Finally walked the Amazon...

So, after the last posting we took a night bus for 12 hours, crossed the border over to Brazil, and arrived in the city of Manaus. We are 3 degrees south of the equator now and man is it ever hot! If this is what winter feels like (45 C) then I don´t even wanna think what their summers are like. This city is literally in the middle of the rainforest…so needless to say we arrived in Manaus in the middle of a rainstorm!!! Yes, there was lightening, thunder and a torrential rain shower and the streets almost looked like streams and I found myself longing for a boat instead of a car. Yes, I can safely say after the activities of the last few days, I am pretty much over my fear of boats! I have, however, developed a bit of a fear of piranhas and alligators though!

Manaus, day 1, we spent doing what apparently is a typical Brazilian activity on a Sunday…we went to the mall! A consumer´s paradise was created by chopping off acres of rainforest. Who needs rainforests when you can have a huge mall where you can shop till you drop, eat as much ice cream as you want and go see a movie when it´s raining outside. It´s really heartbreaking at the rate the rainforests are being cut down…over an acre a day in some places. Anyway, after watching Devil wears Prada, we reached a consensus that we don´t really like this city. Me and Kirsty decided to take a trip to the jungle.

Boarded the boat at 9 am and started our 6 hour boat ride down Rio Negro, so named because of its black color. We reached a point where Rio Negro and Rio SOlemois meet to form the Amazon river. What is really funny about this meeting is that the water from the two rivers doesn´t mix. There´s some difference in density and temperature and such that the two rivers don´t mix. One has completely black water and the other has sandy water and they mix like coffee and cream. It´s the stranest site…you can see miles and miles of the border between the two rivers. I´ll put up some pics when I find a computer with a fucking usb port!

It was a long boat journey…chatted about philosophy and life with some Austrian guy on the boat, played a came of cards with some Spanish speaking people, slept and after 6 hours, finally arrived…literally in the middle of the jungle…at our lodge, aptly named ANACONDA LODGE!!! This lodge is a barge made of wooden planks and a thatch roof floating on water teeming with piranhas, anacondas, alligators, and all sorts of amazing life! Upon arrival, we were greeted with a coke bottle full of snakes that are found in the region. We were told to watch out for the kind in the coke bottle coz they are very poisonous. Nice start to a great adventure. We were promptly served lunch…and ofcourse they were not informed about me being vegetarian. So, I was eating eggs yet again!! After lunch, we headed out in a boat, which closely resembled the boat that we crashed in, to spend our afternoon leisurely fishing for piranhas!!!! For those of you who don´t know what piranhas are…they are the most evil flesh-eating fish with the sharpest teeth you´ve ever seen. If you fall in the water, the school of piranhas attack you and within minutes, there´s nothing left but some bones floating in the water. I was informed of this as we were puttering in our little canoe over to the fishing spot. I was a tad nervous, if you know what I mean! Anyway, as soon as we put the fishing line in the water, I felt the fish nibbling. So, this meant there were a lot of these fish. I did end up catching one piranha (I have a pic to prove it) but other than that I think I mostly just fed them the meat. It was a fun adventure and we made our way back to the lodge as the sun was setting. It´s quite amazing to be in the middle of the jungle with nothing but fresh air to breathe, watching the sunset!

At the lodge, we were served dinner and told that as soon as it was dark we were going out to spot alligators. This sounded a bit crazy to me, but since everyone was going, I didn’t want to be left behind alone at the lodge. So we got into the boat, yet again, and started driving in pitch dark, with nothing but a flashlight to watch for rocks and other boats, to go spot some fucking alligators! We reached the spot where they apparently rest and tuned the motor off. The guide asked us to be completely quiet and started paddling the boat toward the shore. The shore is where the alligators rest!!! I looked in the water and saw millions of little gleaming eyes. I thought they were alligators looking at us but it was actually the reflection of the stars from the sky. I kid you not I have never seen so many stars in the sky. There was, however, no moon. We could have used the moon to see a bit better. But, I think the lightening flashes helped a bit. Yes, to make the already scary moment, a bit more scarier, the sky would light up once in a while….just to remind us that we were in the middle of the RAIN forest. Anyway, alligators, we did spot….a bunch of them with their red eyes gleaming in the dark sitting on the shore. Our guide informed us that the alligators only hunt on land or just above water…so if we get attacked, he said to just dive and they won´t follow! Ruben, our guide, is a crazy crazy man…he got off at the shore to go pick up a little alligator baby that he saw. He brought the specimen to show us while the mom was sitting on the shore watching us! I was happy to leave the area and head back to the lodge. The Austrian guys pulled out some glenfidtich whisky and some cigars to calm our nerves. We sat drinking, and chatting for a couple of hours and called it a nite. In the middle of the nite, we were struck by a huge thunderstorm. I swear to god, I have never seen so many lightning flashes in my life. I put ear plugs in my ears and covered my head with my sheet and prayed that we don´t get hit by lightning.

Next morning, we went for a trek in the Amazon jungle. After the rain, the jungle was alive with the animals singing…the tree frogs croaking, the snakes whistling, the birds chirping. It was wonderful. We saw tarantulas the size of my hands, we saw birds, we saw some cool trees, drank water from this vine that stores fresh water. It was the coolest thing in the whole world to see how the jungle gives you everything you need to survive. It was a quite, beautiful journey back to Manaus. Now, we are leaving on a boat trip down the Amazon for 4 days. We´ll be traveling with the locals who go down the river to take supplies for the little villages along the way. Apparently, it´s a big party coz Brazilians love to dance and sing. Lets see what adventures lie ahead….