Amazon River

Armchair travelers, get ready to go to the Amazon River. Google Inc. announced Wednesday that street view images of the Amazon's Rio Negro Reserve is now available through Google's Street View. The challenge is figuring out where to begin your exploration -- you can take a virtual hike in the rainforest, or imagine floating down the wide Rio Negro -- the largest left tributary of the Amazon, and the largest blackwater river in the world. (Spin around 180 degrees and you'll see the wake of the boat in the river)

Armchair travelers, get ready to go to the Amazon River. Google Inc. announced Wednesday that street view images of the Amazon's Rio Negro Reserve is now available through Google's Street View. The challenge is figuring out where to begin your exploration -- you can take a virtual hike in the rainforest, or imagine floating down the wide Rio Negro -- the largest left tributary of the Amazon, and the largest blackwater river in the world. (Spin around 180 degrees and you'll see the wake of the boat in the river)

If you've ever yearned to take an Amazon River tour, your riverboat may have just come in. International Expeditions takes $1,000 off the price of a 10-day river expedition in Peru that offers a close-up look at wildlife, the rain forest and village life along the renowned South American river.  The deal: International Expeditions' discount applies to a single  June sailing that explores the river, the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve...

If you've ever yearned to take an Amazon River tour, your riverboat may have just come in. International Expeditions takes $1,000 off the price of a 10-day river expedition in Peru that offers a close-up look at wildlife, the rain forest and village life along the renowned South American river.  The deal: International Expeditions' discount applies to a single  June sailing that explores the river, the Pacaya-Samiria National Reserve...

* The Amazon is second only to Egypt's Nile in length. Annually, the river discharges an estimated 20% to 25% of all water that runs off the Earth's land surfaces. * Seventeen of the Amazon's 1,000 or so named tributaries are more than 900 miles long, and the system includes about 50,000 miles of navigable waterways. * Annual floods raise Amazon River water levels between 20 and 50 feet and inundate the forest as far as 20 miles on either side of the main river channel.

Determined to get to the boat landing before dark, the driver hurtled our bus down the mountain road. As we rounded a particularly sharp curve, I couldn't see the edge of the pavement, just the treetops 200 feet straight below. Most of the way, the road was just wide enough for approaching small vehicles to edge by the bus.

Authorities shut down an important deep-water Amazon River port owned by Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., saying the U.S. agribusiness firm failed to provide an environmental impact statement required by law. The move by federal police and environmental agents to close Cargill's controversial soy export terminal was a major victory for environmentalists in Santarem, a jungle city about 1,250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

Brazil announced that it will create a landholder registry and send 700 more federal police to the Amazon River basin to monitor and prevent deforestation. The initiative is designed to identify illegal deforestation and ban the sale of livestock and produce grown in illegally deforested areas, with violators subject to fines and loss of credit from government institutions.

The seasonal flooding of the Amazon River lowers the ground level in the region by about three inches because of the weight of the extra water, an international team reported this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The subsidence, which reverses itself when floodwaters recede, is about three times as big as the team expected. The team monitored the rise and fall of ground level with highly accurate GPS stations.

Using sophisticated satellite technology to precisely map their position, a National Geographic Society team led by a high school math teacher has confirmed that the source of the Amazon River is a stream beginning on Nevado Mismi, an 18,363-foot mountain in southern Peru. Mismi was identified as the Amazon's source in 1971, but in recent years, another stream flowing from a separate peak has also been identified as the source.

The San Diego Zoo is taking over a research facility in one of the most remote and biologically diverse places on earth: the Amazon rain forest of Peru. Few places on the globe have had as little contact with the modern world, researchers said. The Cocha Cashu Biological Station is accessible only through a flight into the jungle on a small plane and then a two-day trip by boat up the Amazon River. It's a perfect place to study unruffled nature, including more than 1,000 species of birds, 200 of reptiles and amphibians, 125 of mammals.

As summer looms and you're in a panic about what to do with the kids (an all-too-familiar scenario at my house), allow me to throw out an idea: Instead of sending them off for expensive weeks away, consider taking them, and yourself, to the greatest science camp on Earth -- the Amazon. That's what I did last summer with Indigo, my 10-year-old daughter, and it was a roaring success.

In 42 years of reporting about the Amazon, Lucio Flavio Pinto has been cursed, kicked, beaten, repeatedly threatened with death and sued 33 times. More than half of these legal dust-ups were instigated by his former employer, O Liberal, the region's biggest, most important media company, whose late family patriarch used to be one of Pinto's best friends.

Brazil announced that it will create a landholder registry and send 700 more federal police to the Amazon River basin to monitor and prevent deforestation. The initiative is designed to identify illegal deforestation and ban the sale of livestock and produce grown in illegally deforested areas, with violators subject to fines and loss of credit from government institutions.

After 3,272 miles of exhaustion, sunburn, delirium and other perils, a 52-year-old Slovenian completed a swim down the Amazon River that if confirmed by Guinness World Records will set a world record for distance -- something he's done three times before. After nine weeks, Martin Strel arrived near Belem, the capital of the state of Para in the Brazilian jungle, ending a swim almost as long as the drive from Miami to Seattle.

Authorities shut down an important deep-water Amazon River port owned by Minnesota-based Cargill Inc., saying the U.S. agribusiness firm failed to provide an environmental impact statement required by law. The move by federal police and environmental agents to close Cargill's controversial soy export terminal was a major victory for environmentalists in Santarem, a jungle city about 1,250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

After 3,272 miles of exhaustion, sunburn, delirium and other perils, a 52-year-old Slovenian completed a swim down the Amazon River that if confirmed by Guinness World Records will set a world record for distance -- something he's done three times before. After nine weeks, Martin Strel arrived near Belem, the capital of the state of Para in the Brazilian jungle, ending a swim almost as long as the drive from Miami to Seattle.

A ferry carrying 400 people crashed into a moored oil tanker and overturned on a tributary of the Amazon River before dawn Monday. About 150 people are missing, a spokesman for the state oil company said. Another 250 passengers on board the ferry Chachita were rescued, said Jorge Merino, spokesman for the state oil company Petroperu. He said rescuers could hear people trapped inside the overturned boat hammering at the hull.

"I strongly recommend a riverboat trip along the Amazon River sponsored by Tally Ho Adventures, a trip I took last summer. The crew was friendly and professional. Our guide, a biologist who had grown up on the river and knows its every twist and turn, was a source of detailed and fascinating information. There were opportunities for swimming, kayaking and fishing. All trips start and end in Manaus, Brazil." $1,995 per passenger (double occupancy).

PERU CRUISE the Amazon River on a nature tour with the Santa Ana Zoo. The eight-night adventure, which begins April 27, includes two nights in Lima and six nights aboard the 22-passenger La Turmalina riverboat, exploring the Amazon basin with local guides and zoo director Ron Glazier. The region is one of the most biodiverse in the world. Participants can expect to see monkeys, tropical birds and river dolphins.