In the morning of the residency’s 8th day, we left the reserve and headed to the port to board the Victoria Amazonas.

Ana was my new roommate. Our tiny cabin was just perfect. I got a kick out of the bathroom, where your shower is in the same space as your toilet. We were on the upper deck, where the community dining room was. It was a beautiful ship. We gathered there for our first lecture, but before then we were introduced to the ship’s crew.

As our boat moved along the river, we had a wonderful view of the water and plant and animal life below. I photographed from the deck as we moved along downstream.

Our first lecture was by Mario Cohn-Haft, someone my friend Geoff Haines Styles had told me about. They worked together way back in 1998 on an Amazon Special. Mario gave an incredibly understandable explanation about the meeting of the waters, something I had read about and was very eager to see.

He explained how the Rio Negro first meets the Solimões River and together they merge into the Amazon River. What’s fascinating about this phenomenon is that one river is higher than the other when they meet. But water always seeks out an even level. However, the greater volume body of water will always determine the level. And the Amazon always has more volume. We approached the meeting place as he was speaking. We could clearly see the Rio Negro as a dark, glossy black, and the Solimões as a light brown.

The reason for the striking difference in colors has to do with chemistry and mineral content. The Negro comes from the northwest and is the older river, coming down from the Andes. By the time it reaches where we are, it’s of a black tea color. All the heavy sediment settles to the bottom of the river, creating a very dark glossy surface. The Solimões is colored a much lighter milky brown due to the particular mix of nutrients coming from its flood plane.

We were heading towards the Atlantic ocean, leaving the black water and entering the enormous brown Amazon. We traveled along beautiful river communities with an idyllic sky and many birds surrounding us. Mario asked the crew to actually collect waters from each body and he showed them to us. Although the waters are called “black and white,” they obviously aren’t when you look closely. But he cautioned us not to drink either.

We docked upriver for a refreshing swim. I appreciated the cool breeze coming off the water.

Afterwards we headed back up under the same bridge that Richard and I had crossed many days before.

We had a wonderful dinner and then more dancing on the boat. On the way to the boat we went to a grocery store, where we bought bottles of cachaça, a wonderful liquor that’s used in the well-known Brazilian cocktail “caipirinha.” That night, we drank a lot of it and it was the best caipirinha I’ve had anywhere in Brazil so far.