Obrigada!

This one is long…I didn't want to leave anything out!

            On the first day in Manaus, I had a Faculty Directed Practicum (FDP) planned for one of my classes.  I woke up super early and we all loaded onto a boat to go swimming with the dolphins.  Apparently it wasn't just swimming with the dolphins because at the first place it looked nothing like a dolphin sanctuary.  It was a jungle that we were apparently going to walk through.  I had on flip-flops, shorts, and my long-sleeved insect blocker Columbia shirt (life saver and definitely worth the trouble we went through to find it).  It wasn't that bad walking through the jungle until we were walking on army ants.  They are larger than our red ants at home and apparently hurt like crazy when one bites you.  After we stopped at a few trees and they explained what they were and what they can do for you, we finally got out of the jungle.  An hour hike with flip-flops is not the way to go.  Then we took a 30-minute boat ride to the other side of the river to eat lunch in a village.  It was a very small village with a fútbol field as the main attraction.  The food was very good.  After my professor explained how swimming with the dolphins relates to his course, Anthropology of the Ocean, we boarded the boat again and went to the dolphin sanctuary.  It was not anything like the dolphin sanctuaries I have been to before.  It was two floating houses with a little dock and stairs to get into the water.  There were about 10 dogs running around and one of the smallest kittens I've ever seen.

            The pink river dolphins are also different from other kinds of dolphins.  They are pink and grey with large thin mouths and a very small dorsal fin.  Honestly they are a little creepy looking and I wasn't really crazy about being in the water with them.  After I got out of the river, we had to rinse off the slime that gets on us when we go swimming.  There was a fresh water shower and a local that was about 20 years old rinsed off our backs.  We then looked into the cage they had in the water that was filled with these 6-feet long fish.  They snap at the bait with the same force that a deep water fish does.  I'm so glad I didn't know that they were in the water when I was swimming with the dolphin.  We took the boat back to the ship and I got ready for dinner.  We walked to a restaurant that ended up being closed, so we went to a place that had tables set up in the middle of the street.  I was surprised that I actually liked the food and I never got sick from it.  We had one of the servers get us all taxis and take us to a bar.  He took us to a bar with all locals and cheap drinks.  Once we decided we wanted to meet up with everyone else, we went back into the taxis and told them to take us to Crocodilos. They took us to a highway that was lined with about 25 bars.  There was a band outside and everyone was dancing.  We talked to some of the locals and they were really friendly even though we couldn't understand a word they were saying.  After drawing a picture of a crocodile, we finally got the taxi cab to take us to the bar where everyone else from SAS was.

           

            On February 1^st, I ventured into the Amazon.  We started at 8am at the MV Explorer in Manaus.  My alarm did not go off because my phone died so I was a little late leaving and meeting up with the rest of the group of 22 other people.  But it was okay because everyone else had a little too much to drink the night before so we were all a little late.  I packed my 'suitcase' the night before when I came home from the Manaus bar, Crocodilo, at around 3:45am.  Completely forgot my camera—one of the worst mistakes of the trip so far.  I made some people take pictures of me though so I'll just take some pictures from other cameras when I get the chance. We took a trolley to the main cruise ship terminal, then took a bus to the travel agency to pick up our tour guides.  After we all paid and picked up Sammy and his co-guide (he was 18 and planning on going to college for international relations), we went to a boat that took us across the Rio Negro.  We saw the meeting of the waters, the Rio Negro water is black and the other is a light brown.  You can literally see the line between the two. After we got off the boat on the other side of the island, we all loaded into four VW buses and drove to the large lilly pads at some guy's house.  Apparently he can survive right off a main highway from mostly what is on his land. 

            We then got on another bigger riverboat that took us up another river to the lodge.  We waited around for about an hour across from a huge pasture with cows.  I couldn't get over being in the middle of the amazon and hearing the occasional "moo".  We had lunch consisting of beans, rice, chicken, fish with the head still on, cornmeal, pineapples, and watermelon. We loaded into 5 canoes with a 5 horsepower engine on the back of them.  We went deeper into the river and stopped at an intersection of 3 rivers and some people swam with the pink dolphins.  It was really funny watching the people try to get back on the canoes after they jumped in the river. We drove for about another 30 minutes and went piranha fishing with bamboo sticks and chicken pieces as bait.  To say it was nomadic is an understatement. 

            It started to rain so we had to take cover in a house on the middle of the river. The houses are all build on top of huge logs that last about 50 years before the water deteriorates them. They had Brazilian nuts there, which are big circular nuts filled with 1-24 smaller nuts inside.  You have to crack open the big circular nut with a couple blows of a machete, then open up the smaller nuts inside to actually reach the white nut that you can eat.  The middle of the nut, the nipple, has contraception effects. The natives used to give it to the women when they didn't want them to get pregnant. They are a little more moist and harder than macadamia nuts and about 4 times the size.  Definitely something to keep us entertained while the rain passed.  We then drove to our campsite. 

