We left Manaus in the late afternoon, so the short transition further down the Amazon was shrouded in darkness. By the morning we were well into the Rio Madiera. This was another long arm of the Amazon cutting south, so that it almost meets up in the end with the rivers that flow out of the Andes just to the south of the Ucayali.
The river was very different from what we had seen coming down the Ucayali in several ways. It lies entirely inside Brazil and Brazil is a highly developed country and Porto Velho is an established river port with a steady traffic of barges and vehicle transporters running to and fro between Porto Velho and Manaus and Belem on the Atlantic Coast, forming a major Brazilian transport route.
Scenes and panoramas from a town we stopped in at.
We stopped in at a very Fanciscan City during the night.
More lightning on the river.
Panorama of a village on the river bank.
There was a serious amount of burning in the forest near the river, leaving huge plumes of smoke from one end of the river to the other.
We stopped in at this town overnight. Then when we got further down the river next day, we ran aground and had to radio to tell the company they were turning back to the town to offload some of their heavy freight. This caused a delay of a day and a half and made the journey seem an interminable repeat of our journey down the Ucayali. At one stage we nearly decided to catch a bus down the road to Porto Velho, but the boat left again at the same time and we had to scramble back from the bus station to get on board.
A unique feature of the Rio Madiera is that it is a major site of gold dredging so there are all manner of slucing operations on the sand banks as you move up river.
A larger gold dredge.
A rich Madiera sunset.
Yet another riverside town.
Mary the mother and lover of all Catholic men..
Saw milling on the river of wood.
More rain forest burning.
The Madiera was also lush with pink river dolphins.
A second glorious sunset.
Another meal on yet another river boat.
Fires on every side of the river.
The biggest gold dredge yet.
Finally almost six weeks from when we set out on the river, we come to Porto Velho.
Porto Velho and the Rio Madiera (Wikimedia commons)
Porto Velho street panorama.
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