Brasil - Part 2

Waiting in line for our second overnight bus ride

Day 12 – November 12 (cont)

We went to a typical Brazilian restaurant for lunch – a kilo restaurant. You pick out the food you want from a buffet, and then you pay based on the weight of your meal. Nice food, and SO nice to be able to see the food and THEN decide what exactly you want to eat without trying to figure out the menu in Portuguese!

The meat available at the kilo restarant

Me blog blog blogging away in Manaus

Piranahs are so cute! Check out those teeth!!

We had a nice drink down at the docks with Steve - lovely sunset view!

Day 13 – November 11

We were picked up at 8:30 am and taken to the docks to catch our ferry boat to the jungle.

Life is pretty tough on the Amazon! Guarding some yummy watermelons!

First we went to see where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon River – because of the different ph levels in the water they don’t mix.

Then we continues on a 3 hour boat ride to the jungle

View of Manaus from the water - residential area

Shelly and Steve on the boat

Our floating green shack 'hotel' - cool idea, would have been better without the steel roof though! Thank GOODNESS there were no bugs! Kinda nice not to have to coat in deet for a few days!

It was literally a shack floating on submerged trees. We each had a little cabin with beds & our own bathrooms with showers, but no mozzie (mosquito) nets on the windows and a huge gap between the top of the wall and the steel ceilings. But our guide Charles assured us that because of the high ph levels in the Rio Negro there aren’t any mozzies, the steel roof though was a nightmare. WHY they would use steel for a roof when it’s boiling hot every day – I do not know.
Our first meal on the shack (lunch) was rice, spaghetti noodles, sliced up tomatoes, onions and cucumber, and some (as we called it) KFC catfish. Breaded and fried – not great. After lunch our guide Charles took us all our piranha fishing. Mayer got 4 (AFTER he offered 5 US dollars to the first person who caught a fish – shoot) and then Shelly got 1 and Jackie got 1. The rest of us just kept baiting our hooks (with BEEF – yes beef – ewww) and the piranhas nibbled and nibbled, but never grabbed hold enough to catch them.

Shelly's piranah

We stopped for a swim on the way back (at a beach where he promised us there was no piranhas or crocodiles cause of the lack of vegetation). And we all enjoyed a lovely sunset. The water is SO dark – when you get out you can see the soot on the hair on your arms – bizarre! Shelly and I hopped in with everyone, even though we only had our swim suit tops on , and not bottoms., So the shorts got wet as well, oh well, you’re only in the Amazon swimming once right? The water was SO WARM – like a warm bath – only refreshing when you stood up and caught a little breeze. The humidity is SO high in this area though that even when you are sitting in the shade you are sweating like crazy! But the view was GORGEOUS and it still felt nice to have a dip in the water.

After dinner (same meal as lunch – but with chicken instead of fish) we went out in the boat to look for Caimans and Alligators.

p.s. - head lamp + eating = lots of bugs in your food

We saw a few of each, their eyes glowing when the flashlight was on them. Our guide caught a baby alligator and walked around the boat so we could all touch him and see that he has no tongue. Because he has no tongue he can’t open his mouth under water, so if you’re ever chased by one you should just dive down under water – good to know! Worst part of the night trip out to alligator hunt – fish kept jumping INTO the boat! First one jumped up and hit my feet and Mary’s (who was sitting next to me). We both screamed cause we didn’t know what had jumped (could have been a piranha – you never know!!). Turned out it was just a small fish – but scared the heck out of us as it was flopping around by out feet. Then later on in the trip another one jumped into our boat and hit me square on the leg – there was a loud scream from me that’s for sure! Anne also got hit in the face by one on the way back! I guess they were sleeping and when our boat went by we disturbed them and their reaction was to jump – freaky!

Day 14 – November 12

After breakfast we all got into out little motor boat again and headed off for our jungle trek. After about an hour in the boat we got to the place where the trek was to begin. There was a small house there and a family came out to greet us before we went off into the jungle. We then trekked into the jungle for about 2 hours and saw lot of plants that Charles described what they were and what each plant is used for by the Indians. We saw spiders, heard toucans, and sweated like crazy!! Charles even cracked up a nut that had a grub inside (a firefly larvae) and then he ate it! Not surprisingly no one else was up for trying one!

Murray having a drink from a 'water vine'

A tarantula our guide spotted - he was BIG!

THEN we got to a Tarzan like vine. The boys each took a try (I messed up taking a video of Murray and it didn’t save – opps)! The vine was long, but it was also at the top of a hill that had a gradient of about 70 degrees. So at the furthest point of swinging away you were about 30 feet from the ground (really high)! The further you swung, the higher the potential fall would be. The vine was attached to the top of a VERY VERY tall tree. Also, it was slippery – from the sap, the sunscreen and deet on everyone’s hands, etc.

