Enter Amazon World

By Tom Sterling

Storm clouds began to build up in the pale sky at about half-past three in the afternoon, like blocks of blue-grey ice. On either side of the river, the walls of green vegetation grew somber and forbidding. There were three of us in a small open boat – myself, a guide and a boy –setting out on a week’s exploration of the Amazon region’s vast maze of rivers and forests. Hoping to reach the cabin of a solitary rubber collector before the storm broke, the guide made time by taking short cuts. The low jungle banks were flooded to a depth of twelve or fifteen feet, and as long as the light lasted he explained, we could avoid a number of bends in the river by cutting between the trees. We did this twice, with batteries of thunder shaking the leaves down from the trees all around us, before the lowering sky reduced visibility to ten yards, and we had to return to open water.

The rain seemed seconds away. I was eager for it to come, if only because a storm is so much closer to its finish once it has started. We throttled back to half speed, feeling our way. The cold slate sky cracked with lightning, the bolts coming straight down on every side without their characteristic jagged shape. As the first few drops scattered around us like huge silver coins, the hut appeared through the gloom. We landed, safely tucked our gear away inside, and stood under the hatch and watched as the storm broke. The sky went purple. The jungle whitened the lightning, as if lit by the flicker of an ancient arc lamp. With a roar of thunder, the heavens opened and a sheet of water fell between us and the Amazon world. We could barely see in front of us, only hear the savage pounding of the rain and smell the curious satisfying stench of sodden leaves, logs and earth.

I had seen great storms before, but never one in which so many elements of nature rushed together in a primitive fusion of forces. The sky, the whipping forest, the river became parts of a single, untamable entity. The sight of it brought home the unchallenged supremacy of nature in this forest, and powerfully confirmed the impression I had formed during my first researches: that the Amazon – by which I mean both the river and its forest covered basin – should be approached with as few preconceptions as another planet.

Source: Time-Life The Amazon