Exploring Amazonia : In Brazil and Peru, eco-tourists get breathtaking close to exotic wildlife-in relative comfort-at two rain-forest lodges

Even for experienced adventure travelers, the Amazon Basin is intimidating. Its size--2,700,000 square miles, which includes 1,100 tributaries of the mighty Amazon River--makes it almost impossible to grasp in a lifetime, much less during a short vacation. Many travelers opt for a cruise ship trip up the Amazon from Belem to Manaus, but that five-day journey doesn’t allow contact with the jungle; in some places, the Amazon is 38 miles wide.

Ironically, tourism in Amazonia is dropping even as worldwide interest in saving the rain forest increases. In 1990, there were 186,000 visitors who arrived in Amazonas, the huge state that surrounds the central portion of the river and stretches west to Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia. That was a 25% decline from the previous year.

Rio de Janeiro’s deteriorating image as a city plagued with street crime is blamed for the drop in international tourism throughout the country that traditionally has been South America’s most popular tourist destination. Last year, 40,000 foreigners came to Manaus, but only 5,500 of those were Americans. (Most Amazon visitors are affluent Brazilians who come to Manaus to spend a day or two shopping in Brazil’s only duty-free zone. They buy fax machines and other 20th-Century business tools to survive in the jungle back in Sao Paulo.)

However, in June of next year, a high-profile group of scientists, journalists and government bureaucrats is scheduled to discuss the world’s environmental problems at the United Nations Environment and Development Conference in Rio. Between 20,000 and 30,000 visitors are anticipated, and many will explore the rain forest.

So Manaus, the capital of Amazonas, is gearing up for an eco-tourist influx. Bilingual guides are being trained on the myriad flora and fauna of the region, and new hotels are being built. For a city of 1 million that was once the rubber capital of the world, Manaus is woefully short of hotels, especially those at the better end.

The lone first-class hotel is the Tropical, a classy large resort on the outskirts of town with a huge pool, tennis courts, exotic gardens and restaurants that offer spectacular views of the river.

But I didn’t come to the Amazon to stay in a luxury hotel in a big city. Bombarded by nightmarish news accounts of burning trees, rapacious ranchers and gold-crazed prospectors, I felt compelled to see the rain forest’s diverse and vanishing flora and fauna now, before it’s tamed. I also hoped my tourist dollars spent here could actually be beneficial.

On the other hand, I didn’t want to die from a tropical disease, be devoured by malarial mosquitoes or ravenous piranhas or, for that matter, eat beetles for dinner.

So a Santa Ynez Valley travel agency specializing in Brazil booked me and Jan Jarecki, a photographer with whom I was traveling throughout Brazil, into the Ariau Jungle Tower Hotel for a two-night stay in March. Unfortunately, we were also booked into a downtown Manaus hotel the night before we were to take a boat to our jungle retreat.

When we arrived that evening at the Hotel Monaco, we discovered what seemed like 6,000 of the most evil-looking bugs we had ever seen crawling on the floor of our room. “We can’t stay here,” announced Jan, who is not a fussy traveler. “It’s worse than the jungle!”

We promptly fled, ordering a cabdriver outside to whisk us to the “best” hotel in Manaus. The place he took us looked worse. Several hours later, after rejecting a few other dives, I remembered hearing about a place called the Tropical. A $30 cab ride later we arrived, exhausted, at midnight at a luxury, American-style resort on the outskirts of town.

After a pampered night at the Tropical and a morning spent touring hot and dirty Manaus, where the famous baroque Opera House and floating markets are of interest, I was eager to get on the river.

The Ariau (pronounced a-ree-ah-ooh) dispatches a small tramp steamer, which looks like something out of “The African Queen,” to the docks at the Tropical to pick up guests for the three-hour ride up the Rio Negro River. The Rio Negro flows into the Amazon just west of Manaus, after coursing 1,200 miles from its headwaters in Colombia. Unlike the mud-brown Amazon, the Rio Negro is a dark, English-breakfast-tea color, but it rivals the Amazon in size: There were points during our journey when we could barely see the shore.

We boarded the boat with another American, Stan Bach, a research specialist at the Library of Congress, and soon our guide started spinning river and jungle fables.

Like many ambitious young men growing up in Manaus, Rinaldo Costa had known prospectors who had gotten rich in the far reaches of Amazonia. He and his brother tried prospecting, but almost lost their lives.

“You always get malaria when you go after the gold,” Rinaldo said. “They say gold is an evil thing, everyone who goes to the mine comes back with malaria; that is the price.”

Another time, while trying to paddle across the Amazon in a dugout canoe, Rinaldo nearly drowned when a pod of the river’s legendary pink dolphins decided to play tag with his boat and nearly overturned it. Then Rinaldo told us about the venomous snake that dropped out of a tree onto his shoulders during a hike with some Ariau guests. At this point, I suddenly realized that this trip would not be, as I had so naively imagined, a dilettante’s jaunt in the rain forest.

