Due to the different water compositions, there is a very definitive meeting of the waters for about 50 miles until they finally mix. We passed this on our boat, the Barao do Mar and stopped for a bit of treacherous swimming that taxed all of our abilities. Also, the botus or pink freshwater dolphins made their appearance for the first time, and we were able to feed them with fish from the water. Speaking of fish, there are some thousands of different amazing species, each with unique strategies of survival. Including the ghostfish, who can survive as a head for days, the electric eel of course, the tamate (a scaled catfish), tucunare, and many more. 
It was very difficult to look out and see any two trees of the same type. Also, at this level of the canopy, a very pleasant wind was immediately noticable. This is owed to the trees respiring and reating a microclimate. Why not show this one too while I´m at it??
Charming, eh? The usual procedure is to get a plastic bag to use as a glove and do a quick grab´n´toss, but we decided to just let this guy be. *Taken from the window outside our room*
So the most, influential thing I have to talk about is the rural homestay with the Riberinho people, or the people of the river. Their roots are in mestizo origins, or mixed colonial and indigenous bloodlines. When the Portuguese arrived in the 1500s here, they spilt out along the Amazon river basin, and eventually those became the Riberinhos. They are largely extractavist hunter/gatherers. They live of the production of manioc (used for an absolute preponderance of different cakes, soups, flours, etc.) and their fishing and hunting practices. I showed up with a bottle of water and my bag of food that served as payment for the family. My host was a 44 year old woman named Ivanilde, who cared for her grandchildren and made clothes. The community was called Terra Novo and consisted of 22 families, who all lived in proximity to each other.
The houses were wooden boxes on stilts some with wooden, some with pallia (palm leaf) roofs. There was a church, school, nurses office, and most importantly a soccer field in the community as well. Life there has a unique cadence, daily activites include the tending of the slash-and-burn fields, fishing, many baths in the river, and school for the younger children. I spent my days there working in the fields (the most I have ever sweat in my life), or fishing. One night I got the opportunity to hunt with my cousin José. We went out around 8, as it was already very dark, I believe the main objective for him was following the tracks of a tapir (a giant porcine). Although we didn´t manage to find that, he shot 4 pacá, which I cleaned with his wife and mother the next morning. They are a ROUS, or a rodent of unusual size, with a reddish-brown, or white coat, and a couple of yellowed buck teeth. 
Also, absolutely delicious. I also developed a fondness for raw turtle eggs mixed with the coarse manioc flour. They thicken in consistency and have a saltiness similar to bacon.
Passed my birthday here as well. Went fishing most of the day, and caught bunches of piranhas. We didn´t use poles but rather just threw the line into the water and spooled it in by hand. This added a new element to the fishing, especially when the piranhas snap and slap in the bottom of our tiny boat. Also saw a Jacare or caiman on this fishing trip. The head was probably two feet long and it just sidled along our boat. Of course my friends in the boat weren´t absolutely terrified, but I almost lost it.
But I dont mean to misrepresent my experience there as strange living and fantastic creatures. These are real people with real struggles. Terra Novo was what is call an Extractive Reserve, or basically a National Park where traditional populations can hunt and fish and export some goods. They still don´t have a say in what they can and can´t produce. Economically they are controlled on every side, wether it is by corporations dislocating them, or conservation efforts telling them how to survive economically. Some of them go to the city when they are 20 or so to live, get a job, maybe find a wife or husband. But still, they are tied to the same pattern of life.
Also the slash-and-burn system of agriculture can be limiting. In this system, they burn down primary forest to plant manioc or other plants. This releases 80% of the nutrients from the biomass, which is a huge spike and the plants grow wildly. After the first season, howere those nutrients are gone forever, and the fields must be left for a 10 year fallow until the original nutrient levels are replentished. This means they must find a new field to plant during that fallow, and they usually have to burn more forest. Traditionally, they were more nomadic, and moved around every 10 years, but since the population boom into the Amazonia region, land has become valorized, and that is no longer an option, so they end up deforesting and degrading.
This is part of the study for the Independent Study Project I will conduct at the end of my time here. I am researching Productive Conservation, or methods of production that can help communties like this develop economically while at the same time preserving natural resources. This will consist of researching a bunch new technologies developing here, like permaculture, agro-foresty, and alternatives to slash-and-burn, that help agriculturalists or extractivists use their resources in a more productive way. Can´t wait to dive into that!
So tomorrow is the start of another excursion, this time to the south of Pará state, to stay with the people of the MST, movimento dos sem terras, (landless peoples movment). Hopefully by the time I get back from that 10 day trip, you´ll be done reading and I can fill you in with South of the equator news once more.
Until then...
walk straight, stay true
-F
