wasn't a turbulent flight, but the pilot kept zigging and zagging to get different views of the falls. The extra motion combined with a slight smell of fuel was almost enought to get me. I was glad to land. I got some good pictures, but I didn't get to get up close to the falls. When we got back to the boat, I was offered the opportunity to spend a few days up on the plateau with the scientists. I was concerned that I didn't have any equipment, no sleeping bags, etc. and that I might be a burder to the group. I decided that I would go anyway, this being a once in a lifetime chance and all. Andrew, Phil's son and I, got a few things together and waited for the helicopter to come back to pick us up. It came back to late in the evening and wasn't going to go back that night. I was almost relieved. The next morning we got in the helicopter for the ride to the top. Andrew decided that he still wanted to spend a few days up there, so he brought a few things with him. I was just going to go have a look. Lady luck was on my side for a change. It had poured down rain the night before. The campsite looked like a swamp. I just didn't feel like sleeping in all of that. At the top, I looked around for a while, trying to spot any animals or see any cool plants. Nothing. There just wasn't much interesting to see. I'm still glad I had the chance to see the falls though. There were several research groups doing different kinds of research. One group was interested in birds and had a separate campsite a few miles away from the first site. We boarded the helicopter and flew to the other campsite. This area is VERY remote, quite far from any cities or towns, but all over the top of the plateau were illegal mining operations. This area is predisposed to mineralization and there were lots of tantalum ore deposits. They had all been destroyed by the Brazilian government, but one of them looked like it was still active. An entire network of roads was constructed on the plateau. There was even a soccer field for recreation. I wished that I had been able to get up close to one of those mines to check it out. After we came back from the plateau, we waited for a few more days, people going back and forth from the mountain to the Queen. Then we left for Barcelos. The trip upstream took about 4 days, but back downstream to Barcelos, took only about a day. We stayed at Barcelos for 5 hours or so and then headed up the Rio Negro to the lodge. Erica had seen the lodge when she flew there with Phil and Dr. Gibson in the float plane, but I had yet to see it. The trip from Barcelos takes about an hour and fifteen minutes in a bass boat, but the Queen is much slower and takes about 7 hours. We arrived late in the night and woke up the next morning at the Lodge. |