Manaus, Brazil (The Amazon!)

So after traveling for days up the Amazon River, we finally arrived at our second to last port of call, the city of Manaus. It was quite the journey; brown water, HUGE bugs, and the smell of smoke became all too familiar to us on the ship. It’s true what they say – they really are burning down some of the rainforest.

Haley, Ashley, and I joined our Resident Director, Renee, and a bunch of other acquaintances for a real-life Amazonian adventure. We had a loose idea of what we’d be doing, but for the most part, it was a very pleasant surprise.

First day, we make our way toward our jungle lodge. We take a bus, a boat, another bus, another boat, and then we hike for about 25 minutes. So needless to say, if anything were to have happened to us out there, it was quite the trek to get help. On our first boat ride, we stopped briefly at the famous “meeting of the waters.” The Rio Negro meets the Rio Soloman, the first being black and the latter brown. They meet, but since their temperatures, velocities, and pH are so different, they don’t mix. It’s a pretty cool thing to see.

So now we’re at our lodge, and it’s so sweet. We were all to sleep in this big room with a bunch of hammocks and beds and plenty of mosquito netting. From here, our guide, Marcus, showed us to a local family’s house where we saw how they grew pineapples, cashews, and some weird potato thing. He introduced us to another plant with buds we could break open and use as face paint. Then we played some soccer. It was a lot of fun since none of us are very good, but it was just so so hot. I’ve never sweat so much in my entire life. (Until the next day)

That night we went out in our little makeshift large canoe/speedboat in search of some kaymen, the Amazon type of alligator. Marcus found a few baby ones pretty quickly, and we all got to hold them. At night, there are these crazy jumping fish that are stirred up by the motor of the boat. There were hundreds flying out of the water all around us getting at least a foot of air. One even wacked Haley right in the face!

Day 2 began with real scrambled eggs (I had forgotten what those taste like) and plantains so we were off to a good start. We hiked back to our boat and took a short ride to another hiking destination. It was on this trek that we saw our first snake, one with a bite that would kill you in 3 hours. Yikes! We wandered around the forest, which was an area that would normally be under water during their wet season. There are water lines on everything. It’s a hard thing to imagine.

The next critter we ran into was our great friend the sloth. Now I had seen one of this awkward, fairly ugly guys in Costa Rica before, but I was still pretty excited. Although this sloth was still Chubaca-esque and creepy, he was tiny and just a little bit cute. His movements were just so robotic and his claws off-putting, that  you can’t help but be a little bit freaked out.

On our hike back to our boat, we were fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of a toucan! It was brief but still incredible. We had lunch at a floating “restaurant” right on the water. Rice is their staple, and the pineapple is incredible… almost on Ghana’s level. So delicious.

So then we road around in our boat for awhile, we would spot kaymens and dolphins and all these cool birds. We eventually brought out our fishing rods for some piranha fishing. It was so fun! I caught 3 I think before catfish started being more attracted to my bait than the piranhas. People would drop them attempting to de-hook them so we had about 4 swimming around in the bottom of our boat at one time. Not cool. I think the most someone caught was 15 piranhas!

We returned to our lodge and had the entire evening free to just do whatever. We all sat around with a few drinks and just enjoyed ourselves. The people I was with I had met before, but I had never spent any real time with them. They were all so awesome! We had a great time sharing stories, worries, and just getting to know each other. It was really nice to be with such great company at our last “real” port.

The next morning began with an intense jungle trek, like in the real jungle. There was no path. It was kind of nice to have to watch where you were walking at all times because then you could act like a bajillion critters weren’t either flying or crawling all around you. About an hour in, Marcus sticks a twig in this hole a taunts this HUGE tarantula out and up a tree. I mean, I knew they were big but not that big. I became extremely aware of every hole in the ground for there on out. We even got to sample some Brazil nuts right off the rainforest floor.

We really went all out in our last “real” port. As always, I hadn’t expected to have such a great time. We did absolutely everything we wanted to and were with some of the greatest people; I couldn’t have imagined a better trip.