The Amazon River

Of the few that remain wonderful places in the world, the most representative is the Amazon River basin, which crosses from one extreme to another in the northern part of South America. In this river, which seems to have reached the hand of man, survive many legends inexplicable to science, because it is the longest, and the mighty river that has the largest surface of our planet, 6,800 miles.

The Amazon River is born in the southern Andes of Peru and across Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, French Guyana and Suriname, carrying more water than the Mississippi, the Nile and the Yangtze together. The volume of water taken into the Atlantic Ocean is enormous: an annual average of 230,000 m³ / s and reaches up to 300,000 m³ / s in the rainy season. In fact, Amazon is responsible for one fifth of all fresh water incorporated into the Earth's oceans.

The estuary is over 400 km in length, its width varies between one and 56 km, its depth is greater than 45 meters (91 feet near the mouth), discharge about 40,000 gallons per second into the Atlantic Ocean, has some 24,000 km waterway area and it is estimated that the Amazon rainforest is the oldest rainforest in the world, perhaps as much as 100 million years. Its various features make this river, which from the air is perceived as a huge snake that runs through the rainforest, is considered one of the world's natural wonders.

Wildlife
The Amazon is the wildlife reserve and more varied in the world. For example, in the Peruvian jungle, there are about 4,000 species of butterflies and a cubic meter of soil has 100 times more insects in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks to the large volume of water and its mild climate, rivers are an ideal place where more than 3,000 species of fish, representing 85% of all South American species, and 15% of the world. However, only 40% of these have been studied by scientists and only about 36 of the fish are economically exploited.

This region has several records in the variety of fauna: over 100 species of monkeys (the smallest no bigger than a pencil and the largest is comparable to a chimpanzee), thousands of species of birds (eg macaws and toucans), dozens of exotic animals such as capybaras (the world's largest rodent), caiman, the fearsome jaguar (jaguar), varieties of turtles and giant anacondas or yacumamma (which can reach up to 10 meters long .)