Sweeping past the Anavilhanas Islands, we made a left turn onto the Ariau, a river by my standards but a creek by the Amazon’s. Its waters were high because it was the rainy season, paradoxically the best time to be here because the swelling rivers become passageways into the least-explored parts of the rain forest. At this point the river narrowed and the steamer was sandwiched by the jungle, its bird life and flowering trees adding splotches of pink and red to an otherwise green canvas.

Shortly we arrived at the Jungle Tower’s floating dock and were greeted by a welcoming party of porters, boatmen, hotel guests, scrambling monkeys and vibrant macaws. The guests were holding stick fishing rods, waiting for piranhas to nibble their meaty bait. The speckled, toothy catch littered the dock and would later be part of our dinner. The monkeys were the most overjoyed to see us . . . and our luggage, which they curiously explored. Climbing up wooden planks to the little check-in desk, I felt a light tap on my back, followed by a moist lick on the neck--a green spider monkey was welcoming me to his domain with a kiss.

The hotel, built on stilts on several treetop levels carved into the jungle, is entirely screened in, not so much to keep out bugs as to deter the jungle’s larger denizens. Gangplanks connect the different levels and at first, the place appeared a bit rickety.

Paul Carter, the British Guyana-born hotel manager, warned us to lock our rooms at night, but not for the usual reasons. “The monkeys are very smart and can open doors,” he explained in his cultivated British-Caribbean accent. “Last week they got into a German tourist’s room and got his camera. It was later found down by the water but the flash was ruined,” he added with a grin. Other useful monkey advice: Make friends, not enemies, with them. A guide had thrown water on one the week before, causing primate revenge. The monkey dropped a Coke bottle out of a tree, clunking the guide on the head.

The Ariau Jungle Tower is one of about 20 ecological “resorts” sprinkled around a 200-mile radius from Manaus. These hotels are mostly located on tributaries off the Rio Negro, partly because the area is by Amazon standards relatively mosquito-free.

Only one jungle hotel, the Pousada dos Guanavenas, is luxurious, featuring air conditioning, a swimming pool and in-room mini-bars. (However, a telephone call produced no one there who spoke English, and they apparently have no U.S. representative.) The Ariau is near the top in amenities, but closest to nature. Its 130-foot watchtower provides--for guests who are in shape--views of the forest’s various canopy layers, in addition to overviews of the jungle and its many watery passageways. The tower is also a magnet for the neighborhood’s wildlife, which uses it as a sort of jungle-gym set and meeting place.

Four species of primates climb and dangle from its planks, including the rare wooly dwarf monkey. The largest, the reddish howlers, bark at sunrise and sunset, calling to their friends and relatives who were stranded on islands when the river rose. The spider monkeys have just eight fingers, while the little greenish squirrel monkeys are the most endearing, curling up, childlike, in your arms. In addition, there are at least 50 species of birds and red-coated coatis--racoon-like creatures who will use their sharp teeth to munch into suitcases if they smell something sweet, such as toothpaste.

The monkeys, macaws and coatis also parade along the catwalks that connect the hotel’s buildings. The central tower houses most of the 32 rooms, in addition to the fourth-floor dining area. During our stay, the hotel was about two-thirds full; there were Germans, Canadians, French and a handful of Americans. Accommodations are clean but simple, with firm, comfortable beds, ceiling fans and a faint light bulb which flickers when the generator that provides all the resort’s electricity sputters.

Nicely carved parrots adorn the doors. An animated spider monkey wanted to crawl into bed with me the first night, but after I slipped him a banana he settled in for the night outside my door as a chorus of insects in the jungle serenaded me to sleep.

The next morning, after a breakfast of eggs, fresh passion fruit juice and papaya, Rinaldo summoned us to a motorized dugout canoe for our jungle trek. We assumed we wouldn’t be roughing it, but nevertheless wore hiking boots, rain gear and long pants. Another group of French tourists heading out at the same time included a woman in a colorful sundress and high heels.

We sped up the Ariau as yellow-rumped caiques and flocks of cacophonous parrots pinwheeled above us. At a small landing 20 minutes from the hotel, we pulled ashore for a visit to the local gift shop. This exotic souvenir stand’s inventory included jewelry made from Brazil nuts and vertebrae necklaces.

Into the jungle we hiked, with Rinaldo stopping frequently to show us the medicinal wonders of the hardwood trees. Rinaldo chipped off a piece of bark from a tree from which quinine, an anti-malarial substance, is made. With his machete he sliced open one of the plentiful water vine trees; liquid spritzed out and we drank. We saw one kind of palm tree with a base of dagger-sharp quills. Several Indian tribes use the quills as ammunition for their blowguns.

