Squatting next to Rio Preto in Brazil’s Amazon rain forest, a woman
washes dishes and polishes pots. Behind her and to her left are two canoes.
Rio Preto means Black River in Potuguese. There are many black rivers in
the Amazon, including Rio Negro, South America’s second most powerful river after
the Amazon, of which it is a tributary.
Black rivers look like black mirrors. However, when scooped in a hand
their waters have the color of tea. They even taste like tea. Unlike white
rivers, which run over sand and clay, they run over rocks and should be
transparent instead of muddy, like the Amazon. They get their color by soaking
the surrounding vegetation when seasonally flooding the forest.
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