Amazon Rainforest Tours and Travel | Reading about the Amazon
Inevitably we arrive at our vacation destination, whether Versailles or Angkor Wat, woefully unprepared to appreciate the significance of where we are. On Amazon tours, the questions are all about the flora and fauna. You find yourself face to face with a white-lipped peccary knowing absolutely nothing about the creature and are equally mystified by the peculiar-looking hoatzin. The subject of Amazonian flora and fauna is indeed vast. Beyond the indispensable field guides to the rainforest, here are some suggestions for learning about this fascinating region before your Amazon eco-travel begins.
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For a historical perspective, there is The Naturalist on the River Amazons by English naturalist Henry W. Bates. This is his 1863 account of exploring the upper Amazon accompanied by Alfred Wallace, during which they collected some 8,000 plant species. The lush surroundings of the Amazon make the study of flora and fauna an artistic pursuit as seen in Margaret Mee's Amazon, Diaries of an Artist Explorer. This collection of illustrated diaries, paintings and sketchbooks by the English botanical artist resulted from her thirty-two years of Amazon tours.
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Originally published in 1921, the twelve essays of Edge of the Jungle by researcher/explorer, William Beebe, make interesting reading about the region's ecology and wildlife. The Fever Trail: In Search of the Cure for Malaria, by Mark Honingsbaum, is a highly readable account of Amazonian exploration in search of the red bark of the rare cinchona tree from which the malaria palliative, quinine, is derived.
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Dance of the Dolphin by Candace Slater describes the Amazonian folklore that has turned species such as the river dolphin into characters with magical powers and the changing cultural landscape as progress encroaches on paradise.
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To learn more about Amazonian life, past and present, you may be interested in Land of Ghosts, The Braided Lives of People and the Forest in Far Western Amazonia by tropical ecologist, David G. Campbell. This well-written travel narrative describes the natural beauty at the border of Brazil and Peru Amazon. For some background about the political turmoil that has long plagued the Amazon, read The Burning Season: The Murder of Chico Mendes and the Fight for the Amazon Rain Forest by American journalist Andrew Revkin. It is a riveting story of a rubber industry union organizer who was killed in the Brazil Amazon town of Xapuri in 1988. Two other books cover the same subject: Alex Shoumatoff's The World is Burning: Murder in the Rainforest and Adrien Cowell's The Decade of Destruction.
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Young readers wishing to learn about the region's ecology may enjoy One Day in the Tropical Rain Forest by Jean Craighead George, and for middle readers, there are Rain Forest Revealed, published by DL Publishing, and Up a Rainforest Tree by Carole Telford and Rod Theodorou.
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For more books about the Amazon, go to www.longitudebooks.com.
