what's over 4 000 miles long and spans over six countries no it's not the world's largest conga line it's arguably the most famous Waterway on the planet the Amazon River this watery wonder is believed by many to be the longest river in the world closely followed by the Nile although these two rivers may share a similar size there's one thing they don't have in common bridges in total the Nile has nine Crossings over Cairo alone while shorter Rivers like the Yangtze and Danube both have over 100. how many bridges does the Amazon have a grand total of zero so what's the reason behind this boiling lava water tsunami-like waves or maybe even a super-sized serpent lurking in its depths well get your waders on because we're about to uncover the mystery of why the Amazon River has no Bridges whatsoever foreign the first thing you'll notice about the Amazon River is its sheer size stretching some 4 345 miles long it's fair to say that this river is lengthy so lengthy its course runs even longer than the distance between Alaska and New Orleans being such a big river it's unsurprising that the Amazon releases a lot of water into the Atlantic and I mean a lot the river distributes around 44 000 gallons of fresh water into the ocean every second that means in 24 hours the Amazon spills some 3.8 billion gallons of fresh water into the Atlantic for some perspective that's equivalent to tipping 5759 Olympic swimming pools of water into the ocean every single day together this fresh water flow accounts for nearly 20 percent of all river water that enters the sea okay so the Amazon River may be long and Chuck full of water but that doesn't mean you can't build a bridge across it especially if it's narrow and during the dry season the river isn't impossibly wide averaging a width of two to six miles okay that might sound huge but considering that the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco is 1.7 miles long
building a crossing over the Amazon River seems feasible at least that's until the wet season hits from mid-December to mid-may the heavens open over the Amazon so much so that the water levels can rise to almost 50 feet the same height as a five-story building but if you think that's a jump you haven't seen anything yet during these months the width of the river not only deepens it also swells in some parts it can reach between 24 and 30 miles wide that means during the wet season if you build a bridge over the Amazon River at its widest point it would need to be a colossal 17 times longer than the Golden Gate Bridge you hear that that's the sound of Engineers around the world weeping in despair let the effects of the wet season don't stop at wider Rivers aquatic grass is known as matupas can cluster together on the river's surface when the flood season hits these floating blocks of vegetation become filled with water before sinking to the riverbed and dying but during the dry season the floor formations rise again literally floating on the water surfaced the vegetation patch provides a substrate of partially decomposed organic matter on which plant species can start growing the cycle of submerging and floating of the grass blocks repeats itself over the course of successive wet and dry seasons over time matzo pasta can reach up to around 40 feet tall and grow as large as 10 acres to put that into context the size of your average American football field is just over one acre yeah I think it's fair to say that matsupas are pretty chunky now that may provide a welcome resting place for some Amazon Wildlife but it's far from ideal to have a floating island bobbing along the river if you're trying to construct a bridge and yet it's not just a wet season that can be blamed for the Amazon River infiltrating Engineers nightmares twice a year during the biennial Equinox the Sun and Moon exert a stronger pool on the earth than the rest of the year and it's this pool that brings the tides to their highest peaks in the case of the Amazon these huge waves come crashing in from the Atlantic Ocean where they overpower the current at the mouth of the river reversing its flow in the process this phenomenon known as a tidal bore or a portaroka wreaks Havoc upon the Amazon these weighty waves can advance as far as 500 Miles Upstream clocking soaring speeds of 15 miles per hour that coupled with 13 feet high waves makes for a devastating mix you're right to run my guy this Mega wave will swallow pretty much anything in its wake that's not even to mention the that these waves can bring with them whether it's uprooted trees massive matupas or even Predators like piranhas and caimans let's just say you wouldn't want to get in the way of a poor Roca call me crazy but I'm not sure how I'd feel about crossing a bridge while a tree an island and I came and came early towards me obviously this River's insane with floating matupas and tidal boards make it incredibly tricky to Bridge Over tricky but technically not impossible after all you could build a bridge far enough Upstream to prevent title boar splitting the Crossing into matapas annoying as they may be aren't prominent throughout the rivers course and regarding the width why not just choose one of the narrower sections of the Amazon however there's another fact that really ramps up the difficulty of bridge building over this Watercourse thanks to its dense rainforest the Amazon on has very few roads dissecting through it and without roads which are needed to transport essential construction materials you can have Bridges take makapa on the Northern shore of the Amazon Delta for example it's a city of more than half a million people and yet there's not a single Road connecting it to the rest of Brazil the only way to reach Santorum the next big city to the west of makapak is via plain or Ferry why well for much of its 4 345 mile length the Amazon