As the moon rose over the Rio Negro, I stood god-like upon the water in the middle of the river. God-like! I may have nearly died a very human death to get there on the back of a motorcycle taxi, but still. Jesus faced tribulations, too.
On the outskirts of Manaus, near the wealthy Ponta Negra beach, down a series of potholed roads and sandy lanes, is the remote beach Praia Dourada, which I first visited on a recent Saturday afternoon with my newfound buddies Talia and Cesar, who had invited me to join them to try Stand-Up Paddleboarding. The sport goes by the acronym SUP. The place where we rented boards was appropriately named Amazônia Tribal SUP.
Amazônia Tribal SUP is operated from a floating dock about 100 meters offshore. It’s run by Pablo, a muscular Brazilian with a massive Poseidon tattoo across his back. Pablo has an adventure TV show and seems to be something of a local sporting celebrity, which lends the experience a sense of coolness.
Once you arrive at Praia Dourada, you wave or yell out to Pablo, and he or his buddy motors a boat to shore, picks you up, and carries you out to the dock. You find a paddle and a paddleboard, and then you’re on your own. The river is yours. Fall into the piranha-infested water at your own risk!
I’m terrible at surfing, but this is much simpler. The paddleboard is wide and stable, and the only waves came from passing ferry boats. The tea-colored water is lukewarm but refreshing, the air is fresh without the city’s smoggy humidity. Afterward you sit on the dock with a cold cerveja. The pink sunset fades into blackness, lightning clouds from far away. On the horizon you see what looks like a bright star, which starts growing larger and larger, and then it turns into a passenger-jet flying low over the rainforest canopy into Manaus International Airport. Giant Amazon bats come out to feed, swooping around your head and over the water.
Once a month when the moon is full, Pablo stays open late and leads a moonlit night-paddle. I went alone, and this is when I may have narrowly skirted danger with the motorcycle taxi.
While Cesar had driven there the first time, now I had to take an hour-long bus ride through rush-hour traffic, followed by an hour-long motorcycle taxi ride. The motorcyclist first took me to the wrong marina, then to another wrong marina, then nearly wiped out several times in the potholed and sand-covered roads leading to Praia Dourada. And apparently, I had a safe trip.
“You came here alone on a motorcycle taxi?!” I was asked at Pablo’s floating dock, after a peaceful 90-minute paddle on the river to the sounds croaking frogs and clicking insects.
“Yes,” I said, biting into a juicy piece of meat-on-a-stick fresh off a grill.
“That’s very dangerous. Even locals think the motorcycle taxi drivers are not safe at night on back roads. There have been robberies, rapes.”
Afterward, one of the other paddleboarders gave me a safe ride back into Manaus. In the below photo, I’m the shirtless guy at the far right.
