The Amazon

In researching my soon-to-be home of Tarapoto, Peru, I’ve gained a whole new respect for the Amazon River and the jungle of life it supports and influences. It is, after all, the mightiest river on the planet. In length, it competes with only the Nile for sheer distance of flow. At 4,225 miles, it is 165 miles longer than the Nile. It eclipses our own Mississippi by 329 miles. But length, as many of us have learned, is less important than width. By that measure, the Amazon has no equal. In many places the river’s width puts land out of sight and is measured in miles, not feet – up to 52 to be exact – and holds within its flow an island the size of Switzerland. Compare that to the Nile’s puny 7,000 feet across or 4,550 for the mighty Mississippi.

But, the Amazon’s most telling features are drainage area and flow. This one river discharges 4.2 million cu ft of water per second and constitutes 20% of the fresh water flowing to the world’s oceans. For perspective, that is over 6 times the flow of the Mississippi and 34 times the Nile. 47 Olympic size pools every second. In drainage area, the Amazon dwarfs every other river system on the planet at 2.7 million square miles – more than 1/3 of all of South America and ¾ the area of the US.

No wonder then, that scientists and competent world leaders are concerned with the health of the eco-systems of the Amazon. What happens there has an enormous impact on climate for the rest of the world. At this point, deforestation for cattle ranches, oil and gas extraction and deadly mining pollution seem to be the biggest threats. As a resident of this vast rain forest, I will be doing what I can to raise awareness of the importance of this precious part of the planet.

And OH what history, legends and stories this river has to tell. They will be the subject of my next post.