Go Niche

AS IF THE Amazon weren’t fascinating enough, news that scientists have discovered a second river 4km underneath it is incredible. How can it be? What’s holding up the roof above it? How come no one spotted it emptying out into the sea before?

It’s more amazing still given that the second river – named the Rio Hamza after the head of the research team that discovered it – is estimated to be as long as the Amazon but many times wider.

The Amazon ranges in width between 1km and 100km. The Hamza is reckoned to be up to 400km wide. The more you think about it, the more of a head wrecker it is.

What I do know is that there is one place I’d like to go to figure it all out. The Ariau Amazon Towers Hotel, around 50km northwest of Manaus, is at the confluence of the Rio Negro and the Anavilhanas Archipelago.

With some 380 river islands, this is the largest freshwater archipelago in the world.

The entire edifice is built on stilts, including two observation towers 45 metres up offering a 360-degree panorama of rainforest.

The hotel “grounds” are its 6km of treetop walkways, so you can criss-cross the Amazon without ever getting your feet wet. Though, if you want to, there are even two swimming pools at canopy height.

At night guests climb spiral staircases around giant mahogany trees to get to tree house bedrooms. There’s a good reason for building so high up. Flooding in the area is common, and even managed to reach the lower buildings in 2009. Little wonder, now that we know there isn’t just one gigantic body of water gushing beneath you, but two.

- ariauamazontowers.com