FLONA Tapajós

It's been a while since my last post, and my travel adventure is actually over. Still, I wanted to finish the story and have it here to look back on, even as my travel euphoria is slowly fading... 

After coming off the boat in Santarém, I spent the next day making arrangements to get to Floresta Nacional do Tapajós (FLONA Tapajós), and then taking a short afternoon trip to Alter do Chão (nearby town boasting white sandy beaches on the Tapajós River). Because of the rainy season, the river was so full and there were no beaches to speak of. Neither Santarém nor Alter do Chão made very big impressions on me.

FLONA is another story. It's a forest reserve, or a protected area, of about 544 thousand hectares. FLONA is an extractive reserve, meaning that people still live within it's borders and use the resources in a sustainable manner. (There are issues with this on both the social and ecological side of things, so "sustainable" is perhaps up for debate. In any case, it's a work in progress towards that purpose). More here.

The day I left for FLONA Tapajós, I met 3 backpackers in the hotel and they decided to join in. Wolfgang from Germany, Teresa from Australia, and Luis from Barcelona, Spain. From Santarém to FLONA one takes a 4 hour hot, sweaty, dusty, bumpy bus ride to the Reserve. On the bus we also met Dona Conceição, a community leader from the town of Jamaraquá (inside the Reserve), who was to be our host. Visitors to FLONA always stay with local families, that house and feed you, as well as organize hikes and canoe trips while you're there. It's a form of creating revenue for the communities. It's also a much more authentic way to visit "the jungle", rather than staying at a 5 star hotel catering to rich foreign tourists (blah). Dona Conceição was sweet and very motherly -- i think we were incredibly fortunate to have stayed with her.

Plus, THIS is where we were put up - a separate house that her husband had built, right by the Tapajós river. A refreshing swim in the river was barely a hop and skip away. Not bad, eh?

Just before that swim we took when we finally arrived, we stopped at the neighboring community of Maguary. Rubber tapping is one of the extractive activities within FLONA and we saw how the rubber trees are tapped, and how they process the milk to make handicrafts. 

They are so creative! The rubber is used to make leather-like products, like handbags and wallets, and marketed as sustainably extracted rubber. They're sold in other parts of Brazil and exported to Europe too.

We only spent 2 days in FLONA (I wish it had been more!), but while there all our bathing was in the river. The Tapajós is a pretty major tributary of the Amazon, so this is NOT like going for a dip in the stream.  And no, we had no encounters with piranhas or alligators.

Day 2 in FLONA started with a 5 hour hike with our guide, Edimilson. Not surprisingly, we didn't see many critters. Part of the area we walked in was secondary forest -- most of the bigger, valuable wood-trees were removed (before FLONA was a Reserve), and that also means less fruit-producing vegetation that would attract animals. We heard birds, saw a snake, and LOTS of ants. My overall experience in the Amazon proved that ants are hugely important there -- breaking down all that leaf litter (and also finding ways to get into my backpack to attack my food stash). The bites are painful too!

The trees were amazing though! We got to a relatively intact bit of the forest after a while. Here is a samaúma tree.

Theobroma cacao, or Cacao. Chocolate lovers agree, this is a sacred plant!

Another amazonian fruit, piquiá.

The view from the highest point along our hike. The forest and Tapajós river.

The afternoon was spent on a canoe trip in the "igarapé" or flooded forest. 

Last night's dinner in Dona Conceição's kitchen.

I had an amazingly good time here. The place was beautiful. We saw the sunset from our hammocks on both days. There were no noises except the water and a massive orchestra of frogs. My fellow backpackers were good company, and Dona Conceição dispatched us all with an affectionate hug and kiss.