The Meeting of the Waters is the point where the Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes meet. The rivers collide just to the west of Manaus, an easy bus ride away. Christi and I had planned an early start, but yet again the weather refuses to cooperate. Rain lashes the hostel, so we catch up with some reading, hoping the weather will improve. Checkout is midday and although the skies remain black as night, it’s now or never. We dodge the raindrops and hop aboard a bus heading for Porto da Ceasa, 12 km to the east of Manaus and the closest port to the Meeting of the Waters. We quickly negotiate a R$35 fare for a speedboat ride to the actual spot where the rivers merge. And despite the horrid conditions, it is impressive to see the black slick of the Rio Negro (which could easily be mistaken for oil pollution) and the coffee-colored waters of the Rio Solimoes coming together to form the mighty Amazon River. The Negro and Solimoes actually flow side by side for several kilometers without mixing due to differences in speed, density, and temperatures of the two rivers. The source of the Amazon River is in the Peruvian highlands and some 6,200 tortuous kilometers later the river enters the Atlantic at Belem, Brazil. A few fast facts about the Amazon River: there is 12x as much water in the Amazon as the Mississippi; the Amazon carries 20% of the world’s fresh water; and the Amazon discharges as much water into the Atlantic in a 24-hour period as the River Thames dumps into the English Channel in a year. Everything about the Amazon is BIG. And here’s another interesting point. In about 5 months from now Christi and I hope to be standing at the confluence of the Blue Nile and the White Nile in Khartoum, on the edge of the Sahara desert in the Sudan. With a little bit of luck!
Sadly, it’s time to leave Brazil. We probably should have devoted more time to this country, but we would have probably drowned had we done so, judging by the amount of rain we’ve encountered. We leave Manaus at night and in the rain for the long, uncomfortable ride to Boa Vista, the last town of any size before the border with Venezuela. And I for one am hoping that we have better luck with the weather in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela as it is officially known. In truth I know little about this country, other than that they take the Miss World competition very seriously. I’m expecting the views to be simply breathtaking!
Blog post by Roderick Phillips, author of Weary Heart – a gut-wrenching, heart-wrenching, laugh-wrenching ride.
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