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Fresh catch.

It was my final morning. The Mamiruá Reserve, nestled in the flooding forests between the Rio Solimões and the Rio Japurá, had been my home for four days. I’d been staying in a riverside community known as Boca da Mamiruá, an on-again, off-again stand of houses on stilts that had existed for nearly 100 years. Probably longer, except no one really knew that far back.

I’d paid up, paid my tips to the chef and to Ari—my guide—and written in the log book about seeing the red-faced monkey (Uacari) and the howlers and the alligators and hiking through damp forests and clouds of mosquitos. I’d eaten fish nearly every meal, played with the local kids, and practiced English with another guide named Alan (who everyone in the tiny community seemed to agree needed to get better at English).

Ari burst into the room where I was putting my last things into my bag. Hey! he said. One of the younger guys caught a pirarucu! Wanna see it?

Com certeza, I said.

That’s one of my favorite Portuguese phrases—it literally translates to “with certainty,” and acts as a really enthusiastic yes. Pirarucu is this giant freshwater cod-like fish native to the Amazon and while it tastes delicious, it’s also a unique and beautiful fish to look at; I’d seen a pair of them in an aquarium in Manaus. They normally grow to about 7 feet long, 450 pounds, and have huge scales with accents of bright neon orange, along with a tough inner layer that provides defense against piranhas. They’re also mouth breathers, and I’d heard them gulp air at the surface dozens of times over the previous few days.

Ari was smiling big and led me down to the boat where we motored the mere 250 feet over to the pair of floating houses where the fish was. An old woman was seated on a stool at the edge of the floating house with a pair of cats and a broom. A long-ish lump lay before her, covered with a tarp. Ari tied our boat up to a rafter and hopped onto the floating hunk of wood, pulled the tarp off the pirarucu. The two cats and me zeroed in on glistening catch. It was beautiful.

Pretty soon the old woman’s shirtless husband came around and he invited me in. He pulled up a wire chair in their floating living room / kitchen combo, told me to sit down. I did.

This couple was in their 80’s, had been original founders in the restarting of the community in 1991, along with Ari’s parents. They more mumbled than spoke, and my listening comprehension dwindled into the zone of “I sorta kinda understand.” Even though Ari spoke zero English, he acted as interpreter between generations of Portuguese.

The old man went to the house floating next door to rummage around, and the woman swept a bit while saying things I largely couldn’t understand. I remembered my own grandma, thought about her fussing about the house, although her’s was on a farm and not floating on a river. The old man came back and sat on the floor in front of me. He struggled at the plastic sack in his hands awhile until he grew frustrated and ripped it open. Then he pulled out a jaguar skull.

This was a jaguar I killed years ago, he said. It kept killing Ari’s dad’s cows. I got pissed and beat it over the head.

The man opened and closed the jaguar’s jaw and chuckled. Then he pulled out a ball of hair, about the size of a baseball.

This is a dump from a big snake, he said. All that’s left is the hair.

He laughed again. I loved his big, shirtless growl of a laugh. He had meat on his bones, had lived a life I could really only imagine. He pulled out another baseball-sized turd.

This one you can see little fish bones and scales, he said. Oh, and the net. The snake couldn’t wait, just ate the net along with the fish.

He pulled out a wiry fish bone from the dropping, and the plastic fish net fell away from the hunk of digested scales and bones. I took a few photos, we all laughed, the woman poked around with the broom, and the cats looked longingly back at the the dead fish. A dog barked from the nearby shore, wishing it could swim the mere 25 feet to the floating house and join in. It seemed to know what was inside the muddy water.

Pretty soon it was down to business. The old man tucked away the jaguar skull and anaconda scat and procured a knife. Ari and I followed him back to the waiting pirarucu and I watched this 82-year-old go to work. It wasn’t a huge fish—they get bigger—but it was still quite a catch, nearly five feet long. It’s scales bristled orange, and soon the man had cut away the piranha-proof armor and the flesh gleamed in front of us.

It’s too bad you’re leaving, said Ari. Because tonight, dinner is going to be really good.

###

From the middle seat, I buckled my seatbelt. The Airbus 319 engines whined to life and the Peruvian city of Iquitos quickly passed beneath us, between heavy rain and clouds. After mere moments, the Amazon disappeared completely. I stared at the whiteness outside the airplane window, feeling a little sad. After so much time spent traveling up the river, I’d thought maybe the place would give me a proper goodbye.

I sighed and pulled out my book. I was nearly done with Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. An older Peruvian man sat next to me against the window. I looked past him again, staring into the great volume of rainclouds. Nothing. I returned to the sewers of 19th century France.

My seatmate shook my arm. Look, he said. The Amazon.

I leaned over, and there it was. The clouds had parted. The great pastiche of green forest and muddy brown river, endlessly looping in graceful, round curves. Small riverside towns and communities, like round pockets on the banks of the Amazon. The shimmers of flooded forest, the subtle change in color for lagoons and lakes, the dabs of every shade of green.

I smiled and nodded. The old man could tell my Spanish was poor, so instead he repeated the word over and over again: Amazon. We both smiled and nodded, excited to see it from above. It is something else.

