Cristalino Jungle Lodge, Matto Grosso, Brazil.  6th December, 2008

The Cristalino Lodge has a large thatched dining hall cum verandah, complete with rustic tables and chairs and – for the indolent – hammocks and old-fashioned deck chairs.  Gradually, in the evening,  as groups of guests with their guides and interpreters straggle back from the forest or the river (or the sun loungers),  beers are ordered and news of the day’s excitements is exchanged and the day’s digital pictures flashed up on camera screens.

But there is never a time here when you should be looking inwards – half an eye should always be kept on the lawns and the shrubs and the forest edge just yards away – even when it’s pitch dark.  Because this outdoor dining hall  is an excellent spot to catch intimate views of the World’s largest living rodent – the capybara – without walking a step or even standing up.

Dining Hall at Christalino Jungle Lodge

So as I sat here earlier this evening, looking at a huge Amazon flat fish being barbecued on an open fire in preparation for an alfresco supper, somebody with sharper eyes than me detected two large and two not so large shapes dimly lit up by the fire.

I flashed on my spotlight revealing two chunky adult capybaras with their offspring.  The family had come to graze the Cristalino lawns for their favourite food – grass.

Capybaras, restricted in their distribution to the New World, like densely vegetated areas adjacent to bodies of water.  They probably reach their greatest population densities in the famous Brazilian Pantanal – some 350 miles South of Cristalino – a region of natural open grassland and gallery forest with numerous lakes, ponds and swamps.  But they’re common here too.

They feed on aquatic vegetation as well as grass and are proficient swimmers, keeping all but nostrils, eyes and ears below the waterline.  With their partially webbed feet, they can swim underwater for long distances.  Adults grow up to 3 to 4 feet long and are a foot and a half at shoulder level.  I frit one in the shrubbery as I arrived at the verandah early yesterday morning – and it was certainly big enough and noisy enough to frit me back.

That encounter wasn’t planned but I had arrived early hoping to see another of Cristalino’s verandah specialities. First out onto the lawns, however, were a couple of agoutis, all energy and nerves, racing around in the early morning light.  Rodents again, relatives of the familiar guinea pig, but larger, longer-legged and slenderer.  These are true forest dwellers, adapted for life in the undergrowth with their special physique - head and front part of body quite slender and low to the ground for pushing through  dense vegetation, bulkier at the rear, but, for the moment, finding life easier on the lawn.

Five minutes later, I was facing the wrong way again.

‘Here they are’ said Bill.  And I turned round to see a bird (or rather two) which were right near the top of my Cristalino wish list.  Just emerging from the interior of the forest, but only yards away, were a stunning pair of Bare-faced Curassows, ground-dwelling birds the size of turkeys – and amongst the most vulnerable of all rainforest dwellers.  Stately, unsuspicious and slow-moving, these birds and other species in the family disappear from the forest under the slightest hunting pressure.  But this pair at Cristalino, Bill told me, had a nest site close to the Lodge and paraded the lawns on many an early sunlit morning, still truly wild but with no reason to fear.

The male is a formally attired bird, black with white trimmings and a curly crest but the female is a truly beautiful bird, lusciously and finely barred black and white on her uppers and tail and beautifully decorated in cinnamons and blacks below, her black curls tipped white.

And these were not the only curassows we saw, a testament to the pristine, undisturbed condition of the Cristalino Private Forest Reserve and its crucial wildlife value..  The day before yesterday on a trail (or rather off a trail) some kilometers from the Lodge, Jorge stopped me and pointed ahead.  Eventually some thirty yards further on, on the other side of a stream, I saw two large black shapes, heads hidden for the moment as they bent down to feed quietly on the forest floor.  Patience!  The shapes moved slowly and unconcernedly, still somehow keeping their heads out of view. Stand still, Rog! Be patient! Their camouflage is terrific considering how big they are, I thought.

And then,  finally one emerged into an opening in the understory.  Nearly 3 feet from bill to tail tip, resplendent in black and chestnut with a broad white tail tip and a spectacular red and yellow bill,  a birdwatcher’s dream!  A Razor-billed curassow! The pair fed quietly together, moving gently away from us before disappearing into the forest again.  We saw four more that day - a pair drinking at the edge of the Rio Cristalino and another pair deep in the forest.

They all belong to one of the most endangered bird families on the planet!

And in the next Cristalino blog, the mastermind behind this wonderful Reserve.

At just about 4 o’clock and two and a half days (give or take a few confusing time differences) after the start of my journey, I finally reached the southern edge of the Amazon rainforest, stretching like a green wall on either side of our straight red road.  A further fifteen minute drive through a green tunnel saw the road suddenly incline sharply down to the edge of the Teres Pires river – far wider here than any English river and still thousands of miles before its waters eventually empty into the Atlantic at the mouth of the Amazon via goodness knows how many other rivers.

The logistics of the Cristalino Jungle Lodge are impeccable.  As I jumped out of the truck and walked down to the waters edge, I heard the hum of a powerful outboard and two minutes later a long narrow Amazon river boat scrunched its nose on the bank and I was shaking hands again, this time with my Portuguese bird guide for the trip, Jorge.

Baggage, me and Bill bundled into the boat and we were off at a diagonal across the Teres Pires to the mouth of the Rio Cristalino and a twenty minute voyage to the Lodge.  Blue sky with towering clouds, the high dark green virgin forest tumbling into the river on either side – some old friends – swallow-wing puffbirds perched obligingly on the highest branches they could find, anhingas stretching their necks and outstretching their wings,  lovely little white-winged and white-banded swallows bursting from the topmost twigs of submerged trees to skim the water yards away, was that a toucan flying across the river?, some rapids to shoot up at speed, round a bend in the river, suddenly a floating pontoon with sun umbrellas and loungers and a sign on the shoreline announcing in big letters that this was Cristalino Jungle Lodge!

