Juma Reserve / Iguana Tours

After a short flight from Santarem to Manaus we arrived in the morning of the 4th May to be picked up from the airport. We had arranged a jungle tour with Iguana Turismo which included airport pickup to our hotel, transport to a jungle lodge, and all activities and food thrown in. A driver was waiting with a sign with Francesca’s name on it (always a nice feeling), and he took us to our hotel, the Hotel Dez de Julho (10th July). When we arrived we were surprised to see that it is the HQ of numerous tour agencies in Manaus. Ricardo and Wilson from Iguana Turismo were waiting there too, and they filled us in on everything we would expect from our time in the jungle, and even helped get us checked in to the hotel.

Before we had left Santarem we had already put feelers out to various companies in and around Manaus. Although competition is fierce, and we had to wade through multiple reviews, websites and emails, we decided upon Iguana Turismo because of their good reputation and the itinerary of activities they offer. All of the tour agencies offer various tours, either upriver, or to a multitude of different ecotourist lodges within the Amazon jungle. One of the lodges that Iguana Turismo works with is Juma Park Inn; located 120km South of Manaus at the entrance to the Juma Park reserve.
The next day, the 5th May, we stored our bag with Iguana Turismo and we set of for 4 days in the jungle (packages vary in length, and therefore number of activities you do). We decided that our budget could stretch to 3 nights in the jungle, but you can arrange to stay for one night or many more.
A van picked our group up from the hotel and took us to the port of Manaus, a half hour away. We did not have to wait long before a motor boat came and picked everyone up, specifically chartered for our tour. Along the way we had a transfer guide who was explaining what was happening (everyone on the tour was non-Brazilian, because Brazilians holiday at the beach, not in the jungle – so all of the guides spoke English). Once in the boat, we navigated away from the port and fifteen minutes later we saw Manaus’ famous Meeting Of The Waters. This was similar to Santarem’s that I wrote about in our last post, but it was a much richer experience seeing it up close, and then from on top of it!

The Amazon river is called ‘the Amazon’ in Peru and Columbia, but when it enters Brazil it is actually called the Solimões. Only after meeting the Rio Negro in Manaus is the river called the Amazon again. The Negro river comes to Manaus from Venezuela, and is the largest black water river in the world. These rivers are highly acidic as they pick up nutrients from decaying vegetation. The Negro has a different speed and temperature than the Solimões causing the phenomenon where the two differently colored waters do not mix for 6km and sit side by side. Our boat ran several times from one side to the other of the waters, and I had my hand in the water and could really feel the temperature drop from the Negro river to the colder Solimões.

It was another half hour or so to cross the wide expanse of the Amazon. Once we arrived on the other side a VW camper van was waiting to pick us up and drive us to the access rivers to get to Juma reserve. It took about an hour and a half down increasingly bad roads. Along the way we even got to stop off at a building which had some fairly large giant lily pads.

After many bridges and dirt roads, we came to the end of our driving leg, and transferred to a final boat journey. The rivers and scenery were stunning and the tour had not even started yet! We travelled in one boat, and everyone’s bags all came in another boat. Another hour and we arrived at the lodge.

This site was once the location of an Indian family’s houseboat, but was acquired by Gerry Hardy in the early 1990’s to provide ecotours. The central tenet is to have small tour group sizes; no more than 8. This means it is easier for he guides to address individuals needs and also it is better for maintaining silence so animals are not frightened away.
We arrived just before lunch (12pm) and were given the low-down by the guide on-duty who was called Alan. A Brazilian born in Boa Vista (a remote town further North also in Amazonas state), Alan speaks perfect English and was a really approachable guy with a subtle sense of humor. He told us that the weather report was not great later in the week, so asked us as a group if we all wanted to go into the jungle after lunch and spend the night there before the bad weather came making it more difficult. Of course, we all jumped at the chance!
We were given a nice little room in one of the dorms – every bed has a mosquito net and a working fan nearby. Outside of the dorms is a 3 hammock space where we relaxed and watched a large family of parakeet’s zooming from tree to tree gorging themselves on nuts and seeds. A new three shower building was built around 2006, and after that, half a dozen private rooms were also added. The lodge is self-sustainable in the most part (livestock are kept, but well away from living quarters). The kitchen/eating communal area (where the first houseboat was) also has a deck with stairs to the river, used for washing by the owners, and swimming by the visitors. I swam in the river as much as I could – the water temperature was lovely.
Lunch was a getting-to-know-you affair, with humble but tasty food: fruit, rice, beans, pasta, beef and chicken, with a free mineral water cooler. We had 8 people in our group for the first night, some of whom had been there for a few days, some who had arrived with us.
After lunch we had a few hours to relax and get our stuff together for our night in the jungle. I recommend one day sack that you can carry, with the following:
Water container (1L), camera, binoculars, sunscreen, DEET bug repellant, toothbrush / toothpaste, rain poncho, and wear clothes that at least cover your feet and legs, if not arms too.
At 3pm we set off in the wooden motorized canoe and headed off in search of different animals and birds. We had already seen dozens of parakeets and red-headed turkey vultures at the lodge, and there was more in store. Our guide expertly identified numerous birds and mammals for us along the way, including capuchin monkeys, egrets, caciques, kiskadees, jacanas, kingfishers and snail kites. This was all along the river ways leading to and inside the Juma nature reserve, and also inside the flooded forest where we turned off the motor and all helped to row (my favorite part – the silence of the jungle is so tranquil).

