Voyage to the Heart of the Amazon

Voyage to the Heart of the Amazon is different from all other cruises offered in the Amazon, it is an “expedition cruise”. Small groups explore far into the forest where you are able to see creatures that are hidden to other visitors.

You explore some of the most untouched rainforest in all of the Amazon. The expedition cruise is the only vessel that explores far into the world’s largest Amazon reserve: The Central Amazon Ecological Corridor. Within this reserve are tens of thousands of square miles of uninhabited wilderness with the creatures that have made the Amazon the object of myth and legend.

The expedition cruise begins in Manaus, Brazil and over seven full days the Motor Yacht Tucano navigates far upstream on the Rio Negro. In the daytime and often at night you seek out the wildlife that still lives in the world’s greatest of wilderness.

The Amazon voyage on the M/Y Tucano is active. Together with naturalist guides you get out into the forest and explore — you are not confined to the vessel. There are daily walks in the forest and you explore by launch the small streams that wind their way through into the uninhabited interior. On excursions into the forest you observe magnificent plants of every imaginable shape and size.

You listen to the exotic calls of birds and mammals and watch them from a forest trail or while scouting the river’s edge. In the evenings you have a brief discussion about the creatures that you observed during the day. Some nights you explore the river’s edge by launch and with spotlights spot caiman, close relatives of crocodiles.

The basic navigation plan is to voyage upstream northwest on the Rio Negro as far as a major river called the Rio Jauerperi, about 200 miles from Manaus, Brazil. Along the way you explore many small tributaries where the forest is wild and undisturbed. The journey takes you to many different rainforest habitats which allows you to see a great diversity of wildlife.

On the last day of the voyage you travel to the “Encontra das Aguas”, the meeting of the waters of the world’s two largest rivers: The Amazon River and the Rio Negro. The light colored water of the Amazon and the dark water of the Negro do not readily mix and the two rivers flow side by side for many miles. You explore the beautiful and fabulously rich environment where these rivers meet and visit the Lago Janauari Ecological Park which lies in a wedge-shaped delta that divides these two storied rivers.

The Rio Negro Region

The Amazon covers an area near in size to the continental United States and it is still almost entirely covered with primitive tropical forest. Within this vast watershed, the Rio Negro drains over 300,000 square miles, fully ten percent of the entire Amazon basin. There are only a few small settlements large enough to be considered towns. It remains a true wilderness. Beyond the tangle of vines and limbs along the river banks are hundreds of thousands of square miles of primitive forest. Voyage to the Heart of the Amazon explores this remarkable region.

Local Villages

An important feature of the program are visits to the homes of deep forest settlers. You can talk with them about what their lives are like living on the edge of this vast trackless forest. A walk through their gardens is always interesting and you marvel at their pioneer skills and self sufficiency. All deep forest settlers gather plants for medicines and you talk with them about which plants they collect and their uses.

On the voyage you explore several kinds of rainforest including the strange and beautiful flooded forest known by Amazon Indians as the Igapó. In the igapó, the dark water seasonally floods into the trees, sometimes for miles. Orchids and bromeliads cling to the limbs of overhanging trees, which are home also to many fishing birds and iguanas.

You will also explore the other two kinds of rainforest of the Amazon: the tall Terre Firme forest and the fantastically rich Varzea forest. You will see amazingly colorful birds, magnificent rainforest trees draped with vines and carpeted with orchids, and occasional monkeys chattering and cavorting in the tree branches.

The Daily Schedule

Since you are exploring, the daily schedule varies, but days have a basic outline of activities. You get up with the sun every morning and either search by launch for birds and wakening howler monkeys or walk in the forest. Mid-morning you return for a full Brazilian breakfast. After some relaxation you go for another excursion. At around noon the vessel gets underway and travels until the late afternoon which is when most animals come out again to feed. During the middle of the day many guests choose to observe the forest and the spectacular vistas from the observation deck, while others take a nap before the afternoon activities.

About two hours before sunset you embark on an excursion to some other place of interest. In the evenings you have an informal talk about what you may expect to see the following day. Some evenings, from the comfort of the launches, you spot wildlife with powerful searchlights. You see and do a great deal in the forest, but there is also plenty of time to relax and have fun during the trip. You can swim in some of the cleanest water in the world. The Rio Negro is almost identical to rainwater.

You also spend some time fishing to see what glides in the depths. Almost everyone can catch a piranha! Every afternoon you have hors-d’oeuvres on the observation deck and are treated to a magnificent sunset. At night guests often go to the top deck to marvel at the constellations of the Southern Hemisphere and the millions of stars visible in the dark sky of the Amazon.