Brazil: Araca Cruise To the Heart of the Amazon: Expedition – 2024 with Alex Robinson

Day 1 – DEPARTURE FROM YOUR HOME COUNTRY

Earth Trip will organise your transfer flights from your home country to Manaus in Brazil.

Day 2 – ARRIVAL IN MANAUS (18th May 2024)

Please be sure to arrive before 16:00 today. On arrival transfer to the Tropical Executive Hotel, with wonderful views out over the Amazon and Negro Rivers from your private balcony and restaurants on the doorstep. Manaus sits at the meeting point of the coffee-with-milk coloured Amazon River and its largest tributary, the cola black Negro. The two rivers meet in front of the city and flow side by side – for tens of kilometres without meeting. The city has a handsome historic centre with grand mansions built in the 19th Century rubber boom and a spectacular opera house where Caruso sang on opening night.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast

Day 3 – CAIPIRINHAS AT SUNSET – WELCOME TO THE CRUISE (19th May 2024)

Amazon indigenous Saro Munduruku and expert Amazon travel journalist and photographer Alex Robinson will meet you at your hotel after breakfast for transfer to Novo Airão. This village on the banks of the largest tributary of the Amazon, and the largest pristine river in the world – the Rio Negro. At Novo Airão the river is 14 km wide.

Novo Airão is literally the end of the road. From here we travel by boat to Aracá mountain, 600 kilometres to the north. There are no cities, roads or even dirt tracks in between. The scattering of settlements along the way are all on the riverside. The largest municipality has a population density of just 0.2/km2.

After leaving your bags in your air-conditioned cabin, enjoy a welcome caipirinha with Saro, Alex and the crew. In the afternoon we leave for our adventure. And right away we are in the heart of the wild – entering our first national park, and Unesco World Heritage Site – the Anavilhanas. This is the world’s largest river archipelago – with nearly 500 hundred islands set in a river which averages 20 kilometres wide.

You will then be fully briefed on our journey and the adventures to come and enjoy an introductory talk on the Amazon and Negro Rivers from Alex and Saro

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 4 – THE WATERFALLS OF THE ATURIÃ

(20th May 2024)

Today we visit forest around the Aturiã river – a clear-water tributary of the Negro which we reach by motor launch. We take walks in the forest, swim in a beautiful waterfall, and catch fish from the launch and the riverside. You will see dozens of howler monkeys in the trees, and tiny, baby-faced squirrel monkeys plucking wild fruit from the bushes. The area is rich in bird life – mealy parrots, swifts and hawks fly across the river; tiny tanagers brilliantly coloured as LED lights flit in the trees.

In the late afternoon we relax in the hammocks, watch the islands drift by and looking out for tucuxi dolphins jumping out of the water as they chase fish.

We have supper under the stars and the boat resumes its overnight journey north towards Aracá.

This evening Alex will give us a presentation on Amazon ecosystems and tepui mountains

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 5 – FISHING THE FLOODED FORESTS (21st May 2024)

We wake at parrot island – a roost for tens of thousands of birds, including myriad noisy mealy parrots that twitter and cackle in the trees, and cobalt-winged parakeets. We cruise up the Negro sedately: you can stay in pyjamas until late morning – binoculars or camera in hand as we drift through endless nature, broken only by tiny hamlets of three or four huts where river people fish from dug-out canoes using cast nets.

In the afternoon we take the launch into the forest to look for critically endangered brown bearded saki and yellow handed titi monkeys and then enter the flooded forests, on an igarapé or Amazon creek just as sun rises. We pass from there into igapó, an ecosystem unique to the Negro River, where the water cradles an endless labyrinth of trees. Be sure to be quiet when the motor stops for the best chance of seeing shy rainforest animals: wading birds in the shallows (including tiger and capped herons, snow-white egrets and snake-necked anhingas), sloths wrapped in high branches in cecropia trees and bright-eyed capuchin monkeys. Huge black collared hawks flap lazily downstream as we pass by. We spend some time fishing for fihote and giant piraíba – huge fishes unique to the Amazon river system.

In the afternoon we take a trip to see one of the largest trees in the upper Amazon – a towering, ancient giant kapok, as big as a California redwood sitting in remote, flooded forest. In the evening we will have a presentation on the indigenous people of the Amazon from Saro and Alex.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 6 – UNDER THE STARS WITH INDIGENOUS AMAZONIANS (22nd May 2024)

We wake to find ourselves on the Aracá river, a smaller tributary of the Negro. Rare wildlife is everywhere – large flocks of Scarlet Macaws pass overhead. In the trees we will see white-bellied spider monkeys, and if we are lucky the ultra-rare Aracá Uakari monkey – which was discovered only in 2008. Uakaris have bald faces and shaggy fur and they live in troupes of about 15, launching themselves acrobatically from high branches and balancing on pencil-thin tree limbs as they search for fruit. We stop for a swim in the river.

After lunch we learn indigenous body art and decoration, using natural Amazon materials – including black genipapo fruits, scarlet urucum and Amazonian clay-based dyes. You will practice on yourselves and each other and learn how to decorate traditional Amazonian wooden stools, using patterns from the Upper Rio Negro tribal peoples.

In the late afternoon we arrive at the indigenous Yanomami and Baniwá village of Terra Preta where we have a traditional meal with the locals. We then take a night safari in the forest before sit around the fire, under the Milky Way to hear stories of the forest. Baniwá guide José joins us for our journey up the mountain.