Cristalino Jungle Lodge is a commercial eco-tourist operation and on the front of its publicity brochure, underneath a stunning aerial picture of its location (which we’re trying to get hold of for the Blog) it also announces itself as ‘An Amazon Sanctuary’.  It is both!

Interestingly, it describes itself as being in the ‘highlands’ of the southern Amazon Forest (not a word you normally associate with the Amazon but doubtless we shall see).  A further 514 miles to the North West is Manaus, which does actually stand on the banks of the great river itself  right in the heart of the Amazon.  My starting point in Brazil – Sao Paulo – is just a little matter of 1,525 miles away (sorry, got it wrong in yesterday’s Blog) to the South-East, close to Brazil’s Atlantic coast, and last night’s stopover, Cuiaba, 395 miles due South.

Cristalino is in a way a place of curious contrasts. Luxurious VIP bungalows to basic dormitories.  Spectacular food and candlelit dinners, hammocks, a library and comfy armchairs, sunbathing on the floating pontoon, swimming and snorkelling in the river.

The ‘activities’ it offers include walking (trekking) in the forest, guided observation of animals, birds, butterflies and flowers, canoeing and camping expeditions and rock climbing.

But let’s put this little haven of civilised eco-tourism into its environmental context.  If you look at an aerial view of the Lodge, nestled on the left bank of the Rio Cristalino, it is barely visible, enveloped as it is by its pristine forest.

The Lodge buildings stand in three or four tiny sunlit enclosures and are immediately surrounded by a private Amazonian rainforest reserve of 26,000 acres.  In turn, this private reserve is enfolded by the much bigger Cristalino State Park, contiguous itself with other private and state reserves totalling 5.5 million acres of primary (unlogged and untouched) forest with exceptional biodiversity and, as we have already touched on with the ‘highland’ Amazon, a range of different Amazonian habitats. I hope to find out more about these Reserves and their status during my stay at Cristalino.

So, from Bill an introduction to the Lodge and its facilities and my spectacular ultra-modern accommodation with the rainforest 20 yards from my front door.  Half an hour on the floating pontoon as the Amazon daylight fades quickly away and the nighthawks flit overhead, introductions to other guests, dinner, a bash at the Blog and bed.

And so back to the inky, sleepless blackness of the early hours of December 1st.

Birdwatchers always get up early. Morning is emphatically the best time of day to see birds. Jorge had arranged breakfast for 4.30 a.m. 4.15 saw me emerge into total (can’t see a hand in front of your face) darkness, festooned with binoculars, telescope, backpack and million candlepower spotlight.  My bungalow was the most distant from the restaurant/library compound.  No problem the night before – generator still roaring away and knee high lights to lead me along the gravel paths to my front door.

But this morning was a different matter. Set out confidently and five minutes later was totally lost with the forest sticking in my face.  Hadn’t taken enough notice of the landmarks.  It took me another quarter of an hour – and then frankly with some lucky guessing – to get me to two spoonfuls of raw porridge oats with milk and sugar and a cup of coffee.  There was a splendid variety of goodies on offer – but too early for me!

Jorge arrives. Bill already there. Handshakes. “Como esta?  Bien! Vamos!” And we’re off along a narrow path into the dripping darkness of the primary forest.  We are heading for one of Cristalino’s spectacular attractions – its 50.3 metre (154 feet) high Canopy Tower.

This is a free standing galvanised steel structure (vaguely like a square mini Eiffel Tower) with three observation platforms (respectively about 20, 30 and 50 metres above the ground) which allows you to look at the intricate web of wildlife which inhabits the different eco systems, arranged like the layers of a cake, as you climb higher into the forest canopy.

50.3 metres doesn’t sound very high does it?  But, I can tell you,  it’s way above our normal comfort zone and, according to Bill, impossible for a minority of visitors to cope with.  One courageous middle-aged lady, so he told me, got as far as putting her head through the stairwell leading onto the very top platform and then could simply go no further.

We go prettywell straight to the top. Nerve-tingling and breathtaking with backpack and telescope constantly snagging on the open galvanised framework.  But when you walk out onto that top platform you have a 360 degree view of the lush, forest canopy from horizon to horizon.  The crowns of the trees form a dense continuous, infinitely variable patchwork of leaves 20 metres below us and it is only the emergent giants which reach our level and above.  The forest isn’t flat. Range upon range of low, undulating hills stretch into the distance and on this misty morning, low cloud fills the hollows.

I choose to look in the direction which feels like North (now I come to think of it, I’d no idea which way I was looking).

‘How far to the banks of the Amazon from here then, Bill?’  A quick consultation in Portuguese between Bill and Jorge.

‘We think about 600 to 700 kilometers’

‘And what’s in between?’.  Another quick consultation.

‘We don’t think anything but unbroken forest and a few scattered gold mining settlements’.

We all start to look at the treetops and the sub-canopy in earnest.  Bill is used to ‘eco-tourits’ rather than ‘birders’ (that’s how the guests are classified on the planning board back at the Lodge) so he’s more used to searching for mammals rather than birds.  And he finds dark shapes in the trees 200 yards away which, with the benefit of 60 times telescope magnification reveal themselves as a troop of  white-whiskered spider monkey with their striking facial adornments.

They look for all the world like nuns with black cowl and white forehead band – but nuns with a difference because they also sport a magnificent pair of skywards pointing white Edwardian moustaches.

More in my next post…