Lost... In the Jungle of Doom (13 page)
Read Lost... In the Jungle of Doom Online
Authors: Tracey Turner
A
lthough it wasn’t poisonous, the fruit has upset your stomach, and you vomit several times. You feel better
afterwards, but you know that it’s important to replace the fluid you’ve just lost by vomiting. Should you stay and rest first, or carry on in search of water?
If you decide to carry on, click
here
.
If you decide to rest for a while and then carry on, click
here
.
A
s carefully as you can, you slide the stick into the water and push off. The creature has submerged, but you can still
see its outline under the water’s surface. Your heart’s in your mouth as your raft glides past the large animal, hardly daring to breathe.
In fact, the creature was a gentle manatee (see
here
), so you weren’t in any danger. Soon, you’re back in the river’s swift current. In the distance
ahead of you, the river bends into a large loop, creating an expanse of slow-moving water. In the water, dark shapes dip and glide. You look more closely – they’re otters! One of your
favourite animals! You could stop and swim for a bit with the otters, which would cool you down and give you a wash at the same time.
If you decide to swim with the otters, click
here
.
If you decide to carry on, click
here
.
Y
ou tie up your raft and peer into the vegetation. You can’t see anybody. You call out but there’s no reply.
People must be close by, though. You listen, but can only hear the strange whoops and cries of the rainforest animals.
You spot a narrow, well-worn trail leading along the riverbank. You don’t want to stray too far from your raft, but you decide to take the trail and investigate.
Click
here
.
Y
ou round a bend and to your complete amazement you see that there’s a village on the riverbank! You rub your
eyes, unable to believe what’s in front of them. There are several huts, boats moored by the river, people cooking and talking, children running about, chickens pecking at the ground!
It’s not long before you’re surrounded by helpful people offering food and water and tending to your wounds. You can’t understand a word of what
anyone’s saying, but you don’t care! You’re finally safe! The villagers contact an air ambulance, and it’s not long before you’re reunited with your family and
friends, your Amazon adventure is over at last.
The end.
M
ore than 30 million people live in the Amazon, most of them in cities and towns. The biggest city is Manaus, with a population of 1.7 million.
However, there are also people who live in the rainforest itself.
About a million native Amazonians live in the Amazon Rainforest, in about 400 different tribes, each with its own language and culture. Some tribes have had contact with the
outside world since Europeans first came to the Amazon around 500 years ago. Some still remain uncontacted in the vast rainforest. According to the Brazilian organisation FUNAI, there are 67
uncontacted tribes in the Amazon. They hunt, fish and farm in the same way their ancestors have for thousands of years.
The first settlers in South America enslaved or killed thousands of the people they found living there. The settlers also brought diseases such as smallpox, measles and flu.
The people of South America had no resistance to these new diseases, and many of them died.
Today Amerindian tribes are protected. The Brazilian organisation FUNAI protects the lands where they live, and stops outsiders from going there uninvited. But logging and
mining, some of it illegal, still continues, destroying the rainforest.
Most Amazon tribespeople live in villages, where they grow crops, hunt and fish. A few tribes are nomadic, travelling about the rainforest, hunting and gathering.
These are just two of the hundreds of tribes of the Amazon:
•
The Ticuna tribe
was one of the first Amazonian tribes to meet the settlers from Europe in the sixteenth century. Despite their long
history of contact with the outside world, they still have their own language and culture. They live near the borders of Brazil, Peru and Columbia, in more than 70 different villages along a
1,000 kilometre stretch of the Amazon.
•
The Yanomami
live in northern Brazil and southern Venezuela. They had no contact with the outside world until the twentieth century, and
live almost exactly as they did thousands of years ago. They’re threatened by miners, loggers and cattle ranchers who destroy the rainforest and bring diseases that are common in the
western world, but to which the Yanomami aren’t immune. There are around 20,000 Yanomami people, who live in 250 villages in the rainforest.
A
s well as being the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon is also the world’s oldest. It’s millions of years old, and
could have existed around the same time as the dinosaurs!
The Amazon rainforest stretches across nine countries: Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Suriname, Venezuela and French Guiana.
There are different types of river water in the Amazon, sustaining different types of aquatic life. Blackwater rivers flow through swamps and flooded forests, picking up acidic
soil and sand on the way. This kind of river water is usually very pure. Whitewater rivers are a creamy colour, and contain lots of animal and plant life. Clearwater rivers don’t contain many
nutrients, and so not much animal and plant life either. Where the blackwater Rio Negro (meaning ‘black river’) meets the whitewater of the upper Amazon, the two contrasting coloured
waters flow along together without mixing for about six kilometres.
• 2.5 million different insect species
• At least 40,000 different plant species
• 3,000 different fish species
• 1,300 different bird species
1
• More than 400 different mammal species
• More than 400 different amphibian species
• Nearly 400 different reptile species
And new species are being discovered all the time. For example, in 2009 a new type of tamarin monkey was discovered.
The amazing animals of the Amazon include:
• The world’s biggest eagle, the harpy eagle
• The world’s smallest monkey, the pygmy marmoset
• The world’s biggest freshwater fish, the pirarucu
• The world’s biggest beetle, the titan beetle
2
• The world’s loudest monkey, the howler monkey
The Amazon is named after a race of fierce women warriors from Greek mythology – the Amazons. It was given the name after a Spanish explorer, Francisco de Orellana,
reported seeing women warriors in the rainforest.
There’s a dry season and a rainy season in the Amazon. During the rainy season, from December to May, the difference in water level in some parts of the Amazon can be as
much as an eight-storey building.
A
s well as being an amazing place, and a beautiful one, the Amazon rainforest is essential to everyone and everything on the planet for many
reasons:
• The world’s rainforests are like its lungs, because they recycle carbon dioxide into oxygen. Without them, the planet would die.
• A fifth of the world’s fresh water comes from the Amazon basin.
• The Amazon’s many different plant species have provided us with important medicines, including anti-cancer drugs and only a small proportion have so far
been studied.
Despite its importance, an area the size of England is being destroyed in the Amazon every year. Trees are cut down for the timber, then farms or cattle ranches take their
place.
P
eople really have ended up lost in the Amazon and some have lived to tell the tale. Here are two of their stories.
Juliane Koepcke
was only seventeen when the plane she was travelling in was struck by lightning and crashed in the rainforest in Peru. She woke up still
strapped to her plane seat, the sole survivor of the crash. All she was wearing was a mini dress and just one sandal. Her collar bone was broken, and she was covered in cuts and bruises.
Nonetheless she set off on foot to find help, using her single sandal to test the ground in front of her for snakes. She had no food, apart from a few sweets she found at the site of the plane
crash. She walked through the Amazon rainforest for ten days, following streams and rivers downstream, before she found a deserted hut and a boat. By this time, a wound in her arm was crawling with
maggots, and she used some petrol she found in the hut to wash them out. The next day, some men turned up at the hut and took her by boat to the nearest town. She was taken by plane to a hospital,
and made a complete recovery. She lived in Germany, but later returned to Peru as a scientist, researching the bats of the rainforest.