When you go into the Anavilhanas National Park, we pass countless tiny islands and mangroves, where white-sand beaches emerge during the dry season. At this point, the Rio Negro reaches 27 km across and looks almost like an open sea. Nearly 400 islands are scattered along 90 km, forming the world’s largest freshwater archipelago. The flow is immense, and take note: the river is around 300 metres deep!
During the high-water season, however, most islands are submerged, creating a huge flooded forest with fully navigable channels. Here you can see a wealth of birds, such as the toucans and macaws. And see monkeys, from small, playful ones to impressive howler monkeys with their powerful calls.
Here you can see many endangered species, such as the harpy eagle, jaguar, pirarucu, river otters, giant armadillos, arapaima, manatee and black caiman, two types of dolphins and the spider monkey. It is home to a wide variety of endemic species, including the world’s greatest variety of electric fish. But don’t worry, it is safe to swim, so remember your swimsuit!
Author A. Cánovas
“Botos”, or pink river dolphins, are the largest freshwater dolphins. Their main features are a long, narrow snout and a neck they can move because it has no vertebrae. This allows them to enter flooded forests to hunt among the roots, and even to move backwards.
It also has indigenous communities, who live from hunting, fishing and harvesting. Some essential ingredients of Brazilian cuisine come from here, such as palm or walnut; plants such as sucuba with antibiotic properties; the cumaro which is the basis of perfumes or incense; lacquer a resin produced by hundreds of trees and used for the manufacture of furniture and the naja a plant that helps stop bleeding
⇒ More information on our trip to Brazil: Amazon jungle expedition