Seven years ago, we spent the month of August in Italy. We rented a car and drove only the backroads of the south. It was a gloriously beautiful trip filled with all the wonderful things of Italy: food, more food, wine, farms, ruins, quaint little towns. We stopped in at Tolve, the little town GB’s biological great grandparents left in the early 1800’s to come to America. We spent a few days in Matera, a magnificent settlement of cave homes, now partially renovated into shops, hotels and homes. After 3 weeks of wandering, we ended up in an apartment overlooking the Amalfi Coast. We were exhausted and the thought of climbing one more stair didn’t sit well with our lazy-assed, worn-out bones. And because sometimes there is a God who watches over us, we walked into Ristorante Da Ciccio Cielo Mare Terra Amalfi and began an intimate relationship with their amazing food, freshly made with local fish, tomatoes, lemons, burrata, pastas and infused with delicate olive oils, achovies and balsamic vinegars. Over the next week, the staff at the restaurant would pick us up around 1 pm, take us to the restaurant and bring us back to the road above our apartment around 4. We ate, sipped wine, watched yachts, watched the sun cross the sky and then home. It couldn’t have been lovelier nor more relaxing. I imagined the rest of our life looking just like that month in Italy: a trip here, an excursion there; exploring backroads, relaxing, visiting farms, talking to dogs, small towns, big cities. Whatever. We had the time and we had the money. And, so a trip to Brazil the following year seemed totally in line with our rosy future.
The trip began with the now obligatory visit to a Michilin star restaurant. This one, D.O.M. was, as any great eatery, an extravagant presentation of art and food. Yes, we ate the ants. No, we wouldn’t recommend them again. The poison numbs the mouth and then the antidote, a rich chocolate ganash, brings the mouth back to lfe..
We were in Brazil for a wedding. My college dorm-mate, Linda and her husband, David had moved to Brazil many years earlier. Their son, Chris was getting married. We had purpose and good guides. After the wedding, Linda and David rented a small bus and the guests went to Rio. We then split off into two groups. Ours went to a secluded, lodge on the River Juma around 60 miles south of Manaus.
The Amazon was not what I expected. Was it the air? The sky? The steam or the stars? The air of the Amazon is its own life force. Despite heat and humidity, it let me move through it. In the Amazon, the soil is sterile. It can’t grow anything, yet everything does grow and it’s because of the combination of heat, rain, and steam. I walked through the Amazonian jungle and if I stopped, it was unbearably hot. If I continued walking, the air flowed around and through me. I took a fall. I got up and continued. The air was easy with me and I continued on. I was covered with sticky sweat but there were no thoughts other than putting one foot in front of the other. In the Amazon, there was the world I could see but there was more that I could not. Each tree, leaf, branch, stem, fungus, insect, animal had a unique purpose in the ecosystem. One doesn’t live without the other. If the land is cleared, the sterile soil won’t support growth. It becomes a world of deadness. But the forest is resilient. It regenerates itself because the four elements continue to swirl above, around and through the deadness. In the Amazon, there is nowhere else. There is no other world.
The blackwater and the whitewater meet near Manaus. They never converge. They can’t. One is acidic, the other alkaline. One moves faster and the other is heavier. We were on the Rio Negro, fewer mosquitos, lighter black water. Because it harbors dangerous fish and reptiles, people don’t swim in it. Except in special portions that are known to be safe. I jumped off the lip of our boat and fell deep into the warm waters. Not hot as I expected. But on the cool-side of warm. I popped up and began looking for the boat which had floated away with the current. I waited as the others jumped in and we all began our swim back to the boat, fighting the strong current or floating with it. Glorious, soft water of the River Jumo.
At night, we watched the array of stars of the Southern Constellations. It was as though someone just threw the stars in a jumble. I could recognize the Southern Cross but little else. And, on a night with no moon, we walked through the jungle. We turned off our flashlights and stood quietly. We realized that the stars lit the jungle. The shadows and sounds seemed less frightening. Less alien. Those jumbled stars formed a net that protected us. In the jungle of the Amazon, there is nowhere else.
Yes, the soil is sterile, but it is not unimportant. It holds the plants which soak up the nutrients from the sky. The plants create homes for the animals, the earth provides the pathways. The sun, the heat, the rains and the steam nourish the plants and in turn let the earth release what is leftover. It’s an endless cycle that make no sense to anyone who views the world from the earth upward. I live in a world where the earth comes first. In the Amazon, the sky comes first. Life comes from above, not below.
I miss the peace of the Amazonian jungle. The wet, sticky heat tempered by a small breeze. The swaying of the hammock creating a cocoon for my happily naked body. The sound of the insects, the birds. Watching Anita, a semi-tame howler monkey, as she swings from the trees and makes her way to give me her outstretched, rubbery hand. Waiting for the sun to set so I can watch the stars pop out. Not one by one, but in clusters, sometimes exploding, shooting and falling. I miss that peace.
Air. 
Leave a comment