My Journey into Amazon Jungle (5)

Entering the darkness of the unknown.

Tour of the giant lilies lake.

**Waha Weli ًin the darkness of the Amazon Jungle (1992)**

130 species of monkeys, some smaller than a finger.

Snakes with a bull's heads and others that kill in seconds.

Our boat set off from the port of Manaus early in the morning across the Rio Negro River. Fargo, my guide, explained that we would head to the giant lilies in Janawari lake, which is usually called "Victoria Amazonas" after Queen Victoria. The Queen herself gave specimens of these lilies to be planted in the forest on her coronation. Fargo hoped to get there after three or four hours through the waterways inside the forest to see the trees, plants and some of its animals. We will have lunch in the floating wooden lodge at Janawari lake and rest there for a while, then we will take a tour of the giant lilies, which take us about two hours. Then we go back to our lodge to spend the night there.In the morning, after breakfast, we leave our boat there, take a bigger one, and continue our trip with others to tour the Amazon River. I asked him why don't we take a river cruise in our boat, he said our boat is too small and weaker in resisting the current, especially at the confluence of the Amazon and Rio NEGRO Rivers. In contrast, the large boat is a double-decker, heavier, and has a more robust engine.

**The Amazon forest is overflowing with water**

The Amazon jungle is flooded with water that seeps from the rivers of the Amazon and Rio Negro and their branches, in addition to the tropical rains that usually fall daily throughout the year except for a short period that does not exceed two or three weeks. This continuous rain is due to the permanent and intense evaporation process from rivers and trees and the submerged forest floor. But the main factor for tropical rains is that the winds that blow from the Atlantic Ocean bring warm water vapour, whose particles condense, forming moisture-saturated clouds whose drops merge to fall as rain. And in such an atmosphere saturated with moisture, warmth and water vapour, living organisms, including plants, animals and insects, grow rapidly and intensively.

A world of sounds and colours

The forest is the noisiest place in the universe from the sounds of animals, birds and insects, especially at dawn and sunset. The sounds of monkeys, other animals, frogs, birds, and insects are deafening at these times, a relative calm do dominate during the day and at night. But with all this loud noises, you only see a few of the creatures that create it because of the dense trees and bushes that block sunlight. Although we entered the forest more than two hours ago, we only saw a few monkeys jumping between the branches and some birds that flowing over our heads. When I expressed my astonishment to our guide, he replied that we were still at the beginning, and the deeper we go inside the forest, the more we see animals, birds and reptiles, as the forest is full of these creatures. He added that the monkeys we encountered are but a drop in the sea for forest monkeys.

Finger-sized monkeys

Fargo added: Did you know that 130 species of monkeys are classified in the forest to this day, and new ones are still being discovered from time to time? These monkeys are known as “New World monkeys” and are descended from African ones, but they are distinguished from their African counterparts in that their mouth is flat. Their nostrils open towards the sides of the face, they live on leave on trees, plants, fruits and insects. He added that the giant monkey of the Amazon rainforest that lives on trees is the “Orange Baboon”, whose adult weighs more than 80 kilograms. In contrast, the Gorillas usually live in high places on the land, and the adult one weighs more than 200 kilograms, Gorillas build their shelters from tree branches for themselves and their youngs, they are usually fierce in defending their familys. These giant apes and large animals in general, such as elephants, tigers, wild boars and big cats, cannot be seen unless we go deep into the jungle, this is, of course, fraught with danger. The smallest monkeys here is the “straw monkey”, and its scientific name is “Sibuela”. You can carry it on your finger. Its length does not exceed ten centimetres, and its weight is about one hundred grams, but it has a long tail that reaches twenty centimetres.

Trouble in the water

Suddenly, the boat engine fell silent, and its driver exploded with angry words in his language as he stared at the water. Fargo spoke to him, then turned to me and said that the engine propeller is stuck in the roots of trees at the bottom of the water. The origins of some trees extend to far distances, sometimes up to half a kilometre from the original tree, due to the looseness of the soil. The driver took an oar from the boat and began working to free the propellert.

Heat and Humidity

The heat and humidity were intense, confined to the chest, and caused shortness of breath and continuous sweat that flowed from all body parts. Because of its stickiness, the light clothes I was wearing stuck to my body, causing additional inconvenience. The temperatures in the forest do not differ much between day and night and usually range between 25 to 30 degrees Celsius throughout the months of the year.

