The Amazon River, a surfer's paradise

A surfer’s dream, of riding an almost never-ending wave, came true for the Brazilian Picuruta Salazar on the Amazon River. It was on a so-called “Pororoca”, a wave which flows upstream and reaches a height of 4 metres, on the world’s longest river, the Amazon, that Picuruta Salazar managed to surf for 37 minutes and more than 12 kilometres.

“Pororoca”- is the Natives way of saying “great destructive noise”. This spectacular natural phenomenon usually occurs in the spring around the days of the full moon on the Brazilian Atlantic coast and tends to flood huge swaths of land in its path. This enormous wave is released when the flood tides of the Atlantic meet the mouth of the river which feeds into the ocean. The “Pororoca” tumbles upstream almost 13 kilometres inland before it dies out.

This phenomena drew some of the world’s best surfers to the banks of the Amazon River for the challenge, amongst them were such stars as; Brazilians Carlos Burle, Eraldo Gueiros and Picuruta Salazar, as well as the Australian Ross Clarke-Jones. The surfers rode upon the “Pororoca”, a wave of up to 4 metres tall, which flows many kilometres through the Amazon rain forest of Brazil.

Ross Clarke-Jones was the most prominent of all the riders, who decided to take part in the one-week “Pororoca-Expedition” event. The 37 year old Australian, is considered one of the best Big Wave-Riders in the world, as are Carlos Burle and Eraldo Gueiros of Brazil.

Surfers have only recently realized the extreme challenge of surfing the “Pororoca”, despite the fact of the large risks involved; ship waste and wreckage, poisonous snakes, to name just a few. This massive wave gives them the chance to surf and stay on their boards for an extremely long time. It was in the setting of the “Pororoca – Surfing the Amazon” event, that “Local Hero” Picuruta Salazar rode the dirty-brown wave an astounding 37 minutes long through the rainforest and in so-doing, set a phenomenal record.

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