Before sleeping, prepare your overnight packs for the next day’s mountain hike. Don’t forget your sunhat, suncream, water bottle, rehydration sachets, repellent and those energy.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 7 – BASE CAMP AT TABLE MOUNTAIN (23rd May 2024)

Today our mountain hike begins. We leave after breakfast in the launch for a four-hour journey up the Jauari and Preto rivers. It’s a spectacular and adventurous ride. The rivers get smaller and smaller until they are barely the width of a tennis court. Tiny Caribbean-white beaches fringe their length. Wildlife teems all around us – monkeys in the trees, macaws overhead, king vultures drying their wings in high trees. At times we have to get out of the launch and drag it over, or under fallen logs. In the late morning we have our first glimpse of the giant wall of Aracá mountain, that rises like a cliff from the forest.

After lunch on the riverbank we begin our hike to base camp. It’s about a three hour walk – starting flat and following the course of a creek. Look for tapir and jaguar footprints in the soft mud. We then cross a small stream and start a rocky hike up the slopes that lead to the mountain. We make camp next to a rushing mountain river, sleeping in hammocks slung between the branches. The whirr of cicadas, trill of tree frogs and eerie calls of nightjars are our soundtrack to sleep. The night is black-velvet dark.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 8 – ONTO THE LOST WORLD (24th May 2024)

Be sure to take a rehydration sachet with breakfast: we’ve a steep, sweaty clamber this morning. We cross a broad stream and then start our climb – up a fissure in the face of the mountain. It’s never more than a scramble, but at times we’ll need to support our ascent by holding onto a rope. As we leave the forest canopy, the path is sprinkled with rare, endemic orchids and flowers. We get the first hints of one of the world’s most magnificent views, finally enjoying it as we reach Aracá’s table-top summit in the early afternoon. Rainforest stretches to a seemingly endless horizon at our feet, with no sign of people for hundreds of miles in every direction. Clouds spill rain in the distance, eagles and vultures float over the endless green below and the air is as clean as it was before humans walked the Earth.

And there’s better still to come. We hike through high meadows filled with plants unique to Aracá – a lost, isolated biological world. We cross swamps of carnivorous plants and descend to a plateau. In the distance is a wispy river, cutting through pristine forest and pausing in pools before plummeting off a cliff to the jungle below. After an hour or so we reach El Dorado – a mountain river as pure and clean as mineral water. We swim and make camp here in the bushland, above the roar of one of the world’s highest waterfalls – which plunges for a sheer near half kilometre through a vast canyon, cut into the immensity of the mountain.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 9 – WATERFALLS AND EAGLE CALLS (25th May 2024)

Today we explore the summit of Aracá, enjoy the fabulous views, swim in the rivers, hike the forest and explore the caves that pock the mountain. We learn about the unique plants that grow on Aracá and take pictures (including from a drone) of the stunning landscapes.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 10 – THE PATH DOWN (26th May 2024)

Today is a long, slow descent back to the launch, and a ride from there to the boat along beautiful creeks and small rivers. In the late afternoon we have a chance of seeing jaguars and ocelots, crested and harpy eagles – the largest on Earth, king vultures and rare spider monkeys in the trees.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 11 – FISHING FOR PIRANHA (27th May 2024)

After a late breakfast the boat leaves, passing down the Aracá river to Terra Preta village where we drop-off our Jose, our Baniwá mountain guide. We spend much of the rest of the morning relaxing on the sun deck and recovering from the hike.

In the afternoon we take an excursion by launch to harvest camu camu berries from the flooded forest. These have the highest Vitamin C content of any fruit. We fish for piranhas, peacock bass and hatchet fish, and then sip camu camu caipirinhas before enjoying our barbecued catch for supper.

This evening we have a presentation – the rainforest pharmacy, medicines, fruits and psychoactive plants from Saro and Alex.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 12 – SNORKELLING THE AQUARIUM RIVER (28th May 2024)

This morning we visit the tiny Curitiqui river and see a giant kapok – the Amazon’s biggest tree. In the wild creeks around the river we stand a good chance of seeing a family of 2 metre-long giant otters. Curious as labradors, they poke their heads above the water sending out barks and chirrups to their pups. If we are lucky, we will see a tayra – a marten nearly a metre long, capuchin monkeys or even a giant green anaconda.

After lunch we snorkel in in a clear-water stream – home to those fish you see in freshwater aquariums – discus, tetra and guppies, all swimming in crystal-clear water. We stop to swim in waterfalls set in beautiful forest groves and picnic on fruit and Brazil nuts.

In the late evening Saro shows us how to weave indigenous-style baskets from palm reeds using traditional Amazonian patterns – another self-made souvenir to take home.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 13 – HUNTING AT THE MADADA CAVES (29th May 2024)

Today we have a full immersion in indigenous life. In the morning we learn how to weave fishtraps and baskets from Amazon reeds. After lunch we take a rainforest hike to the Madada grottoes – rock arches set in wild jungle. Here Saro teaches us forest survival – to trap fish, to hunt with a bow and a zarabatana blowpipe and to find water from forest vines.

In the late afternoon we look for river dolphins and swim alongside them in the Rio Negro. This is followed by our farewell meal.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 14 – BACK TO REALITY (30th May 2024)

In the morning we reach Novo Airão – whose cluster of huts and shops looks like a metropolis after our time in the wild, where there will be a chance to visit indigenous crafts shops. Transfers then bring you back to your Manaus hotel, where there’s the option of a half-day tour to see the meeting of the Amazon and Negro rivers (supplementary charge).

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast
• Lunch
• Dinner

Day 15 – RETURN HOME (31st May 2024)

After an early morning transfer, you return home, leaving from Manaus airport.

• Board Includes:
• Breakfast