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Rio Manacapuru
Amazon
2001 |
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click photo for map |
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Deep Down and Dirty
Hot Humid and Sweaty |
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Where on Earth could we fish after Murchison, we were hooked, and
had to go somewhere. After many hours blindly surfing the Internet I
came across a photograph of a Tucunare. Oh Boy! what a fish I just
had to go and catch one of those! The trip was organised by Tailor
Made Holidays in the Amazon. After some questioning of my sanity we
agreed to book the trip. We took along another of our Trout Fishing
friends Nick, and met another angler who was joining the trip at
Heathrow, another Mick. Mick, Nick, Mick and John needed a name for
the party, something that seemed to encapsulate this growing mad
desire to go and fish these strange places. Using the name of our
favourite lake the 'Twinhoe World
Angling Team' the TWATs were born! |
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We arrived at Manaus, what an incredible place, a whole City that
all arrived by river. Then in a Campervan with three wheels, a
broken Windscreen, and no Suspension we crossed the Rio Negro on the
ferry. Nothing in Great Britain can prepare you for the scale of
these rivers, the width of the Amazon and Negro disappears over the
horizon. They make the Thames look like a ditch. We arrived at
Manacapuru and found our boat, and Captain Josimar. Within five
minutes we saw our first Pink Dolphin or Boto. |
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Our guide to his great credit, is one of those people who likes to
go to places at the same 'level' as the local population. This means
using local busses, broken down vans, cheap hotels, roadside food
and in this case using a real working river boat to fish from. Our
boat was used to transport cattle during the rainy season, and
government disinfectant teams in the dry season. We slept on deck in
hammocks and
ate the best Brasillian cuisine of Rice and Beans, and
the fish that we caught. (and not forgetting the teeth cracking
Farinha)
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| Our captain
Josimar |
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Our cook, Issa. Someone us boys all took a shine to, because of her
umm err cooking! |
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We set off for our two week trip. The first night we anchored the
boat in the middle of a large lagoon and went for a cooling swim in
the dark black water. We were surrounded by groups of Dolphin both
Boto
and
Tucuxi. It was amazing.
That night we set a bait, on a ledger.
The bait was a Piranha head, on lifting the line in the morning we
were somewhat surprised to see that the Piranha head
 had been
replaced with the head of a Mandi Catfish
 . Very bizarre,
then again the Amazon is a very bizarre place. |
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It was hot. I had checked the weather reports directly before we
left. 100
Fahrenheit,
100% Humidity, Dew Point 100
Fahrenheit. I thought I was
going to die. It was a few days later when we found out that the
crew were impressed as to how we were coping. It was a heat wave,
and they were finding it hard going!!
and then there's the insect life!
Mosquitoes, piums, and moutuca flies like miniature stealth bombers,
all trying to drain your blood. Millions upon millions of other
flying insects, at night the surface of the lagoons were literally
covered with insect life |
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We travelled up waterways the size of the Thames, but too small in
Amazonian scale to be marked on any map, through Lagoons of enormous
size, and fished around the Igapó. We caught 27 species of fish (see
the Species List) on spinners, lures, cut fish and dead baits. We
saw giant buttressed trees, flocks of parrots, Toucans and a myriad
of other brightly coloured birds, Cayman, Atrophic rivers with
hundreds of fish floating on the surface. We saw a world that was
made of water.
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We caught Tucunare!! Though nowhere near as many as the locals could
manage with a bit of red rag as a lure.
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We caught Pirapitinga. As they are called in these parts,
with human like teeth, and damn fine eating.
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And of course there were piranha, red,
long, yellow, white, silver . . . . . . .
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And other toothy critters, scianga,
triaro, osca
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And a host of catfish
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Josimar introduced us to his parents, still living in a floating
cabin, whilst we were there he caught and killed a dangerous child eating Cayman!
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We were given gifts of bananas (the
sweetest I have ever eaten), Inga beans (Jungle sweets - the beans
are surrounded by a sweet white fluff like candy floss) and Brasil
nuts.
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We visited a number of riverside
settlements, Caapiranga and Anama
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On the way back down the Solimoes to Manacapuru I managed to catch a
Carpet! Actually a Discus Ray. I had just broken my boat rod and was
angling with a spinning rod, it took about an hour to fight. We
flooded a canoe to land the monster.
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Then after two weeks on the river,
with just the dark water, the green jungle, and the blue skies, we
were back in Manacapuru for the annual Ciranda. Who spiked the
drinks?
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