river meanders through many areas that are sparsely populated meaning that very few major roads are needed and even when roads are built there it doesn't always go to plan in 1973 the br319 was opened this Mega Road runs 540 miles long from Puerto veljo in southern Brazil to manal a city located right in the heart of the Amazon but as you know nothing in this place comes easily thanks to that trusty wet season which regularly dumps more than eight inches of rain per month from December to May across the region at 250 mile middle stretch has since been transformed into a muddy swamp land no matter how big your 4x4 is there's no way you're making it down 250 miles of this however since 2015 a maintenance program has made it marginally passable during the dry season and in July 2022 former Brazilian president jair bolsonaro went a step further vowing his support for the complete reconstruction of this middle stretch of br319 sounds promising but uh then there's the delicate subject of the bill I mean did you see the state of that road estimated cost total a dizzying 265 million dollars but with most construction projects it's far likelier that the end result will far exceed this fat figure now that may seem expensive but we're only getting started remember that's the cost for the road alone we've not even gone to the main course yet the bridge back in 2010 Brazil built a bridge over the Rio negro the Amazon's largest tributary this 2.2 mile chunk of engineering X Islands connects the cities of manaus and ironduba limiting the busy Ferry traffic across the tributary in the process impressive as it sounds the Rio negro Bridge still cost an eye-watering 570 million dollars to build presuming that an Amazonian Bridge would cost a similar amount the total damage for repairing the br319 and bridging over the Amazon is likely to set Brazil back over 835 million dollars yikes with such a perilous price tag there needs to be high demand to justify building such a bridge and as the Amazon tends to meander through sparsely populated areas there just isn't enough of a reason to Splash out on a near billion dollar Bridge instead most people have become accustomed to crossing the river by boat or Ferry well if it ain't broke don't fix it but Rio negro isn't just known for having a fancy Bridge the encontro de saguas otherwise known as the meeting of the waters is the place where the Rio negro and the Amazon River meet but the rivers don't technically meet instead there's a clear divide between the color of the two waters that's so distinct it can even be seen from space I mean that's got to be the work of some Wicked demon lurking deep within the Amazon river right well you'll be glad to know that the meeting of the waters is simply down to the difference in temperature speed and murkiness between the two bodies of water I can only give my soul to so many demons okay so the meeting of waters may not pose any threat to someone Crossing this River but there are a few darker more disturbing theories as to why no single Bridge crosses the Amazon to explain let's turn the clocks back 60 million years to the paleocene epoch at this time a deadly creature lurked in the swamps of Colombia a country that the Amazon river passes through now anyone with a fear of snakes race yourselves for this this prehistoric predator known as the Titanoboa stretched out to around 50 feet long and weighed in at a stocky 2500 pounds for some perspective green anacondas take the prize for chunky a snake today but at their biggest they're only around one-fifth of the weight of the terrifying titanoboa okay before you freak out you'll be glad to know that the Titanoboa is extinct and has been for nearly 58 million years so no need to worry worry about any super snakes slithering through the waters of the Amazon right right well somehow despite their supposed Extinction there have been multiple sightings of giant snakes swimming in the murky Amazonian Waters yeah there's no way you'll see me girls in here that first widely known account of an apparent titanoboa's sighting was by Percy Fawcett a British geographer at Explorer of South America in the early 20th century who wrote about the experience in his diary we stepped ashore and approached The Ripped oil with caution as far as it was possible to measure a length of 45 feet lay out of the water and 17 feet in it making a total length of 62 feet Bud faucet's claim wasn't taken for anything more than a good story I mean it wasn't held by the Explorer claiming to have seen a dog with two noses as well as a giant spider the size of a dinner plate that left its victims blackened from its poison sounds like Fawcett may have licked one too many Amazonian toads Well turns out that the spite of the Explorer was describing may have been the Goliath bird eater what a name it's the world's largest spider capable of growing to around the size of a puppy not quite as cute though and as for the creepy canine no other mention of this unusual double nose dog occurred that was until fellow Explorer John blashford Snell another great name encountered a pupper with a double barrel snoot turns out that a rare breed of dog known as the double-nosed Andean tiger Hound inhabits the shadowy depths of Bolivia another region that the Amazon spreads through so if the double nosed dog and giant spider turned out to be Statics based on animals that actually exist perhaps faucet sighting of the Titanoboa was real after all it may sound crazy but faucet isn't the only one to have spotted a scarily sized serpent in the Amazon yakumama meaning mother of water is the name given to a 200 foot long serpent believed to dwell in the Amazon River according to Legend from indigenous Amazonian tribes this Beast will would suck up any living thing that passed within 100 steps of it yeah getting vacuum up by a bus size