Picture of the Day: 14-21; Manaus, Brazil

Pic-14: Three-toed sloth, near Manaus, Brazil on the Amazon River. © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Rivers are the highways of the Amazon basin. In this photo, a Brazilian guide named Angelo who I’d hired for a boat trip to the “Meeting of the Waters” near Manaus, Brazil, takes a three-toed sloth from two sisters in a dugout canoe. The girls captured the sloth from the rain forest and they paddle around with it all day on the river, waiting for tourists to come by. They paddle up to water taxis like the one I was aboard in 2004 and “lend” it to tourists to hold for picture opportunities in exchange for a few reals (Brazilian money). I think it is either a brown-throated three-toed sloth, or a pale-throated three-toed sloth. (Any one know for sure? Please drop me a line if you do.)

If it is a brown-throated three-toed sloth (Bradypus variegatus) then it would normally spend most of its life in the middle and top sections of the rain forest canopy, moving so slowly that algae will grow on its hair follicles in the wet months. These animals can sleep up to 20 hours per day, and have small home ranges of about five acres. They consume tree leaves, shoots and foliage. For more on its ecology and natural history, this San Francisco State University website has a great assemblage of facts, including natural history. {See comments below… Brian Switek believes this is actually a pale-throated sloth.}

When I shot this image, we were on our way to see the Contras das Aguas. I wrote a travel story for the Orlando Sentinel about my trip to Brazil, where I worked aboard a hospital boat for two weeks — except for the weekend I spent on land, in Manaus, when I took this jaunt to where the rios Negro and Solimões converge. Brazilians consider the Amazon River to exist only east of this meeting of the rivers. You can read the Orlando Sentinel travel story here (it’s below the fold). The narrative  talks about the ribeirorhos people who live along the Rio Solimões and what we did there.

Below are more photos from my weekend in Manaus.

Pic-15: The sisters approach our water taxi, the sloth is in the rear. If you look carefully, you can see a small monkey poking its head out of the hair of the girl in front. Its tail drapes down her chest. Do you know what it is? © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Here is a closer look at the primate:

Pci-16: Girl with squirrel monkey, standing in a dugout canoe next to our water taxi. I had extremely mixed feelings about being complicit in their scheme to ply tourists with animals for a few pennies. I took this trip well before I'd gone back to school and studied ecology and natural resources issues. But this is a great example of how people in this area use the forest to squeak by. © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Pic-17: This part of the "river" is a flooded forest about two day's journey upstream from Manaus on the Rio Negro. I traveled here aboard a hospital boat. The captain told us through a translator that the water depth can vary more than 20 to 30 feet in some places. The vegetation you are seeing in this image are tree tops, visible during the summer wet season. © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Pic-18: Sunrise on the Amazon River. Note the epiphytes growing on the tree's limbs. © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Pic-19: That's me at the fishermen's market in Manaus, holding what I was told was a very desirable fish. (Anyone know what it is?) I told my guide, Angelo, that my family used to fish in the Gulf of Mexico when I was little. Angelo said, "You like fish? I will take you to see our fish." He did. And yes, I used to have very short blonde hair. (Photo by Angelo)

Pic-20: Angelo holding up a large catfish. © 2004 DeLene Beeland

Pic-21: These remind me of the redfish we caught in the Gulf of Mexico when I was young. (Anyone know what these are?) © 2004 DeLene Beeland

These photos have special meaning to me because it was the Orlando Sentinel travel story mentioned above that helped me along the path to realizing my dream of wanting to be a writer. I’d not yet gone to graduate school when I took this trip, and I’d not yet decided to pursue writing as a career — it was just something I liked to do. When I got home to Florida, I took all the photos I’d made from the trip and applied to the University of Florida’s student art gallery for an art show. It was a blind submission process, and I was awarded time for a show of my own. I spent months fundraising the money to get the photos printed and framed, and then I invited everyone I knew and asked them to bring their friends. Dozens of Brazilian students came, which made me happy. The opening night, April 15, 2005, is a very fond memory. I called the show “Amazon Basin Highways” and it documented the medical mission I’d taken part in on the hospital boat.

All of these images were shot with a Nikon F80, on slide film that was then digitized.

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