            At this point it was getting dark and I was questioning my sanity.  I know better than to set up camp at night and I know that I really am not crazy about the rain forest's creatures, or camping for that matter.  We all went ashore and I changed into my only pants that I brought, my WHITE linen pants.  That's what I get for packing when I get home from the bars.  We walked about 15 minutes into the jungle and started to set up camp. We didn't actually set up the camp, the 4 other Brazilian helpers did.  They started to put the tarp on top of these long trees they cut down, then they hung up 22 hammocks under it.  And that was our camp for the night. 

            We brought 7 bottles of 151—a kind of rum sold in Brazil that they make capirhinas with, not the 151 we have in the US.  We all sat by the fire and drank, then went down to the canoes again to go 'caiman' hunting.  Since it was around 23:00, the stars were absolutely amazing.  It was so cool to be in a different continent and able to see the same stars I can see so much further away.  Sammy caught a few baby caimans and we brought one back to camp (not really sure when and where he released him, but I've learned that a lot of things in the jungle are better left unknown).  Back at the camp, he described the different parts of the caiman while the helpers cooked us a huge dinner with chicken, rice, salad, and fruit.  The food in Brazil was so delicious; I want to learn how to cook like the Brazilians.           Once we were all sufficiently full and at least a little drunk, we went to sleep in our hammocks. About 30 minutes later, once everyone was finally quiet, the entire tent collapsed.  Everyone fell onto the ground.  We had to get out of the tent while they cut down another tree to use as supporting beams for our tent.  Half of us went in the tent this time to test it out just in case it broke again, which it did.  Sammy got very mad at his helpers at this point.  He got so pissed that he took all of us back to the canoes and we went over to a 'lodge' to sleep in.  This 'lodge' is not to be confused with an actual lodge.  It was a large room with screen and a roof.  We all hung our hammocks on the beams and after we covered ourselves in Deet again, we all finally fell asleep. Tossing and turning is not easy on a hammock. I was scared the whole time that I was going to fall right out of it and end up on the floor again. 

            I woke up in the morning to babies crying and coughing.  Apparently the lodge we went to last night had a corner in it where a family actually lived.  Once we changed into whatever clean clothes we had left, we hiked back to the campsite to eat our breakfast.  In retrospect, I'm glad that we didn't get there during the day because I would've been TERRIFIED.  There were trees and mounds for whatever creatures lived inside of them.  We were seriously in the middle of a dense rainforest.  After we ate breakfast then we went tracking in the jungle.  We went to look for animals but we only saw trees.  It is amazing how many uses the different trees have for the natives.  They make everything out of them.  Bows and arrows, ropes, teas, perfume, dart guns, perfume.  Sammy made me a bracelet out of the bark of one of the trees.  This one tree, nicknamed a 'telephone tree' makes a really loud noise when you bang on it with a machete.  As long as you have a machete in the rainforest and you know what kind of tree this is, you will survive and people will be able to find you because they come looking for you when they hear the noise the tree makes. 

            After our hike, we all boarded the motorized canoes and headed back to the first lodge for lunch.  On our way there we stopped on the side of the river and took a baby sloth out of the trees.  Sammy and two other helpers climbed up to the top of the tree an brought it back down with them. It was adorable and very relaxed.  We all held her and took pictures with her then put her back up in the tree.  After the sloth, Sammy told me all about his life stories about smuggling drugs across borders, changing his name, converting from Buddhism to Christianity, and his views on nature and how it can affect our lives.  "If we are kind to the earth it will be kind to us".  He claims that he can predict the future.  Personally I think it was whatever he was smoking the whole time, but it was interesting to hear what he has to say about the world we live in.  He is also illiterate, the first person I have ever met that is. Once we got to the lodge, we all ate then got onto a much smaller riverboat and took every form of transportation we had to take to get there, back to the ship.  SIX total forms of transportation.  I have never been so excited to see the MV Explorer.  It finally was starting to look like home.  I took a 45-minute shower with all my clothes and still felt like I smelt like the jungle.  Then a large group of us went to a Brazilian steakhouse in Manaus called "Bufalo".  It was delicious.  The atmosphere was really nice and very clean.  We had all different kinds of meat and an endless supply of wine.  We then went to Crocodilo again, which was packed with locals this time.  They all were standing on the side of the dance floor watching us.  Needless to say, I got my drink then went and stood with the largest group of SAS students I could find.  The next morning, I went into town and went shopping.  Every street is covered with street vendors selling everything and anything from electronics, watches, stolen phones, bras, clothes, to purses and stuffed animals.  I went into one of the many shoe stores and got a pair of different-looking Havianas.  One of the stores we went to was North American until we got to the top floor.  Half of it was a bedding department, the other half was a bank FILLED with Brazilians.  I guess they can just get their money there then go shopping?  Also, all of the T-shirts had English on them.  The phrases made no sense and it made me feel like an idiot for buying any of the shirts I ever bought with other languages on them.  American music was playing in all the stores I went into, even the grocery store.  Once I got back to the ship, I went to the bar and had my last beer for 10 days.  This voyage across the Atlantic is going to be long.  But hey, at least I have some stories to tell :)