Accessibility Links
Posted from: Jacare
The pirarucu is the largest scaled fresh water fish in the world. It is emblematic of the Mamiraua Institute because of the successful management programme they have implemented, which has increased the stocks of this once endangered fish very successfully in the reserve. It has become emblematic of our shoot too because for days we have been trying to catch one.
Posted from: Jacare
Of all the travel shoots I have been on this has been one of the most fun. It could be Matt's calm, patience and gentle direction, or Keith's super agreeable mood and hilarious jokes, or maybe it's Zubin's mischievous streak, or Bruce's capacity to get us all discussing our deepest thoughts on how to reorganise society or Dudu's endless tongue-in-cheek stories about how he always catches the biggest fish or handled cayman with his bare hands (he has all the scars to prove it, but do we believe him?).
Posted from: Jacare
We all loved the second community we visited, but Bruce became attached to one particular member of the community - a small black kitten. This was no ordinary kitten, it was the hardiest and toughest kitten we had ever seen.
Posted from: São Raimundo do Jarauá in the Sustainable Development Reserve, Mamirauá.
Catholic Padre Volnei announced his arrival at Sao Raimundo de Jaraua by loudly hooting his horn on board his little boat. He was greeted by his many followers in the community and by us too - who were eagerly waiting for him as he had promised to bring us more cigarettes from town. There are no shops here and he became our only hope!
Posted from: São Raimundo do Jarauá in the Sustainable Development Reserve, Mamirauá.
We went out this morning to go fishing with Jorge from São Raimundo de Jarauá, not just for any fish but for the largest, scaled, fresh water fish in the world. Its name: the pirarucu. Pira means red in the local indigenous language and rucu mean fish, so the red fish. Its scales are famed to be red and really quite beautiful, but none of us have ever seen one.
Posted from: Sao Raimundo do Jaraua in the Sustainable Development Reserve, Mamiraua
The sky in the Amazon changes with every passing hour and it never ceases to amaze us. Especially sunrise and sunset, these are times when we all rush to the front or the back of our boat and start clicking away with our cameras. The skies turn from pink to orange, the canopy goes from green to golden yellow, reflecting the light of the sun.
Posted from: Jaraua
Mamiraua is beautiful. 90% of the reserve is flooded by the end of the wet season in May - the water rises about 15 metres. Everyone and everything here is ready to adapt to the change. The houses in Jaraua are either built on stilts or floating ready for the floods. Still, the inside walls of the front room of Dona Lourdes' house are stained at about neck height by the mark of high water from a few years ago.
Continue reading "On the trail of the Amazon's biggest fish"
Posted from: Sao Raimundo do Jaraua in the Sustainable Development Reserve, Mamiraua.
We have been here for three days now. This is a small community of about 20 wooden houses on the banks of a river channel called Jarauá. The channel comes off the main river Japurá, and Japurá feeds the Amazon river itself about 36 kilometres downriver from here.
Posted from: Jarauara Community - Rio Japura.
The Priest was right. He's a Catholic and entitled to be I suppose. The Catholic faith is massively on the resurgence here. Maybe they all believe his theories on mosquitoes. Not a part of my body is munch-free.
Posted from: Mamiraua nr Jaraua
Four months ago today was a big day for me, but I don't remember too much about it. I was being evacuated from our filming location in a remote Peruvian valley. A few days later I woke up in an intensive care unit in Lima - my wife Zoe was there and my parents were on their way. Everyone had feared the worst. The doctors discovered that I'd developed a brain abscess.
Posted from: Alvaraes - Rio Japura
Can’t wait to get off this river taxi - and its lesson on one of the dark sides of my favourite place. I wonder what became of those three hopeless horrified men in their chains. Fifteen years in some rank jail ahead. Still musing, I visited the wheelhouse and we promptly crashed into a floating village. The sound of splintering wood and groaning corrugated iron.
Posted from: On the Tabatinga – Tefe passenger boat
Our film started on a river boat on the 8th of March. This is a passenger boat that takes some 200 people up and down the Amazon River between Tabatinga on the Brazil/Colombia border and Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas. It is a four day journey to Manaus, but for us a two day journey as we were jumping off in Tefe, half way through the trip. The boat had three decks, the first and second quickly filled up with hammocks, the third one was for socialising, not sleeping. It had a bar with very loud Brazilian forro playing all the time and a huge sun deck.
Posted from: Tabatinga
I’ve never blogged before. It won’t be easy following some of the most wonderful writing you will have read so far. I prefer to be quiet behind my camera and film stuff – like quiet and shy people do – and leave the writing to those who are gifted at it.
Posted from: Manaus
Am back in Manaus with Laura, Rob and Dudu and it's been quite an adventure. We have left Bruce back in Tabatinga and crossed flights with the other crew in the air so didn't get chance to say 'Hi' and wish them luck.
Posted from: Logging Camp, Atalaia
Today we were to follow the process of how the loggers move the logs. They always select trees next to the river and once stripped of branches they are sawn into four metre lengths. The next step involved brute force and with Bruce right in there among them, the loggers used thick short braches to lever the log an inch at a time and with one huge effort the log was finally rolled over the edge of the bank and crashed down the slope into the water.
Posted from: Logging Camp nr Atalaia
Today we joined the loggers for some tree felling. It was a long walk into the jungle again and then once a tree was selected it was all hands on deck to clear an area for it to land. The loggers are so confident in their abilities that they prepare for exactly where it will land every time.
The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ is not responsible for the content of external internet sites
Bruce Parry, presenter of the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ's Tribe, travelled the length of the Amazon to film a major new series for ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Two, shown in autumn 2008. You can relive his journey online through exclusive blogs, video and much more.