The boys all went fine, but it was difficult to hold on. Jackie (who is my age) also took a turn and towards the end slipped quickly off – thankfully she wasn’t too far from the hill and just slid a little bit and didn’t get hurt. Then Lori went, a Cambodian woman in her mid 50’s who isn’t light or in great shape and has small hands and arms. From the start we were all biting our lips, thinking it was not a good idea. But who could say anything? That was up to her husband. He filmed as she swung out, hands near the bottom from the start cause she wasn’t tall enough to reach up higher. The guide was even worried and ran down the hill to hopefully catch her if she fell. But she held on past where he was standing and fell mid swing and flew over his head – about 15 feet from the ground. At first we just thought she had knocked the wind out of herself (we could hear her trying to catch her breath). But then her husband went down and after she tried to get up and screamed we knew it was all bad. They tried to calm her down for about an hour, she tried getting up and screamed in pain, that’s when we knew it was bad. So our guide and the two Steves went back to the place we started from and got a hammock, some life jackets, and a pillow. They got back to us all about and hour later and set about making a stretcher to carry her out of the jungle.

Steve exhausted after his trek back to get the hammock for Lori

They hung the hammock from a long strong piece of wood, and then used the life jackets to keep it from folding in on itself. She screamed when they tried to life her, so they ended up just rolling her to her side and slipping it under her. It took an HOUR AND HALF to get out. The poor boys carried that super heavy load the whole way – they were beyond amazing. Our guide went ahead to cut down the brush as much as he could to clear a wider path, but they still had to lift the pole above their heads many times and climb over logs, etc. Shelly and I took up the rear of the group, carrying 2 backpacks each, being great helps by crying – worrying about our husbands carrying such a heavy load – this is NOT what we signed up for!

Eventually – Finally – we got back to the shore line. They set her down on a picnic table and just collapsed. Murray’s head was bright red and his shirt was soaked with sweat. We got them some cold coke’s from the local guy, and our guide got on the mobile phone (thank goodness there was one) and confirmed the plan. She was taken by a tiny little boat to a nearby village where a car was waiting for her to take her back to Manaus to the hospital where our guide Leticia would meet her. After the boys recovered a bit we all hopped back into our boat and went back to our camp. The accident happened at 10:30 am, and we got back to camp at 3pm. What a mess. Such a stupid decision, and I was beyond livid – that one dumb decision by someone else meant Murray had to put his back and shoulders at risk to help carry her out – unbelievable. Thankfully he’s ok, just got a bit of heat rash and a mildly sore back thank goodness.

After lunch we all vetoed going on the planned canoeing tour and asking instead to just be taken to a beach to swim and relax. When we were ready to go, Murray and Steve were still in the water and yelled to us ‘we’re throwing rocks at a stick.’ Ha ha – I’m glad they were having fun – amazing what constitutes ‘fun’ now – but whatever! It felt great to just relax, then we all went back to our floating shack and got a good night’s rest.

Steve, Murray and the stick (just to the left of Steve's head)

A cashew nut fruit!! I never knew! Apparently if you don't pick the nut right away it grows this fruit - interesting!

Day 15 – November 13

We got up at 5am and took the boat out to see the sunrise – stunning. After breakfast we went to see a ‘local village.’ It was a rubbish tour though. I really don’t like those tours where you just go and look at people, and there honestly was not much to see. I also now had as we call it ‘runny tummy’ or ‘jip gut’ so wasn’t too thrilled to be walking around in the hot sun. Afterwards we went for a lovely swim to cool down – our last in the jungle!

Gorgeous sunrise

Cute little boy in the village chewing on a whistle

I love this photo - all the family animals relaxing in the shade under the house.

Mom tending to the pressure cooker that was about to explode (she has 12 kids - one of which was our lovely cook at the shack).

Dad chilling in the hosue - I assume there are no steps to keep the chickens out

The Cayman who hung out at the back of the shack - we could see him out of our window!

After lunch we decided not to stay for our final night – which would have been sleeping in hammocks in the jungle. Murray’s back was sore, my stomach was bad, and we just weren’t up for it (even though we had already paid). So we caught the boat back to Manaus with Jackie and Mary. Lance and Shelly came as well because Lance was feeling under the weather – he had had a cough for 6 weeks and it was only getting worse – so wanted to go see a doctor before we went on our Amazon boat trip. We all had a GREAT dinner out – yummy Italian food (my tummy finally was feeling better by then after ‘starving the bug’ all day) and then we crashed in our AIR CONDITONED room – nice nice nice. Wound down the evening by watch a few episodes of Entourage – oh how I love having this laptop on holiday. Not quite a normal backpackers tool I know – but gosh it’s nice to have (mostly for Murray’s photo stuff – the tv shows and movies we have on it are added wonderful bonuses)!

