Sunday, July 20

Location: Ariau Towers, Amazonas, Brazil

Today's weather: 33░C, Sunny

Today was my first full day at Aria·. I woke up at 6am to the sounds of screeching monkeys and parrots. Welcome to the Amazon.

I had breakfast at 7am. This consisted mainly of fruit, mineral water, and tea. At 8am I jumped into a small aluminium-hull speedboat so that I could be taken to the nearby ecological reserve owned by a former Hollywood film director, called Zygmunt Sulistrowski. The boat driver fully throttled the boat so that we took off at high speed. He then turned into the small a small channel which links to another river. The channel was flooded forest, so the driver had to zig-zag the boat, twisting and turning to avoid the trees. All of this he did at high speed, so it was very exhilarating. We exited through to another river, and soon arrived at the reserve.

Zygmunt is building a small complex at the entrance to the reserve. It will be a small hotel for ecological tourists, and includes a scientific area to be used by visiting biologists. The centre is dominated by a very old house which used to belong to one of the rubber barons, but it is now just an empty shell that is crumbling apart. Zygmunt has some people working to restore the old house so that it can be used as a research facility for the scientists working in the reserve.

Zygmunt has owned the territory for 22 years, when he left Hollywood to live in this remote Amazon area, and established the area as an ecological reserve. The 11,000 hectares of the reserve is one of the last sizeable areas of virgin rainforest within 100km of Manaus. The trees here look much healthier and diverse here. We explored more flooded forest, watched birds and butterflies, and drifted among the trees listening to the forest sounds. In some places it was very dark because of the thick forest canopy overhead. Zygmunt also took me to a tributary called "Rio de Osos" or "River of Bones" because of the huge anaconda which is reputed to live there. Zygmunt tried to entice it out, but it didn't appear (much to my relief).

I returned to Aria· in the afternoon. I spent a little time writing about my experiences – but when the battery on my computer ran out, I used the excuse to spend the rest of the afternoon lounging in a hammock and reading a book. I also made a new friend, a black spider monkey who wandered over, and stretched itself out on top of me in the hammock. The monkey was fascinated by my watch (monkeys are transfixed by anything that glitters), and kept staring at it. It seemed almost human – it had a small face, long skinny fingers, a tiny thumb, and even little fingerprints. Spider monkeys have very long arms and legs, and a long tail which they use like a fifth arm when they are moving among branches in the trees.

After dinner, I returned to my writing, then chatted with some of the staff at the lodge. I went to bed about 11:30pm.