Flying Over the Amazon – Not for the Faint of Heart

Several years ago, I sailed from the Atlantic into the Amazon River on the Royal Princess cruise ship. It didn’t look like much of a river as the estuary is an expansive 112 miles wide, roughly the distance from London to Paris. Fifty-eight million gallons of water flow out from here every second! To put this into perspective, the daily amount of water would be enough to supply New York City with nine years of electricity. We continued all the way upriver to the Brazilian city of Manaus over 800 miles away. It is hard to believe an ocean-going cruise ship can travel that far up a river. However, this is the world’s longest river covering over 4,000 miles with an additional 1,200 tributaries from the mountains of Peru to the Atlantic Ocean. Previously the Nile was considered the longest river, but a Brazilian expedition discovered the river originates further in the Peruvian Andes mountains. With a difference in length of less than 65 miles the argument about the longest river will probably never end.

The journey on board the Princess ship offers the casual traveler a glimpse of the immense Amazon rain forest from the luxury of a cruise ship. Beyond Manaus the waters are only navigable for small ships.

My most recent visit to this mesmerizing biodiversity of South America was very different as we flew into Lima and continued from there to the Peruvian Amazon center of commerce - Iquitos. With roughly a quarter of a million inhabitants, it is the largest city in the world that cannot be reached by car. Situated over 2,000 miles upstream, it is the gateway to the world’s largest rainforest. The engines of the boat that was our home away from home for a week, gave up after our second day and so we continued our journey being pushed by a tugboat.

It is from here we were offered a day to explore part of the majestic river by air, an opportunity we gladly accepted until we saw the condition of the small aircraft and the questionable take-off and landing conditions from the river. 

Over many years of travel, I have flown in all kinds of aircraft from very small two-seaters and helicopters to the Concorde and the largest double-decker Boeing A380. I have made a low pass over African airports to scare elephants away before landing on a tiny grass strip with a pilot who appeared to be just out of high school! I have landed at the Portuguese Airport of Madeira where the runway is a plateau carved out of the side of the mountain and winds are so unpredictable that one jet flies in from the right and the next one might come from the left. And then there is Paro in the Himalayan country of Bhutan, considered the most dangerous airport in the world. A short runway under 4,000 feet is fully surrounded by mountains reaching over 18,000 feet.

Approaching this experience on the Amazon River I was wondering how we possibly could take off. This tributary displayed proof of the disastrous deforestation taking place in many areas, as tree logs floated all around our plane when we climbed on board. Our pilot could have been in his early sixties or much older, but a white starched shirt with gold captain’s shoulder bars made him look like he knew what he was doing. While he prepared for takeoff, I noticed his means of navigation included an iPhone attached to the yoke with scotch tape. By this time, it was clearly too late to back out of the opportunity to view the mighty Amazon and rainforest from the air. From our boat and by canoe we had seen quite a few of the different species unique to this part of the world - like the famous pink river dolphins frolicking in the water – and we did some piranha fishing after being told that the danger is nothing more than that of shark attacks near the beaches of Marco Island. Apparently, they only bite when they feel threatened, or when there is blood in the water. I swam in the ink-black water of one of the 1,200 tributaries of the river after being dared to by fellow travelers and crew on the boat. It was a truly refreshing experience although I could not imagine the man from the country of Slovenia who set a Guinness World record by swimming the Amazon in 66 days! 

Our pilot did not smile nor spoke, lifting his prized possession from the log scattered waters into the air. There is no air traffic control anywhere anyway and I discovered later he could only converse in Portuguese and did not speak English, the official worldwide language used by commercial aircraft. But the experience turned into a breathtaking scenery of the largest rainforest in the world that is so far removed from our daily human lives. We flew high above the river and very low over the water past sporadic villages carved out of the forest on the banks of the river.

Admittingly, I would not repeat this flight as it was not for the faint of heart, but at the same time, I will always remember this day over the Amazon, a river without bridges, a river that is home to so many mysteries that a name like the “Jesus Christ Lizard” is not even that astounding. It is the only fish that can walk on water!

A multitude of mysterious wildlife in the rainforest.