The man's attempt to release the propeller lasted about half an hour, murmuring the whole time, and I guessed he was cursing us, the Amazon jungle, and his boat, then we started moving.

Make it stand out

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The Lake of giant Lilies

**Lilies looked bright green in the sun**

After a while the waterway widened, we entered Lake Janawari, a vast lake in which giant water lilies can be seen. We parked the boat next to a scaffold and then walked to the enormous and shallow lake where these lilies abound via a small wooden bridge extending from the lodge floating on the lake to the area of lilies. Along this bridge, types of Amazonian wooden artefacts, snails, animal teeth and skins, and types of Indian weapons such as spears, arrows, bows and masks are displayed, which are simple and naive folk artefacts that do not succeed in establishing an intimate relationship between the person who contemplates them and their true origins.

There was a wooden scaffolding at the end of the bridge from which the lilies could be admired and photographed. The description of these giant plants was accurate, as the diameter of their circular leaf sometimes exceeded three meters and can hold 130 Kg weight. They were floating on the face of the water. At the same time, their roots were embedded in the soil. They looked bright green in the sun, in the centre of some of which were large flowers clustered like a ball. As they don’t like sunshine so they bloom at night so I said to myself that these plants were very faithful to their English origin! These plants reproduces through their flowers, which open at sunset and close at sunrise. With the fall of darkness, the temperature inside the flowers rises more than ten degrees warmer than the outside, which encourages the bud to open up and emit a fragrant scent that attracts insects that pollinate lilies by transferring pollen from the male to the female. As a result, the colour of the female flower changes from white to pink

Floating green dishes

These plantsI was fasinated by these plants that looked in beautiful harmony with the face of the water. The look of the water was still, and so were the green plates, for it was Juneand water way receded. I took several pictures, and thinking: Why did Queen Victoria assume that the Amazon forests lacked lilies, so she took the initiative to add them? And who discovered all parts of the jungle to know that the forest is devoid of lilies, while it contains one hundred of thousands species of plants according to the estimation of some scholars, and twice that according to others, as they classified in one hectare of the forest six hundred different species of trees at least.

Jararaca..the killer

The most venomous snake responsible for killing humans in the Amazon is the so-called "Jararaca" snake that spitsa yellow poison when it bites, which is fatal in seconds. However, other dangerous snakes exist, including BushMasters , rattlesnakes and King Cobra. There are usually many stories about these snakes killing and swallowing animals and human beings in a way that makes the person shudder.
**The best sites for venomous snakes in the Amazon are shallow banks of water covered with fallen leaves and jungle floating above the water. Hence it is danger diving or swimming in such places.**

Snake with a bull's head

We returned to the wooden lodge on the lake. I saw one of the boys carrying on his shoulder a giant Amazonian viper body; it was so long that half of it crumpled on the ground, and the boy was holding its hea in his lap, which was the size of a bull's head.. Fargo told me it is a green anacondas snake and still not developed fully. it is from boa family, they are nonvenomous, but they use their strong jaws to capture their prey, then use their muscular bodies to suffocate the victim before swallowing it whole. I had seen a picture of this snake in a book about jungle animals. It was enormous and monstrous in appearance. It cannot be seen much because it can hide among the bushes floating on the water or under the branches piled on the ground, it usually lives on the banks of the rivers.

Dont’t provoke Anaconda

Despite the size of the Anaconda and the brutality of its appearance, it is not dangerous unless attacked. It is considered one of the lazy and slow-moving snakes, but it kills its prey by turning around it and finishing it off by squeezing then swallowing it. The forest's inhabitants hunt it because of its skin, which part of it is used inside the country, the rest is exported abroad where it is required by the famous fashion houses that manufacture it as women hand bags and expensive shoes.

Most of the Amazon snakes belong to the original "Colo Breda" family, from which various species such as "Corals" originated, all of which are very poisonous and dangerous.

Althoughsome of these snakes live on the bank of rivers, they are not considered water snakes despite their ability to swim like many reptiles. Giant tropical lizards, for example, which is more than a meter long, and it is a herbivore, usually seen jumping from trees into the water, diving swimming, then leaving out and climbing giant trees again.