“If I was given the privilege of one last trip before dying, I would go back to the Rio Negro once more. I would travel from Manaus, upstream to São Gabriel da Cachoeira and, if possible, further more, towards Colombia. Fifteen days to see the world reflected into the river dark waters, the outlining of the green margins on the horizon, the parrots at dawn and the bold circumvolutions of the swallows everyday at nightfall.”. (1)
![]()
![]()
These are not my words, but Drauzio Varella’s. Drauzio, as well as UNIP invited me and Jorge to travel the Rio Negro during, not fifteen – as desirable as it might have been- , but for four days. Like him, we saw the world reflected into the mirror of the river dark waters and the forest outlining at the horizon. With him, we heard the parrots racketing in the morning early hours and the crazy flights of the swallows at twilight.
But this was not a bucolic trip, or even merely telluric. The “expedition”, one of many of the last few years, had a scientific purpose: to feed the Parcelas Permanentes project. This is a project conducted by UNIP, and supported by FAPESP. The project has the Rio Negro as scenery for the search of new medicine. On board of a regional boat, the “Escola da Natureza” (School of Nature), – lot like our Navegar boat – a crew of young researchers (the tireless Mateus Paciência and Sérgio Frana), under Drauzio’s coordination, conducted botanical studies and gathered plants belonging to certain families for the extracts preparation. Afterwards, at UNIP laboratories in São Paulo, these extracts will be tested against tumor cells lineage, to identify possible antineoplasmic properties. I wonder if we will find a cancer antidote in the near future.
![]()
![]()
Journalist Augusto Nunes, the editorial director of the Cia Brasileira de Multimídia (CBM – Multimedia Brazilian Company – a new conglomerate that involves the Jornal do Brasil and the JB TV, the Gazeta Mercantil, the Editora Peixes, the Casa Brasil and also the Isto É magazine), Wilson Malavazi, the competent UNIP coordinator in São Paulo, Manaus and Angra dos Reis, the researchers Mateus Paciencia and Sérgio Frana, and the photographer Christiana Carvalho were also on board with us.
The forest keeper, Luiz Coelho, friendly “Seu” Luiz, is a whole other story, a kind of icon for the whole group. He is a retired INPA employee living in Manaus and he has worked with the most important botanists of Brazil and the world who have visited the Amazon forest throughout the decades. He represents an almost extinct generation of practical botanists. In every corner of the woods, “Seu” Luiz seems to be able to identify the precise family of any plant, many genus and even species. The entire crew listens to him with respect and consideration. Unfortunately, “Seu” Luiz can no longer walk through the woods, do to his “legs’ aerodynamics” (sic), the consequence of a recent stroke.
![]()
The delicious food, the breakfasts worthy of a five-star hotel and very refined lunches: the work of Cíntia and Vera, who made our stay on the boat very pleasant from March 7th to the 11th.
We registered eight and half hours of footage and testimonials. We are working on this material, so that it can be quickly inserted in both Navegar Amazônia and Drauzio Varella’s website, among others.
Getting to know the Rio Negro, one of the three biggest rivers in the world, was something of indescribable emotion and beauty. I ask you to enjoy with me the photo gallery Jorge has organized for the “Papo na Rede” column, at Navegar website.
I hope to someday return do the Rio Negro, even though I already know that we can never enter the same river twice, for the river is never the same and neither are we, as Heraclitus would say…
(1) Excerpt from the book “Florestas do Rio Negro”, São Paulo, Companhia das Letras: UNIP, 2001, under Drauzio Varella’s coordination.