snake would be reason enough for me to never even think about crossing a bridge over the Amazon but yakumama's reign of terror doesn't stop at hoovering up humans the Sinead tepeshka is a tributary of the Amazon river found in Peru although it may look idyllic this stretch of water is straight from the pits of Hell well at least it feels like it Sinead temperska is known for its boiling water ranging from 113 to 212 degrees Fahrenheit and local shamans believe that the steamy stream was birthed by yakumama is there anything this snake can do hardcores that sounds the more likely explanation is that the tributary is located above deep-rooted faults allowing the water to travel deep down into the Earth's crust here it gets heated up by rocks in close proximity to the super hot mantle the fiery water is then fed back to the Earth's surface through Hotspur Springs that heat up the spicy River regardless of how Shanae tempishka originally formed one thanks for sure any Bridge built over this place needs to come with extra high safety barriers being boiled alive doesn't sound like the best way to go recent tales of the Titanoboa and yakumama definitely makes you second guess whether building a bridge over such a wicked Waterway is worth it but scary is the story sound they're more likely down to inaccurate measurements or mysterious legendary indigenous tales that aren't necessarily based on anything real however that doesn't mean that the Amazon River is a peaceful Paradise whilst the titanobo and yakumama may not exist plenty of nightmare inducing Critters lurk beneath the water surface take the green anaconda for example these bulky boys may not be as big as a titanoboa but they can still reach over 30 feet long luckily these snakes aren't venomous but that certainly doesn't mean that they're not a danger the scary serpents use their strong Jaws to capture their prey before using their thick muscular bodies to wrap around their kill to suffocate it green anacondas can even detach their jaw to swallow larger prey like Caymans and taper fortunately there's not much evidence of these serpents dining on humans for dinner however not all Critters found within the Amazon River are capable of suffocating you to death but that doesn't make them any less menacing Amazon's full of a variety of freshwater stingray species that may look cute but be warned these guys pack a punch other Stingray attacks on humans aren't too common they've been known to whip their tails at anyone that gets too close when a stingray whips its tail against a victim the spines within the tail pierce the skin the pain that barb Stinger causes is intense but compared to the Venom some freshwater species inject it's nothing initial symptoms include red swelling skin before the body tissue around the affected area begins to die if that wasn't bad enough stings can also lead to vomiting sweating respiratory depression muscle twitching and seizures in a study from 2020 27 percent of people who were stung by stingrays reported further complications in the months after the accident ranging from numbness Tremors and even amputations to affected lamps in Columbia alone more than 2 000 Stingray related injuries are reported every year ouch venomous stingrays giant suffocating anacondas and maybe even a truck-sized serpent or two we get the picture the Amazon River is not to be messed with but the don't end there now many of you may think catfish are pretty harmless the wet variety that is not the ones hiding behind well-endowed avatars who are after your credit card details now meet the pariva the largest catfish in the Amazon foreign fish measures over 10 feet long and weighs around 330 pounds that's almost double the size and weight of a typical adult man what size isn't the only freaky feature of the paraba they're generally considered pretty harmless feasting primarily on a diet of other fish that being said their stomach contents have been found to include parts of monkeys yeah think that sounds rough while there's even been talk that these catfish have an appetite for human flesh back in 1981 the sobril Santos II a ferry which operated on the Amazon campsized and sank in the river around 500 people were on board yet only 178 survived so what happened to the hundreds of other passengers well it's believed that hordes of paraiba were responsible for pulling struggling victims down under the water when the ship was retrieved from the riverbed a shocking Discovery was made bodies were found but they had huge chunks of Flesh missing man probably don't mess around all of a sudden crossing the Amazon sounds like a death wish today fairies and boats are at hand if we need to cross the Amazon River not that that's always saved humans but back in the day there wouldn't have been such luxuries to help people travel along the river after all indigenous groups have lived throughout the Amazon for at least 11 200 years long before advanced technology created motorized water transport researchers have long assumed that the land surrounding the Amazon River didn't become densely populated until after the arrival of Spanish colonizers in the late 15th century the belief was that before the arrival of these foreign explorers the Amazon was home to small nomadic tribes who left the rainforest in pristine condition however recent technological developments have discovered evidence that blows this assumption out of the water lidar in particular has been incredibly useful utilizing a remote sensor it uses laser beams to pass between the leaves and branches of the trees bouncing back to provide a 3D image of the ground below the thick canopy it revealed that ancient amazonians built and lived in densely populated centers these communities featured Monumental Mounds 65 feet high pyramids raised fields for agriculture and almost 600 miles of canals