The clouds returned. Spanish exhausted, I went back to reading. The flight attendant offered water. I looked at my watch and time passed.

The man tapped me again. This time he didn’t even speak, just pointed with a hand that had seen its share of manual labor. This time it was the Andes, poking out of those same dense rain clouds. The rainforest was behind us, and already I could see the absence of life. These mountains were bare. Then the clouds quickly came again; I returned to my book.

I could feel the plane beginning to descend. Then like some kind of genie, the man tapped me a third time. Now, wide Pacific beaches nestled against the mountainous city of Lima. There is no other word for me to describe Lima, other than to say that it looks naked. The mountains are brown and bare, no trees or grass to speak of. Among the endless rows of buildings were spots of color, but for the most part, it is all brown bricks, matching seamlessly with the mountains. I could not think of a greater contrast from the jungle.

###

I finally made it. From Belém, Brazil at the wide mouth of the Amazon River on the Atlantic Ocean, up river to Iquitos, Peru, the largest city in the world inaccessible by road, I had traveled 2,200 miles by boat.

For comparison’s sake, this is roughly the same distance as Los Angeles, California, to Charleston, South Carolina.

This has spanned over nearly a month of travel, five different boats, many, many meals of rice and beans, and one very well-used hammock.

After all that, all I can definitively say is that the Amazon is huge. It’s so big that even after so much time there, I still can hardly comprehend it. It’s one of those regions in the world where there is so much of it for so long, that you begin to wonder if there is anything else.

I keep trying to think about lessons learned, an aphorism, something to lend meaning to the conclusion of an epic journey. Other than the huge vastness of the jungle, I’m mostly left with the beauty of it. So much varied and beautiful life is contained within that enormous but shrinking unknown. I hope it sticks around.

###

Boat rankings!

I took five different boats.

Which was the best? Which was the worst?

Fifth Place: Golfinho III. 14 hours, Santa Rosa, Peru, to Iquitos, Peru. The worst bucket of bolts that I ever had the displeasure of riding. Sure it was cheap, and there were basically no other options, but with less seat room than a kindergarten chair, the giant bag of food that required me to fish for my sandwich, and the toilet missing a seat, I could not wait to say goodbye to this piece of shit boat. Mostly I’m just glad we didn’t break down—something I’d heard was a possibility in those parts.

Fourth Place: Venceador VIII. 48 hours, Manaus, Brazil, to Tefé, Brazil. Venceador means “winner,” but as one woman said, who wins is not the boat, but they who survive the trip. The main issue here was not as much the boat itself, but for the fact that the boat was oversold by about 50 people. Since I had arrived a mere two hours prior to departure, I had to wait for us to pass the coast guard check before I could string my hammock up next to crates of bananas and onions. It was just so crowded! Nice upper deck though, with plenty of chairs and room. Pity I couldn’t sleep up there.

Third Place: Golfinho do Mar II. 48 hours, Santarém, Brazil, to Manaus, Brazil. I really wanted to like this boat more. It came well recommended from the owner of the Albergue da Floresta, and it was pretty fast for a hammock boat, but the top lounge deck was overtaken with super loud music and lots of drunken Brazilians. I don’t mean loud, I mean LOUD. It was too much for me, so I stayed below and mostly read in my hammock and watched the trees pass by.

Second Place: Soberanna. 20 hours, Tefé, Brazil, to Tabatinga, Brazil. This was a pretty nice speedboat, and while it was nice to move at a faster speed, I wanted more room to move about and enjoy the passing scenery. I was mostly confined to an airplane-style seat. It was also quite expensive. But one does not always have the luxury of choice between boats, which is to say almost never, and none of the slower hammock boats sailed from Tefé to Tabatinga. Food was very good, service good, and we were armed to the teeth: at least 7 different armed military and federal police were on board. Lots of drug trafficking around them parts.

First Place: San Marino II. 36 hours, Belém, Brazil, to Santarém, Brazil. My first boat, and my definite favorite. The route was excellent and went through some much smaller rivers for shortcuts, which meant tons of riverside communities and people throwing plastic bags full of clothes to the neighborhood children. Also this meant nonstop tiny boats pulling up and tying onto ours and people selling shrimp and other snacks. Had a great, peaceful upper deck, and plenty of room to spread out my stuff and my hammock. Rice and beans were also two thumbs up. Also points for the old Seventh-day Adventist guy who preached to me twice a day. 10 out of 10 would take again.

###

That’s it! Thanks for sticking with me. It’s really been a blast to share these letters with you during my travels. I’ve loved writing them. I did worry a bit this would all come off a little gratuitous, so if my long journey seemed too much like a long, self-obsessed Instagram story—sorry! Mostly this is practice for me while I hone my craft.

Because, each time I do this newsletter thing, I feel like the writing gets a little easier, a little higher quality, and maybe even a little bit more fun. So thanks for all the feedback and thoughts along the way—every bit has helped.

I got a ton of great research done, so I’m headed back into novel-editing mode. This is it for now. Hopefully, at some point in the future, I’ll have another good chunk of time and I’ll take on another series.

But until then, tchau!

-jed

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | PART 5