This year has been a memorable one for great Amazonian
discoveries. In posts published throughout the last 12 months, I
waxed enthusiastic about fantastical phenomena ranging from
glow-in-the-dark mushrooms  and exploding zombie ants  to never
before contacted Indian tribes . However, 2011 was also
memorable for the discovery of the Hamza River. If you thought
the Amazon was big, you haven’t seen the Hamza. Chances are,
however, that you won’t. This is because despite the fact that
the Hamza River is roughly as long as the world’s second longest
river – not to mention much wider – the Hamza is a subterranean
river. Not unlike a (very deep) shadow, the Hamza follows the
same East-West route taken by the Amazon as it flows 6,000 km
(3,700 miles) from the Andes all the way down to the Atlantic
Ocean. Only it does so at a depth of 4 km (2.5 miles) beneath
its more visible alter rio. Matters of profundity aside, there
are other differences between the two rivers. First of all, the
width of the Hamza, between 200 a