and causeways which were used to connect Forest Islands the researchers also theorized that population densities were much larger than they first thought previously it was believed that about 2 million people lived in the entire Amazon basin however it's now believed that between five hundred thousand and one million people once lived in just seven percent of the area clearly the Amazon was much more advanced than anyone could have imagined and considering that indigenous tribes were capable of building causeways and canals who's to say that there weren't once ancient Bridges crossing the Amazon river that have since been lost to the Amazon jungle after all bridges wouldn't be the first thing to be swallowed up by the great Green Giant that is the Amazon you may know it better from the film but the lost city of Z is believed to have been a real City that existed in the Mato Grasso region of Brazil remember our boy Percy Fawcett when he was announced spotting hell snakes he was obsessed with finding this mysterious civilization during his trips to South America Fawcett became infatuated with stories of a city that laid deep within the Amazon he'd heard Tales from the native tribes people and later read similar accounts by European colonizers who mentioned that they saw ruins of size and Grandeur which must have been there and how populous and opulent it had been in the age when it flourished so in April 1925 he set off with his son jack and Jack's best friend Raleigh Rimmel but Fawcett wasn't able to find the lost city ironically he's never been found either his last known letter was written on the 29th of May 1925 at a location called dead horse camp which stated the group's plan to head into unexplored territory sadly Fawcett and Co were never heard from or seen again no one knows for sure what caused the demise of the group some have speculated that local indigenous people were to blame others believed that they were struck down by fever or perhaps they became lost and succumbed to starvation while it's unlikely that Fawcett ever discovered the lost city of Z his expedition certainly ramped up interest in the Curious civilization recently an anthropologist called Michael heckenberger with the help of the local kurukuro people of Mato Grasso uncovered an ancient civilization called kuhikugu considering it was located 140 miles from the last place Fawcett was known to be alive dead horse camp it's certainly possible that kuikugu was the lost city of Z that Fawcett was looking for it's believed to have been inhabited from the year 500 until as recently as 1615 and an included 20 towns in an area that spread around 7 700 square miles close to 50 000 people may have once lived here for some contacts that was around the same population of London in 1500 but size isn't the only impressive thing about kuikugu according to heckenberger the engineering of this civilization was Advanced enough to build moats along with bridges that crossed large sections of river bingo so the Amazon River in history at least might once have had a bridge but remember nothing with this place comes easy the sight of kuikugu is located in matograsso which is south of the Amazon River the closest water source to this civilization would have instead been the jingu river a southerly tributary of the Amazon oh man and I think we'd almost cracked it but even if the people of kuikugu never built a bridge to cross the Amazon now all hope is not lost thanks to the introduction of lidar Technology as well as the regrettable deforestation of the rainforest researchers are constantly getting a clear picture of the ruins left behind by ancient Amazonian civilizations who knows it may just be a matter of time before an ancient bridge building civilization like the one at kuikugu is found on the banks of the Amazon River there is one teeny tiny problem however if the Amazon was home to such Advanced societies what could have possibly happened to all of the civilizations and the structures that they once built they couldn't have just vanished maybe yakumama swallowed them up luckily that wasn't the case but the true story isn't much more cheerful and 1541 Francisco de orelana sailed the length of the Amazon River becoming the first European to do so that led the way for many more explorers to delve into the mysterious Marvel in the coming years but Europeans weren't the only thing to arrive on the shores of the Amazon with them they brought diseases like smallpox and measles because the untouched tribes of the Amazon and never come into contact with these illnesses they had no immunity to them as a result of exposure to foreign diseases and the notoriously brutal treatment from colonizers Amazonian population was reduced by 90 percent within just 100 Years of the arrival of Europeans but even if the people were virtually wiped out that still doesn't explain why Advanced Technologies like lidar are needed to discover settlements after all ancient civilizations in places like Greece Egypt and Mexico have ruins from thousands of years ago that are still standing today so why doesn't the Amazon have its own Acropolis or stone pyramid well unlike the stone structure of those ruins the Amazon's indigenous people built with wood and Earth their obvious building materials given their abundance in the rainforest unfortunately though wood decays if it's not maintained and as a result potentially countless Bridge ruins from bygone Amazonian civilization seem to have been swallowed up by the jungle man much like the Amazon River that's something I don't think I'll ever get over with all that said what do you think is the biggest reason for why there are no bridges over the Amazon River and would you be brave enough to cross the river if a bridge was built let me know in the comments down below and thanks for watching [Music]
2023-04-20