The people who live along the Amazon River have a name for the tidal bore that sweeps violently upstream: the Pororoca. The word translates into “big roar,” because you can hear it as it approaches. When the ocean’s tide is at its highest, water flows into the mouth of the Amazon. Depending on the amount of rainwater flowing out, the flow of the river reverses. As the ocean water pushes upstream against the flow of the river, a tidal bore is formed. It can travel as far as 500 miles up the Amazon and on the rivers that flow into it.
Surfing the Pororoca isn’t the safest thing a surfer can do, since the power of the tide pushes all sorts of things with it, from trees to animals. Serginho Laus, however, wouldn’t change a thing. “You’re in the biggest ecosystem in the world surfing a wave that practically doesn’t have an end,” he says. “It’s indescribable.”
Surfing the Amazon River’s Endless Wave from Great Big Story on Vimeo.
