I was not sure what to expect before visiting the Amazon. My vision was clearly inspired from animal programs on TV, email campaigns for the protection of indigenous tribes that I receive regularly and what I had read in guidebooks but nothing could prepare me to the magic this place.

Shortly after arriving in Manaus, capital of the Amazonas Region, we loaded a bus, then a boat, another small combo and a smaller boat, which threw us very quickly in the vastness of the area. We crossed a river that seemed as big as a sea itself (although in reality it is an inlet of the sea, taking its source over 350kms away), we quickly find ourselves in a landscape where water, greenery and sky are one. The water is not clear but very brown and so still that everything reflects like a mirror. The sky has no limits, clouds float on the water, the bright green grass of the hill fuses with the foliage on the riverside.

During the first part of the journey in the plains of the Amazon, we crossed large apple green hills, bathed in the high waters of the early winter. Almost wild horses and black buffalos half immersed in the muddy water, great white herons are roaming peacefully as well as very many caimans apparently. Then, as the river narrows down, the shoreline becomes wilder, small meadows and forests of bamboos fill the landscape in turn. The villages are scarce and only the stilt mounted houses are visible, others submerged by the water with only their roof left to peep at the surface.

The river is tortuous and her many arms, form tentacles in the thickening forest. After a bent in the river, a small wooden house is the school of the district. The boat bus will take the children, the youngest in the morning, the oldest in the afternoon, from their home to the school and back. Another turn brings us into a small canal, the vegetation is dense and offers us a small corridor of freshness. Further, vegetation has already covered the path on the river. As we are drawing closer, our driver accelerates and slides across the plants. Suddenly, we are in a wide open river nearly a kilometre wide. The water is perfectly smooth, the mirror is perfect; even the colors of the rainbow, which will surprise us soon following a heavy rain, can be counted.

The river links the Yellow river to the Black River. This one, like the thousands of kilometers of waterways in the Amazon, is home to hundreds of species of fish and animals. So we float above piranhas of all sizes, huge fish of all sorts, some more than 3m long, pink and grey dolphins, caimans, etc. That day, the secret world of the wild will remain invisible to our eyes of tourists, and we will relish the sight the graceful dance of three dolphins on the other side of the river .

After a 3 hours trip, we arrived at our lodge, a simple wooden lodge with a large open deck with hammocks overlooking the river. It is very hot and our guide suggests that we have a swim in the river. Swimming in the Amazon? This is the question to which I often answered ‘no’ to kids! But apparently, yes we can swim in it and we will be happy to do so as it is so hot ! We’ll learn later that our natural pool is actually full of piranhas but the water being so deep (up to 50m in places) there are no risks, they only swim in the deep or in bloody shallow water! Our guide John simply advises us not to swim after 18h. This is the time at which the caimans are hunting in swampy area … We are the mosquitoes feast that night, and every morning and evening of the week that follows !

The first night was full of emotions for us … we were due to stay in a lodge slightly away from the main house as it could accommodate the 4 of us. Some ants had decided to keep us company and to dissuade them and on the advice of our hosts, we soon sprayed insecticide in the room. What had we done !!! Soon, the entire floor of the cabin was covered with ants. Large red and black ants were beginning to bite our toes, climb on our legs, clothes and bedding! We had clearly annoyed the locals and the employees were busy cleaning the cabin for many hours that night! We were transferred to a room in the main cabin and Rj , terrified by the invasion, decided to Keep his feet in the air and slept in a hammock on the terrace!

The next day, the day began at 6am, because this is the time at which the dolphins come to hunt. The view was incredible : the river was immaculate and shimmering . The still dark sky cleared quickly and nature woke up slowly. Many birds flew by us, the frogs were croaking, the crickets singing and not far from the shore, the graceful pink dolphins were jumping in and out of the river, hunting. Such was our first glimpse of the Amazonas!

During the few days that followed, we went piranhas fishing (with a fishing rods made ​​of bamboo) and we ate them (friend in spicy sauce, delicious but as Alex said, there is hardly anything to eat!). We explore the Amazonian swamps a paddle boat, looking for animals and saw eagles and their babies, blue macaws, kingfishers, white herons, beautiful little yellow birds; we observe an iguana approximately 1m long on a branch 15m high jump into water at the approach of danger; we saw our guide catch 2 caimans in the space of a second during a night outing, one of 1.2m, the other a 30cms baby capable of ripping your fingers off; we visited the home of an Indian family which consisted of a wooden building on stilts in which a family of three generations shared one living space and one bedroom to sleep. The young teen introduced us to his pets : a very cuddly wildboar, a 2m long boa that he handed over to the children without hesitation, a small monkey who was not happy to be woken up for presentation and porcupine fortunately kept in his cage… the boys were fascinated! We discovered how families produce manioca flour, a key food in the lives of Indians. Our guide showed us that the forest offers families lots of food, but also a large number of medicinal plants, others used to make make-up or dye clothing. In the jungle, he showed us how to create containers to retrieve food and water and he made many small decorative objects from leaves, for children and adults!