The rain forest was not flat or soft, but rolling and gnarly. Pools of brackish water looked uninviting. Spiders were abundant, their tapestry webs ensnaring butterflys and moths. Snakes seemed to be under every leaf. Rinaldo hacked away at the dense growth with his machete.

I suppose I had imagined being led on some short, marked nature trail, but this was nowhere to get lost. At a rest stop we asked Rinaldo if he ever loses his way. “Yes, we got lost with a group of older Americans last month,” he replied. “They began crying as the day got late, but when you get lost you must stop fighting (the panic). The only landmark in the jungle is the water. You must find the river.” Rinaldo then assured everyone he knew where the river was.

Trudging up a slope we came upon a clearing that had been burned and planted with manioc, a potato-like vegetable that is the subsistence crop in this part of Amazonia. The local mixed-race people, called Caboclos , survive by fishing and farming. We were lucky to come upon a manioc factory in full production. A family of 15 were all working under the hot, corrugated-roof hut. Two men were stirring huge black woks filled with the ground-up yellow mush.

At other stations the women were milling, cleaning and pressing their cash crop. These rural people eat this staple--boiled, steamed, baked into cakes--three times a day, but tourism officials in Manaus are trying to convince them to cut back manioc farming because planting it requires burning of the rain forest to clear the land. Tourists want to see an untouched forest, so the locals are being encouraged instead to make handicrafts and sell their fish to the tourist lodges.

About an hour and a half into the jungle, our trek turned arduous when a cloudburst made the sinewy roots and vines slippery underfoot. Jan went crashing into the foliage; luckily he and his cameras were unscathed. In some spots the canopy sheltered us; in other spots we got drenched. By the time we reached the boat, we were tired and soaked, but exhilarated. We all wondered how the French woman in the high heels made out.

After lunch, the reconnaissance tour continued along the Ariau, with a stop at a rubber tapper’s house (where Rinaldo learned an older Caboclo had been bitten by a venomous jararaca snake and taken to a hospital in Manaus). Next we came upon one of Rinaldo’s favorite spots--a floating bar where lambada parties are held on Saturday nights. We drank Brazil’s wonderful version of cream soda, Guarana, then continued on in the boat. Again the heavens opened on us, and we decided to abort our planned late-afternoon piranha fishing expedition.

Back at the Jungle Tower that night, some guests relaxed by reading and writing. We went on an alligator safari, in search of the alligator-like reptiles called caimans that are common to these waters. Cloudy nights are best and safest to invade his fierce domain: By shining a light, the red glow of the caiman’s eyes betray them. Rinaldo had little trouble in snaring a small caiman, delicately grabbing him by the snout to allow us a closer look, then returning him to the river.

I was sorry we were leaving the next day; I would have liked to have done some more bird-watching from the tower. Since about a half-mile of gangplanks lead out into the forest and to the edge of the river, there is plenty of wildlife to see right from the lodge.

It was hard to sleep that night. Vivid images of birds, monkeys and dangling vines flashed like a kaleidoscope through my dreams, interrupting my much-needed rest. The jungle had seeped inside my consciousness and will not soon be forgotten.

GUIDEBOOK

Brazil’s Amazon Resorts

Getting there: On May 27, Varig inaugurated weekly non-stop service every Monday from Los Angeles to Manaus, and is offering a special introductory round-trip fare until Aug. 27 for $849. The nine-hour flight costs about $1,200 in high season. From Rio de Janeiro, there are daily Varig flights to Manaus that take about four hours. Call Varig at (800) 468-2744. Jungle resorts: At the Ariau Jungle Tower Hotel, three-day/two-night packages cost $280 per person, including all meals, transportation to and from Manaus and all guided jungle excursions; $450 for three nights/four days. Accommodations include Tarzan’s House, a small room atop a tree, ideal for honeymooners. Meals, simple but filling, are served buffet-style. I made my reservations through F&H; Travel Consulting, 4545 Baseline Ave., Santa Ynez, Calif. 93460, (800) 544-5503 or (805) 688-2441, which specializes in Brazil travel. Or contact South American Vacations, 5777 W. Century Blvd, Suite 1160, Los Angeles 90045, (800) 451-0341.

In Manaus, the jump-off hotel for the jungle lodges is the Tropical Manaus. Other jungle hotels and tours can also be booked from the Tropical’s travel desk. Owned and operated by Varig Airlines, Tropical rates start at $150, breakfast included. Book through Varig or the travel agencies above.

When to go: There are two seasons in the Amazon: when the river is high and when it’s low. Although it rains throughout the year, the rivers peak in April and May, allowing for excursions on small boats inside the jungle. Rains are heaviest in December and January. June through November is driest.

What to bring: Long pants, rain gear, binoculars, waterproof bag for cameras, insect repellent, lightweight hiking boots, hat, light cotton clothing. Malaria pills optional.

For more information: Contact the Brazilian Consulate, Tourist Information, 3810 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1500, Los Angeles 90010; (213) 382-3133.