Manauas, Brazil

Manauas is where I am now and is the last stop in Brazil and this entry should be a short one as there have only been two real events since last I wrote. We have yet to discuss the rest of the amazon river tour and then our jungle trip.

The remainder of the boat trip was mostly uneventful. The end of the third day (after the stop in Santarem) was spent reading, eating studying and the like. We stopped at another small town for half an hour on the fourth day and in the afternoon we saw a lot of dolphins and a lot closer than before. On the evening of the fourth day myself and Shelia had a few words with the captain of the boat, who was actual an America guy who was glad to practise his dormant mother tongue and told us aboiut his life and his family and also, lastly informed us that the boat would in fact arrive at middnight the following day and not early afternoon as we origionally thought. Apparently the way we had originally planned to go was too shallow and we had to take a longer route to get to Manauas. So we went to bed knowing we had a fith full day of boat, everyone else in our group however woke up happy, knowing we were getting off soon. They were soon made miserable agaain though, with the new information that arrival would likely in fact be at 2am (if not later) meaning we would be spending another night on the boat. People were not happy that our last night in civilization before the jungle trip was going to be another night of boat! As far as I am conserned it is a bed! I am only going to sleep in it after all!!

The next morning we dropped our bags at the hotel, and then set out into the jungle. The three day jungle trip was amazing, as was our jungle guide Ruban and our floating lodge accomodation. The best thing about the jungle trip however was the complete absence of mosquitoes, thats right - we were in the middle of the amazone jungle and there were no mossi´s. On top of that, we saw so much and did so much whilst we were there. We went Pirhan fishing and I caught my first fish (it does still count if I catch it but am then to scared to pull it out of the water right..), we went aligator spoting and not only saw the red eyes of the alligators from a distance but also saw a baby alligator up close when Ruban caught one!!

After a night floting in our lodge beds we spend a morning on a jungle trekk. Here Ruban taught us how to climb tall skinny tress with no branches with a special foot clamp type thing (the boys then had a go), he showed us how to make the local woven handy crafts, he caught a huge tarantual for us, he showed us a fluffy, feathered bug that looked more like a bird, he showed us a rubber making tree (and make us some rubber) and he showed us a tree you could cut a branch from and drink water out of. We found ants you can rub into your skin for mossi repellant, a plant you chew for malaria prevention and little white bug lave that are meant to be good to eat (I didn`t try one). The experience was amazing, I never expected to see so much on a two hour trek!! In the afternoon we then went canoeing (which we got bored of speedily) but Ruban, forever the entertainer, had more planned. He found a sloth, high up in one of the trees and we had a walk bare foot through the jungle and then wait at the bottem whilst he climbed an impossibly high tree and brought the sloth back down to us (wrapped in his t-shirt, clutched in his teeth!!). The sloth was AMAZING!! It was so slow and so interested in us it was just so cool. We then had to rush back becasue a storm was coming, but becasue we are lazy we didn´t manage it and we got caught out it in, but it was pretty cool being out in the canoe in the pouring amazonian rain.

On the final day we we went to see a local village before going home and on the way through the village we saw a church (which only opens once a year), a school, a few homes, a bar (in which we drank our first Capirinhas in quite a while) and another sloth!! On the way back it was in the heat of the day and after the rain the day before it was baking hot and we all jumped in the river fully clothed, it was so cool, we got too hot again five minutes later, but it was fun for the time we were in the water. On our return to the lodge we spent more time swimming and eating lunch before returning to Manauas and to reality!!