One morning we walked for 2h30 in the jungle. Very quickly, the heat was oppressive and the attack of mosquitoes was constant. But we saw armadillos burrows, wild and poisonous wasps hives perfectly manufactured, very dangerous spiders in their massive webs, traces of sloths on tree trunks …

From those few days in the Amazon, we found ourselves at peace and energized . Far from civilization, we lived simple lives, enjoyed wonderful sunsets and sunrises, intimate encounters with wild animals and embraced an often hostile environment. We felt very fortunate to watch the dolphins and some of the animals very closely and explore the forest in search of its treasures.

On the way back to Manaus, we observed the “meeting of the waters”, the point where fresh water from the river meets with the salted water from the sea. The cold sea water meets with the dark warm of the river and the two do not mix. Visually this is very impressive.

We had very little time left to visit Manaus, but before starting a new stage of our journey, we took time to pay a very brief visit to the Teatro Municipal, a beautiful Theatre from 1896 and recently restored, a real little gem. We also saw the City Market, an Art Nouveau style structure built in 1880, at the image of Les Halles in Paris. It also was recently restored and is beautiful not only for its architecture but also for its contents: from the huge exotic fruits and vegetables stalls, the fish market, to the Indian handicrafts (stunning terracotta pots, bamboo straw woven baskets as well as bamboo blowpipes) and the obscure and fascinating stalls selling herbs, dried insects powders and syrups for the needs of natural medicine.

Our experience in the Amazon was very special. The immensity of the wilderness, its beauty, its wildlife, its inhabitants with rich and mysterious cultures, we feel enriched to have discovered this world. Do we haven’t had enough of it: the kids already want to go back and explore the jungle and villages in more depth!

A piece of advise from Rj:

Be prepared for quite a journey; minibus to ferry port, speed ferry to middle of nowhere driven by most relaxed driver I’ve seen so far, still stupidly fast but at least one of us was relaxed, plank walk with luggage onto stupidly small boat with outrageously large engine to finally arrive at lodge looking like you’ve been electrocuted… And all this should only take around three hours.

The Eco lodge: hotel that behaves in an environmentally friendly way, can also be read as: a few planks hastily put together vaguely resembling a shed with a sticker in the bathroom asking you (politely) not to use too much water. I use the term bathroom in the loosest possible way too…

Talking of bathrooms, always take a good book as you will be spending a lot of time in them, not doing anything, just waiting. Actually due to the inordinate amount of breads, rice and eggs you’ll be eating while in Brasil you probably won’t see the inside of a bathroom for the whole of your stay anyway.

In the amazon you are never more than 10 seconds away from an insect. If you would like to rid your room of ants and mozzies never ever spray Raid all over your room then leave as this will serve to upset the red ants that you didn’t know were there too, who will then take over and you will have to leave while they fumigate your room. Should you ever come across and American from Iowa doling out advice on dealing with insects in rooms would you please deliver a swift kick to his groin from me?

Don’t EVER swim in the yellow Amazon river as apparently there’s a very beautiful little blue fish that likes to find any little hole it can, and I mean ANY little hole! It then swims up and starts eating, I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.

When trekking in the Amazon forest, cover yourself from head to toe and don’t ever stop or you become a target for the millions of mozzies just waiting for fresh European meat, and yes they can tell the difference.

Fishing for piranhas, grab a long stick, stick a little bit of string to it with a hook on, drop in water pull and voila instant dinner. Which is all a bit worrying, especially when your guide suggests you could fish off the platform you’ve been swimming off for the past three days! Apparently piranhas like to swim a bit lower than where you swim… Oh well that’s alright then… Just don’t swim after 5pm as then you’re also fair game for the cayman that like to sleep amongst the reeds.

Ants do not like brown short wearing French ladies as Claude found loads in hers and they were all dead, so if you’re French, a lady and partial to brown easy dry north face shorts you’ll be fine. For the rest of us be prepared to find ants running around pretty much everywhere else.

If you have children they will go a little bit feral: making bows and arrows, swimming in piranha infested waters without a care, catching and skinning said piranhas, handling cayman, handling boa constrictors, sleeping outside in hammocks and not washing, nothing new there then. I would suggest reading/watching Bear Grylls so you appear to know what they are talking about and also don’t wretch when they start on about eating worms that squirt poo out of their bottoms when you bite their heads off.

The amazonians have lots of wonderful natural remedies and the one that will cure all woes and ills is completely natural and actually good for you is called Caipirinha. I actually found that with enough of these I was able to completely ignore the mozzies and strange notices emanating from my bowels.