During one of our expeditions this year we camped ashore near an abandoned village. I looked around the area for a bit and there was the grave of famous sailor and explorer Sir Peter Blake Overlooking the mighty Rio Negro who was killed in 2001 in the Amazon by pirates.
When on expedition in the amazon and you are just on your way on one of the many rivers one of the most interesting parts is always; where to sleep.
There is mostly 4 options; we pull up our boat at someone's house and ask if we can stay there for the night (almost everyone says yes), we camp out in the jungle and set up our own camp, we find an abandoned camp or settlement or we stay with someone we know.
There is quite of bit of risk involved in this as sometimes a abandoned place that you have used for quite a few times can suddenly be home to a bunch of drunkards or worse. Pirates is still a growing problem especially in more isolated areas with no presence of authorities and Brazilian Marines.
Making your own camp seems like the most obvious thing to do at times but it also takes the most time and means you cant keep going until nightfall. Plus there would be more risk of snakes, etc. Of course we do this a lot but not if there are alternatives.
In this case our captain knew an abandoned campsite where we could hammock up under a roof overlooking the Rio Negro from a high cliff. Spectacular views for sure and a good vantage point.
I went for a stroll and saw there the grave (cerimonial) for famous explorer and know as the worlds best sailor; Sir Peter Blake who unfortunately was killed by pirates in the Amazon in 2001. For me it was an interesting find and I paid my respects.
Our captain actually met him once and remembered what was in his opinion his very strange boat. Further I found there some stone ruins in the jungle. These were a but off in my mind as I would have expected only wooden buildings here.
The story was that there was quite a big town here once and that on one day they were completely overrun and invaded by ants and the whole population jumped in their boats and left... The jungle had taken it all back. In the morning we had a nice scorpion running around under our hammocks which tried to run in one of our teams backpack when we chased it away.
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