We also saw many wasps, ants and termite nests. One of them got into our boat when our guide cut some deadwood from a tree for firewood and there were hundreds of ants in the boat all of a sudden! These things do bite quite painfully so they were unceremoniously dumped into the water. Poor little guys – haha!

Our real prize came when we were heading towards the campsite and we saw a three-toed sloth high up in the canopy. You can whistle really high-pitched with a downward leading-tone, like a harpy-eagle, and the sloth looks all round it, for the potential predator. This makes it easier to spot. The harpy-eagle is one of the sloth’s natural predators.

Just as we were being amazed by the first sloth, our guide then spotted another one – a little easier to see this time, as it as a little closer. We had not bought any binoculars with us so we had a hard job seeing all these animals so far up in the trees – you can purchase some at the Amazonas Mall in Manaus.
We sat out to watch the sunset, which was stunning, and then we bought the boat into the flooded forest where the camp was located. A fire, table and seats were already made from natural materials. A big shelter was also there, with places to hang 9 hammocks. Our guide broke us up into groups: some preparing food, some making the fire, some hanging the hammocks. It was great fun and took no effort at all. We did see a huge Brazilian Wandering Spider which had taken up residence in the palm tree rooftop of the shelter – these spiders are the most venomous in the world. One bite and you will not have long to live. Luckily, no-one was bitten by this vicious little brute, even though they are quite aggressive.

That night we all had chicken cooked by our Alan on his jungle grill – wooden sticks criss-crossed over the fire. We had rice and manioc powder with it, and it was delicious! Such good food in the middle of nowhere! We threw the leftovers out into the water which surrounds the shelter. This was for the caiman that were lurking everywhere. Black caiman are particularly aggressive but again, everyone lived to tell the tale!

One last boat ride out to see the stars from the water. We could see stars I had never seen before because we were now in the Southern hemisphere – including Centauri and the Southern Cross! The Milky Way was the brightest and clearest I have ever seen, and Francesca and I (sitting at the front of the boat) saw a shooting star together (from the Eta Aquariids meteor shower)!

We went back and everyone went to their hammocks – we had been left with the hammocks underneath the spider – what an adventure! That night I slept peacefully, except one moment when a girl screamed when she went to the ‘bathroom’ (a little trail at the side of the camp) and almost tripped over a caiman which jumped into the water. I decided not to leave my hammock until morning…
In the morning we all piled into the boat at sunrise and we headed off to a local jungle trail for a morning jungle trek for a few hours. We were still really lucky with the weather so the whole experience was immensely enjoyable. On this trail Alan showed us where locals had collected Brazil nuts, and we sampled some – tasty!

We also saw various weird bugs, fungi, epiphytes and parasites on the jungle floor and on the trees. The vast number of different trees everywhere is astounding. Numerous ant nests and termite nests populate the forest everywhere you go.

We also saw monkeys, little frogs and lizards – and saw many of the same trees we learnt about in Santarem.

We got back and we ate our breakfast (bread, cereal and fruits), brushed our teeth, checked that the caiman had gone and then broke down the camp. This took less than an hour for everything, and then we were off on our way again in the boat to head to a local family’s house where they do rubber-tapping and manioc production.
The most amazing part for me was walking around their vast area (some few kilometers from the water’s edge to the jungle). The grounds are filled with domestic animals and many different types of fruits and trees. The surrounding jungle is thankfully protected so the community is not allowed to cut any more trees.

After buying a locally made blow pipe (made from all natural, locally sourced materials, including piranha teeth), we then headed off back through the flooded forest to the lodge, and a well-deserved midday lunch followed by some rest in the hammocks.

We were really lucky with the weather so far, and while we were at the lodge having lunch, Alan informed us we were to go out after lunch and do some rowing around Juma reserve through the flooded forest to do some more nature watching. It rained a little during lunch, which cooled us down nicely. Once in the boat however, the rain let up, and the animals, especially the cold-blooded reptiles, headed to the top of the canopy to warm up and dry off. We saw sloths, iguanas and monkeys – saki, spider, howler and capuchin monkeys – all four monkey types in the region!

