Having spent a whole day in the bustling, but comfortable surroundings of Manaus, we’re off again, this time to visit an alternate location for the live satellite uplink—a hotel complex dedicated to ecotourism in the heart of the rainforest more than 60 kms outside the city. Yes, we’re going to the field again, but no bone-rattling jeep rides this time. We’re going in style—Amazon style: by boat.

The van from the hotel comes to pick us up at 7—does no one sleep late in the rainforest? The place we’re going to, the Ariau (a-ree-ah-oo) Amazon Towers Hotel, can only be reached by water (or by special helicopter, as we’ll later discover), and so they have two regularly scheduled boats a day, which leave from the dock of a resort hotel on the outskirts of Manaus, close to the airport. We’re not sure what to expect when we get to the Ariau, so we have to pack for everything, making our bags a weird combination of still-muddy hiking boots and fancy shirts. And of course we bring the video equipment: camera bags, tripods, lighting kit... we’re all getting very attached to these things. Hauling around these same bags is becoming second nature.

Getting on the boat to the hotel exposes us to our first real, live eco-tourists. There are Brazilians, some Europeans, a few Americans, and us.