Day 16 – November 14

We popped out to the grocery store with the group in the moring to pick up some supplies for the Amazon boat trip. We heard that it was similar to the jungle trip food – very monotonous and not of great quality – so we figured we had better stock up on edible stuff. Got lots of bottled water, some nuts, some crackers and cans of tuna with salsa. We all headed out to the docks at 2:30pm to check out our ‘home’ for the next 5 days. The ship was………… interesting.

The dock in Manaus - a bit crazy!

Bottom floor is ALL hammocks – strung up one after another – so so many people. Floor two is hammocks at the back and second class cabins at the front (that’s us). Top floor is first class cabins and a bar at the back. The hammock people had to have someone watching their stuff at all time because there is so much theft we hear – and gosh it looked hot and crowded and miserable down there!

Our guide Leticia stayed behind to help Lori and Jerry finiaze their plans, and be their Portugese interpreter at the hospital. It was decided that she would have to fly back to the states and cancel their trip since she had hairline fracture in her pelvis and pubis bones – ouch (she will need at least a year of rehab apparently).

Our boat left 45 minutes late at 4:45pm which meant no dinner was served (I guess cause they usually start serving hammock class by then).

Ominous cloud over Manaus as we were leaving

Our room was a tiny little cabin – barely space to walk in, bunk beds and a smelly little bathroom/shower room. We spent the evening relaxing in our room, eating tuna and crackers and watching – yes – entourage. But there was literally nothing else to do – other than drink beer in the bar – and we were not up for that.

Me snacking in our room on the bunk

Dinner time - tuna yumm! (actually it WAS pretty darn good)!

Day 17 – November 15

The best thing we bought for this trip: silk sleeping sacks – wow is it nice to know you are laying in nice clean sheets no matter where you are, the pillow insert is an added bonus, so not one part of you actually touches the provided bedding. Nice and large sized sacks and so cool cause of the silk – SO glad we bought those!!! The blankets on the boat were BEYOND smelly – so glad it didn’t actually have to touch my skin – ewwww! But the air was constantly on so you HAD to have a blanket on at night – so chilly! And we didn’t dare leave the window open in case someone tried to rob us while we were sleeping.

We slept terribly – kept waking up freezng cold and little kids kept running up and down the corridor just outside our room yelling until late. Breakfast was awful – hot dog buns, sweaty cheese, mystery meat slices and watermelon. We only had watermelon then went back to our room to have one of our bran breakfast bars. Afterwards we headed upstairs to find a spot to read. They had the Portugese music on level 1000 and the sun was already boiling – 4 days of this – can ‘t wait – not! The Amazon river is SO wide – at the mouth it is actually about the same distance as between London and Paris! Which also meant, we couldn’t really see anything while crusing down the river other than jungle from a distance. The water looks sooty brown – same as the water in our toilet and sink and shower.

So, we spent the day reading, working on our ‘badges of unemployment’ i.e. tan marks from our hiking sandals, and napping.

Shelly and me - relaxing on deck

After dinner (chicken that actually wasn’t horrible) we had a few sneaky rum and cokes with the group (alcohol isn’t allowed on so you have to sneak it from your room) and then – yes – some more entourage (we love that show)!!

The normal dinner - pasta & chicken

Just as we were about to go to bed we were all called out of our rooms for a passport check. The federal police came onboard and checked passports. Interesting system though – they just pounded on everyone’s door – and you were supposed to go upstairs and line up to have your passport checked. BUT they didn’t have a list – so if people just didn’t answer the knocking, no one knew! A few people in our group just slept through it! The guy looked at my passport photo – looked at me – then back at the photo then said something. I said to the captain Douglas (who is a jolly guy from Belize who spoke great English) – what is it casue my hair is a different colour now? And he said – no he just says you are very beautiful. Oh ok whatever, can I have my passport back now please. Odd. So after they paged through our passports we went back to our room and locked the door. Later on we heard a knock but just ignored it. I heard the next day that Lance and Shelly had answered and the police came in with flashlights to search their room! So random! Oh well – no biggie.

Day 18 – November 16

We woke up docked in Santarem. They were unloading TONS of stuff from the hold onto trucks on the dock – I couldn’t believe how MUCH stuff was down there – including long life milk, alcohol, grain bags and paint! After some breakfast (bran bars only since the only thing they had in the canteen was sweaty cheese, mystery meat and crackers – um no thanks) we ventured into town. Captain Douglas said we’d be docked until noon, so we took a much needed break from ship life.