The mot amazing spots (other than the sloths) we made, were toucans, grey river dolphins and the more elusive pink river dolphins.
After we returned, the weather was still warm, and I swam in the river before dinner. That night, after a lovely dinner of beef stew, vegetables and rice and more, we went out with Alan in the boat to do some caiman hunting. Within minutes he had located a caiman (using a spotlight – their eyes shine red, and they stay on the river surface, transfixed), and we pulled the boat over and Alan grabbed the caiman out of the water! Very Steve Irwin! I reflected on the wisdom of everyone swimming in the river right where the caiman live! Alan has been a guide for 9 years here though, and there has never been any accidents.
We bought the caiman back to the lodge, and Alan gave us an expert run down on the habits, physical attributes and behavior of the various caiman. The one we caught was a spectacled caiman, or common caiman. The most dangerous caiman are the black caiman, which can grow beyond 5 meters in length, and have been known to be man-eaters. A local was out fishing in his boat when a 5 meter black caiman chased him, and he had to climb a tree to escape! The man had to wait for hours before he was sure the caiman had move on.

Alan put the little caiman outside on the deck, and we all watched it sit there for a few seconds checking us all out. The lodge has a couple of dogs who were getting pretty territorial, and when they got a little close, it jumped in and swam away very quickly – pretty amazing!
That night, we slept extremely well, and the next morning, while I slept in, Francesca headed off to the sunrise boat trip. They took the two dogs out on the boat and they saw a snail kite with its first catch of the day in its mouth. That and spotting some howler monkeys after watching a beautiful sunrise equals a pretty successful trip.

That day, after breakfast, we headed out to another local community house to learn more about rubber-tapping. This land was once occupied and then deserted by native Indians back in pre-colonial times – but in the first part of the 20th century, José Francisco Maia bought the land and decided to invest in the community to educate the children of the region. He stumbled upon the idea of producing affordable rubber goods for the community, and developed his own process of rubber vulcanization that enabled these goods to be useful. His descendants now live on this land and are an important family in the region still, and we were treated with a demonstration of how to vulcanize the rubber using a small fire. Francesca even helped make a rubber wallet.

In the afternoon, after lunch, we went out to do piranha fishing. On the way there, we were again lucky enough to see grey and pink river dolphins. Alan gave us all fishing lines and bait, showed us what to do, and everyone pitched their lines overboard to try their luck. There must be a knack to it, as the only ones who caught anything were Alan (9 piranhas), and Francesca (1 catfish – well done Francesca!). That was our lunch for the next day sorted! On this trip we even saw lots of birds – namely screamers, tiger herons and a fork-tailed flycatcher – extremely difficult to see in the wild! I even spotted some saki monkeys high up in a tree about 600 feet away! A preying mantis got on our boat, too, just before we watched the sunset. Another, long, eventful day.

That evening, we found three huge toads waiting for us outside the dorm room. They were amazing, and I have never seen any so big – 7 or 8 inches long. They hung around long enough for us to take some snaps, and then Alan took some newbies out for some more caiman hunting, so we got to listen to some more explanations and handle a larger caiman than before. This caiman was at the upper end of what is safe for a layperson to handle, because it is so strong even at just one and a half years old.

Funnily enough, after Alan took this one outside to put into the river, he sexed it, and found it was a female – and just at the most appropriate time, she gave us a drenching! Gross.
The next day, 8th May, was our 4th and final day at the lodge and in the jungle. Alan advised us that we had a 3-4 hour jungle trek that morning, following a sunrise boat ride. The sunrise was so beautiful at Juma reserve. We came back for breakfast and just had time to eat before going on our jungle walk. One guy decided to go in shorts and flip flops – not a clever idea. We saw three dangerous animals on this trek – one tarantula, one caterpillar and one bushmaster snake.

The tarantula lived in a hole in the ground and jumped out (with some coaxing) as we walked past. The caterpillar was hanging out on a leaf – it was a species that, if touched, can cause third degree burns to the skin. This is because the hair is similar to the hair on a tarantula – toxic! The most dangerous encounter we had though, was when I was walking just behind Alan and stepped over a log. Just as my right foot was coming down, I saw a snake underneath me! I had to overstep it, and it shot off within an inch of my left foot. All I was wearing was socks and sandals – not very protective! If I had stepped on it, it would surely have bitten me. It looked like a pit viper or maybe even a bushmaster snake – an extremely deadly snake which usually envenomates during multiple bites. I was lucky…

Francesca and I were separated from the group on the way back when someone disturbed a wasps nest. Danger! We had to wait until they calmed down a bit before we could get back to join everyone at the boat.
The jungle does have its risks, but it is generally OK if you wear sensible clothes, and do not touch anything. Alan was a great guide too, explaining everything as e went. Getting back to the lodge, we had a well-deserved lunch including the fish we had caught the day before. Piranha did not taste very fishy at all – it tasted very tasty, but they are one of the most bony fishes I’ve had. The catfish tasted a bit more like cod, with the consistency of an eel almost. A bit rubbery. Delicious nevertheless – all cooked expertly by the lodge’s chef.

We were whisked off back to Manaus by Iguana Turismo – a pleasant journey back the same way we came. I was a bit jealous of the people staying on at the lodge – I loved my time at the lodge and in the jungle, and we both plan to go back someday to Juma.