The Amazon

Father Gaspar de Carvajal was a Catholic priest who visited the coast of South America in the middle years of the sixteenth century and wrote a book about it. It begins in a perfectly believable fashion. They were, he said, following the coast, keeping it on their starboard (right-hand) side. One day it turned from south to west. The water around their ship went from blue to brown and a current began to push against the bow, both signs that seemed to indicate they’d entered an estuary. Five days of steady sailing ensued, still with no sign of an opposing shore. The sailors began to have doubts. If they were on a river, it was huge, larger than any in Europe.
Then, on the morning of the sixth day, their ships were suddenly and viciously attacked. The assailants were a host of natives in canoes, natives who (according to Gaspar ) were all women, set on capturing our men for the purpose of procreation.

Mind you, the crew had been at sea, without women, for many months by then. They might have welcomed some feminine company, had not Gaspar, wise man that he was, claimed to have been in possession of superior knowledge, i.e. that the ladies weren’t after a lifetime of connubial bliss. They were after a date and dinner – with the seamen as the dinner.
Fear of cannibalism strengthened the crew’s resolve. The attack was beaten off. The women disappeared into the jungle, never to be seen again. And not one member of the crew accused Father Gaspar of being a mean-spirited Baron Munchausen of sexual angst for inventing the story. (Okay, I made that last part up.)

Gasper, too, made something up: a name for the place where it all happened, He called it the Great River of the Amazons, later (shortened and Anglicized) to become the Amazon River.
He was, of course, inspired by the legend of a similar tribe of warlike women in the mythology of the Greeks. But who needs tall tales, and myths, when it comes to the Amazon? I sure as hell don’t. For me, the truth is impressive enough.

The Amazon is the oldest river in the world. Ten of its branches are larger than the Mississippi. Its length, from source to mouth, is almost equal to the distance between New York and Berlin. The total volume of the main river, and its tributaries, far exceeds that of the next five largest rivers on earth. The amount of water that it dumps into the sea could fill Lake Ontario in three hours. That amount of water exceeds, daily, the total volume of what flows out of the mouth of the Thames in an entire year. Almost one-fifth of all the river water in the world flows past the Amazon’s banks. As it pours into the ocean, fresh water pushes salt water back a hundred miles into the open sea. A thousand kilometers upriver, the depths in mid-channel continue to exceed 115 meters (350 feet), more than enough to completely submerge the Statue of Liberty. If every person alive in the world today were to dump a four-hundred pound bag of dirt into the ocean, the total would not add-up to the amount of silt the Amazon carries into the South Atlantic each year. When the river rises, the resulting flood inundates an area twice the size of Austria.

There are more species of fish in the Amazon River than there are in the Atlantic Ocean,

bigger fish than can be found in any other river, fifteen times as many species as can be found in all the rivers of Europe. Twice a year, between the months of February and March, the Atlantic Ocean waters roll up the Amazon in a great tidal bore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tidal_bore) that the Brazilians call the Pororoca. It generates the longest waves on earth, sweeping along everything from piranhas to tree trunks. One Brazilian surfer, Picuruta Salazar, managed to ride one of those waves for 37 minutes. It carried him for 12 kilometers.

Most of the river is lined by jungle, a primeval rainforest hardly changed from Father Gaspar’s day. Within it are to be found more varieties of butterflies than anywhere else,

half the world’s bird species, one-third of all the types of living creatures on earth. And almost three hundred varieties of mosquitoes.

One word of advice: Should you add The Amazon to your bucket list, center your visit around Santarem, not Manaus.

Santarem is a rather pleasant place as far as isolated jungle cities go. Manaus…isn’t.

The Man Who Brought Down Manaus

In the years before the First World War, Manaus was one of the richest places in the Americas – North or South. It was the first city in South America to install an electric grid; the first to have a telegraph link with Europe; the women wore French fashions; the children were sent to France to be educated; the per-capita consumption of champagne was higher than anywhere else in South America.

The opera house (above) was built with marble from Carrara and hand-painted tiles from Portugal. It featured chandeliers of Baccarat crystal and huge decorative vases from Sèvres. The rafters rang with the great voices of the age, Sarah Bernhardt and Jenny Lind among many others. All of which is pretty surprising when you consider where Manaus is located. It’s nine hundred miles from the sea, smack in the middle of the Amazon jungle.  Even today, there are no roads that will take you there from Brasilia, or Rio de Janeiro, or São Paulo. You have to fly, or you have to take a boat.

So how come Manaus was so rich?

Rubber.

Back in those days Brazil had a monopoly on all the rubber in the world.

Rubber trees were native to the Amazon rainforest - and existed nowhere else. Naturally, the Brazilians wanted to keep it that way, To that end, they made it illegal to export the seeds or the seedlings of the rubber tree, and made it clear they’d classify anyone who did it as a thief.

Enter this man, Henry Wickham:

Wickam, in defiance of Brazilian law, stole 70,000 seeds and bore them off to the Royal Botanical Garden at Kew. They were planted the day after their arrival. Over two thousand of them germinated.

The descendants of those seedlings were sent to Sri Lanka, to Singapore and to India. With them, the English established their own rubber trade, a trade that ended up being far more successful and lucrative than the Brazilian one.

And that for one reason: every other place in the world the trees could be planted in groves; but not in Brazil. The Amazon rainforest, you see, harbors a blight that exists nowhere else in the world, a blight that attacks rubber trees. If one tree is infected, the blight kills all the other trees in the neighborhood. The Brazilian trees, therefore, are always spaced throughout the jungle. The harvest of their latex is an expensive proposition, too expensive to compete with the plantations, and low labor costs, of the East.

