I lived on the tri-border area. between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, of the Upper Amazon region, between 1975 and 1977.
It is approximately 2000 miles/3000 kilometers from Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, to the border with Colombia. I probably traveled around 8000 miles on the river during my time there, on passenger boats of different sizes, small merchant boats, and in a motorized canoe.
The mother river is the Solimões in Portuguese and the Marañón in Spanish. The Rio Negro and the Solimões flow together at Manaus, there becoming the Amazon River.
I took a larger boat from Belém to Manaus. I was on a large open deck where passengers strung up hammocks. An upper deck had staterooms, though I don't think most persons our age would consider them luxurious. I'll hazard the guess that they have a nicer boat for this part of the river today.
The Amazon River is huge! There were parts of it where the river almost met the horizon on both sides, save for a tiny fringe of green. At other parts, it was broken up into channels between islands.
Travel in my day, from Manaus to the upper border, was on smaller boats designed for passengers with hammocks only. These boats took 8 days to travel from the border to Manaus and 12 days to go from Manaus upriver to the border.
This has probably all changed over the ensuing years, but it would be fun to return to my old stomping grounds and see how it is there now.
- Murray