The Amazon River is the second longest river in the world, behind the Nile, but it is the largest river in the world in terms of flow. The Amazon has 1,100 tributaries including 17 that are longer than 1000 miles. The Amazon has no bridges over it. The flow of the Amazon is eleven times greater than our Mississippi River. The Amazon river is one-fifth of the world’s fresh water flow and its daily water flow is 86 times greater than the Nile River. Explorers reported being able to replenish their fresh water supplies over a hundred miles off the coast of south America when in line with the flow of the Amazon river.

At Iquitos, Peru, the Amazon River is 2,300 miles from the Atlantic Ocean and it is already two miles wide. It sometimes seemed more like being on a lake than a river. The Amazon only drops about 400 feet over the 2,300 miles to the ocean. The height of the river fluctuates about 45 feet between the wet season and the dry season. In the Amazon, the river is the highway, expressway, residential street, bus route, and the only route. This is leaving Iquitos.

This is a short time after leaving Iquitos behind us. We were probably about the middle of the river when I took this photo.

This is to give a sense of the river. You can see that it's muddy and swirling and has debris floating in it. The Amazon jungle only has about 3-4 inches of topsoil. Below that is very pure clay soil. The clay is very hard and won't absorb much water. So even after days of no rain, the ground is still moist and muddy and the water in the Amazon is the same.

The locals, including young children, all get around by boat in the Amazon.

This section of the Amazon river bank was thick jungle, like many sections. There was no way of knowing what, if anything, was behind the wall of vegetation.