Brazil’s loss.

England’s gain.

Henry Wickham got a knighthood.

Manaus got shafted. These days, it's no more than a backwater.

And is known for little more than the “meeting of the waters”, the place where muddy brown of the Rio Solimões meets the black of the Rio Negro and forms the beginning of the Rio Amazonas, the true Amazon.

And yet...and yet...there's a very good reason to go there: to see the place where most of the action takes place in my latest book, Dying Gasp, just now beginning to appear in bookstores and libraries across the United States.

Leighton - Monday

Santa Beats the Recession

So the American economy has been in a recession since late last year? Now there is a shocker to most people in the country. One thing that we can at least be thankful for this year is that gas prices have dropped by more than half in most areas since their summer peak, just in time for the winter heating season. So your retirement fund has taken a hit, you are thinking more about running up credit card debt, and you really would like to cut back a bit on your holiday spending. What can you do that will still enable you to feel more like Santa Clause than Ebeneezer Scrooge this Christmas? Plenty. The first thing that you can do is what might seem like an easy place to cut back, but in fact you should not, and perhaps you should consider expanding. That would be your Christmas card list. The fact is that Christmas cards have become extremely affordable if you just shop around. You can go lavish and spend $20 or more for a box of 18, but why do that when you can also find nice ones of twice that number for half the price? You can hand them out at work and school, and even to most of your family members and neighbors. But make sure that you mail a bunch out to those who live far away. A Christmas card is your opportunity, perhaps the only such opportunity that you will have during a year, to let people know that they matter to you. Take the time to include some short little personal message in as many of the cards as possible, including your phone number for anyone that you wouldn't mind hearing directly from (don't assume that all of your friends and family already have it.) You can reach dozens of friends and family members with this type of gift with a relatively minuscule financial outlay. It will take time for you to fill out, seal, address, stamp, and mail the cards. That is part of the season. Do it with some Christmas music playing in the background and the time will fly. For actual gifts, cut down that receiver list, and cut back the number of things for each of those receiving. Giving one nice gift to your immediate family members and your best friends does not have to strain your budget. Sit down and talk with your spouse, and come to some deal on spending for one another. Perhaps you can agree to some nice shared experience as a gift for one another, rather than a boat load of gifts. Tickets to a couple of nice events that you can agree on that might be upcoming, or some getaway weekend at a place that you both enjoy. If friends and family ask you for a gift idea, ask for movie or dinner gift certificates. These will make for great "night out" opportunities once the Holidays have passed. If you have kids, have them make a list, and let them know that Santa may not be able to give them everything on it. But then you have a specific idea of exactly where their thoughts are, and can give friends and family members specific ideas when they inevitably ask. Take advantage of sales opportunities. Weekend newspapers have been filled with tremendous deals, including coupons and special sales times. If you have Internet access, make use of 'Google', 'Overstock' and 'Amazon' and other online sources. There is no reason that you need to play Scrooge this year just because the economy is tough. Santa has beaten many a recession in the past, and you can help him do so once again this year. And in the mean time, always remember that there is so much more to the season than gifts, cards, decorations, and food. Give the gift of God's love by going to church and taking your family with you if at all possible. It's the recession-proof gift that will keep on giving.

Time for Christmas Shopping

Okay, the zaniness of 'Black Friday' is still a week away, but now is the time to really start your Christmas shopping. By next weekend, and for each of the final four weekends afterwards before the actual holiday, the rush at your local mall is going to only get worse and worse. Oh yeah, I know, there is some 'financial crisis' or whatever the doomsayers are trying to sell you on today. So there won't be any Christmas shopping this year, right? Probably will be short lines and plenty of stock on the shelves at the stores, right? You can put it off until later this year, right? Wrong! You and I both know that you are going to be out there buying gifts for your kids and grandkids, your siblings, your parents (right girls?) as well as other close family members and friends. So let me give you a hint. Get out there this weekend! Things began to pick up last weekend at the malls and stores. They are going to get worse next weekend and every one after that through December. This is the time to take advantage. Get out there, beat the real mad rush. Grab exactly what you want without fighting too much of a crowd. Oh, it will be crowded. But this rush is nothing compared to what is going to be happening for the following five weekends. An even better idea, begin to get a bunch of your shopping done online. Places like 'Amazon.com' are all ready to help you do the bulk of your shopping right from the comfort of your own home. They ship directly to you at a small fee, in plenty of time for you to get the gifts wrapped for redistribution by you at the holiday. Almost every major store has an online service now to help you shop at home. From Sears to Wal-Mart, from candy to food, from gift certificates to high-end clothes and jewelry, you can buy pretty much anything online these days. Just have your credit card ready. And as for those credit cards, don't be afraid to spend, as long as you are secure in your job. If you have a good, steady job there is no reason to fear spending your good, hard-earned money in bringing some love and joy at the holidays. So get out there this weekend and get going, or just stay home and fire up the computer and get going, or tune the TV to HSN or QVC and get going. But get going, now is the time. Get those Christmas decorations, you will be decorating starting next weekend. And don't forget those Christmas cards too, you are going to be wanting to mail them out in just two more weeks. Get to it people, this is going to be your best weekend remaining to get it done. Just 33 shopping days until Christmas. 'Carpe Diem', Christmas shoppers!