We wandered a bit and then a boy of about 14 came up and said to Murray ‘mister – you speak English?’ Murray exchanged a few pleasantries with the boy, while holding on tightly to his wallet, then we walked on, trying to lose him. But he was like a little stray dog – just would NOT go away. He followed us into every shop – and would get the shop assistants to show us shoes & stuff – so bizarre. WE just ignored him (thinking maybe he was part of a gang that would try and distract us then rob us), but no it was just him – and we couldn’t lose him! Finally in one shoe shop Murray picked up a girl’s show and said ‘do you want to try this one on?’ He said no – Murray said ‘do you like any of these sandals? Want to try any of them on??’ the boy said no. So Muz said – SO why are you following us? The boy shrugged and said I don’t know. Murray said ARE you following us – he answered ‘poquito’ – a little bit. So Murray said WHY? And of course he just shrugged. So we moved on, with our shadow still right behind us. Then we spotted a nice looking kilo restaurant and quickly popped in. Our shadow came in too, but when he saw we sat at a table for 2 he hesitated, looking all confused, then left – thank goodness.

We had some lovely cold diet cokes, some nice snacky food, and when we left he was no where to be seen. Found the internet, and then some lovely ice cream – SO nice!!! And wouldn’t you know – as we were working our way back to the ship our shadow found us again! Odd odd odd. We just ignored him and he finally gave up and went away.

Quiet afternoon on the ship, as usual, then that evening we got together with Anne, Steve, Shelly and Steve for some cards. They taught us a great card game called ‘shit head,’ and we all had a bit too much rum and a great time! It’s a fun card game for a group because JUST as you think you are winning you can suddenly be really far behind – good fun!

Mary, Lance & Shelly & some Skol beer

Day 19 – November 17

Quiet day at sea – well, river. Murray now has jip gut and is REALLY not feeling well. He stayed in bed all day with bad bad cramps. I think the air con is making everyone sick as well. I now have a chesty cough as does Shelly. There are a few other sick from the boat food as well – gross. Thankfully today there was at least something to look at. The river narrowed and we saw tons of little huts along the river. As we would pass them Mothers and children would come paddling toward our boat in little canoes and people would throw clothing to them. Amazing to see these people from hammock class throwing arm fulls of clothing to these people – quite touching! I suppose it’s their form of a charity shop?

Paddling to grab some clothing before it sunk

A little home along the Amazon river

Murray finally left our room in the evening, just to be able to sit upright for a bit (our bunks aren’t high enough). A DJ set up on the back deck and played dance music and had a bit of a laser light show on the Amazon jungle canopy – can I just say SURREAL! Wow.

We were woken at 2am when the boat rolled nearly 45 degrees towards our side. Things fell off shelf and the movement woke both of us up. We were worried the boat was sinking so Murray grabbed our life jackets and opened the door to see what was going on, Turned out we had hit a sand bank on one side and then keeled over sharply to the other side. The captain said it was no big deal – um but at 2am it was pretty darn scary!

Day 20 – November 18

Murray felt a bit better today thankfully – but is still having cramps now and then. Luckily Steve was great and helped us carry our very heavy bag off the ship since Murray was a bit weak after not having eaten much in 24 hours. We got into Belem at 4pm and WOW were we happy – everyone cheered when we saw the city around the corner! AND Leticia was there waiting for us – fab!

YAY we' in Belem and we see Leticia!

She’s so sweet – she gave us all hugs saying ‘I missed you my chickens.’ We are now at an ok little hotel in Belem and had a GREAT meal out – pizza, risotto and awesome ice cream. Tomorrow we spend the day here – checking out the markets and then perhaps some botanical gardens before catching another night bus – fun fun fun! I am just SO glad to be off that stinking boat. It was an experience – but I’m glad it’s over & we can sit up in bed and watch tv now!!

Murray and I enjoying ice creams in last night in Belem - apparently they have the best ice cream in Brasil here!

Day 21 – November 19

Today we caught a cab and tried to go to a zoo - closed. So we tried the botanical gardens - closed. So we tried the butterfly and bird place - closed. Oh, so now we know - everything closes on Mondays - bummer. Oh well - it's a nice cool temperature (well, not boiling at least - with a bit of rain). Tonight we catch a night bus... I can't remember where to though (bad, I know)! Leticia did say though that it is a rough ride - bumpy, holey road. Last time she took this bus someone threw up ON her -ewww! I'm sure it will be fine. We're going to a colonial town next, then on to BEACHES hooray!