HELLO EVERYONE! I am alive and well…with only about 10823019248 bug bites to complain about! That's about all I have to complain about though…I had an AWESOME week in Brazil!
I am going to post entries for each day, right now, after a CRAZY week of no showers and no sleep, I've only finished day 1. So stay tuned for the next ones. ALSO, I am going to post pictures right after this post labeling them in order (1, 2, 3…etc.). Throughout the post I tell you in parenthesis which pictures correspond with what I'm talking about, so you can go along with me J.
Monday morning I woke up at 6:30am and ran up to the top deck. After 5 days of endless blue and a full day of sailing through the flat, desolate Amazon, the site I saw was unexpected and almost at that point foreign. We were heading for Manaus, our port city, and one of the larger cities in the Amazon. To be honest, I knew I would not be spending much time in the city so I did not really do my homework on it…I pictured a very, very, small attempt at a city- instead I got an actual city with high-rises and everything! It was a both beautiful and surreal to see the metropolis juxtaposed with rainforest in all other directions. Two tug-boats came out and helped pull us into the port (PICTURES 1 and 2). I watched below and saw us getting closer and closer to the port. Then an organ rope was thrown from our ship onto the ground and a few workers grabbed it and knew exactly what to do. After the first, two more ropes came out. It really is like an art, the process of getting into the port- it's so wild to me that these people, who don't speak the same language as the people on the MV Explorer (our ship) knew exactly where to be, when, and what to do. We officially arrived, waited to be cleared by customs and then had a mad dash to the gang-way. I got off with some friends to find our guide that we'd arranged for the week.
We got onto the shuttle that takes us from the port to the city…it was about a 3 minute shuttle but apparently it wasn't walk-able for some reason. Getting out of the shuttle was such a familiar, yet also foreign experience. I have been to a fair amount of countries, but in the last 3 years, the only one I have visited is Israel. When I first got to Israel 3 and a half years ago for my gap year program, I felt the feelings that I felt in Brazil- a complete and total lack of connection from the people, culture…this was due to my lack of knowledge of the customs, the language, the land. Luckily, I was able to spend a lot more time in Israel, and change those feelings immensely. As I got off the shuttle in Brazil I realized, I don't speak a word of the language, I don't look at all like the people, and my only knowledge of their common practices and customs comes from a class that meets every other day called "Global Studies" and two nice Brazilian students on our ship. I turned to a friend and made light of the situation by saying sarcastically "There is no way that these people know we aren't from around here…". He and I chuckled and then returned to realizing the reality of the situation.
We found our guide- Ananji. We walked through the hot, humid city with our bags on our backs for about 25 minutes. Then we reached our new home away from home away from home- the small riverboat that we would be traveling on and sleeping in for 2 out of the 3 nights. We got on our riverboat, did some introductions and took off. We first sailed to see the "meeting of the two waters"…I had no clue what this was either so don't worry. Basically, there are two rivers, the Rio Negro and the Amazonia. When these two waters meet, you get the Amazon river. The Rio Negro is a much browner, thicker water, and the Amazonia is much bluer, so when the two meet it's a pretty crazy site to see- it is as if someone drew a zig-zag line in the ground, put a wall up there, and that's how the two waters meet. Though, there is nothing physically separating them. The Rio Negro is much more acidic, thicker, and moving at a much slower pace than the Amazonia, and that is why it gives off this appearance when the two meet. (PICTURE 3).
After seeing this, we sailed about 3 hours west of the city of Manaus (farther into the Amazon). We all couldn't believe that after being on a ship for 6 days straight, we chose to get on land for about 30 minutes, and then get right back on a boat. Along the way we saw lots of cool floating homes and small villages (PICTURES 4, 5, and 6). After traveling for a while we got to our next destination. We walked along a small, unstable looking wooden pathway to get to an observation deck. On this deck we saw lots of large lily-pads, vultures and Cayman (crocodilian reptiles…they look just like crocodiles but are smaller) (PICTURES 7, and 8 and 9). When we finished our hike there we got back on the ship. At this point it was already getting dark and we were told we had a lot more to travel that night so that we could get to our destination for the following morning. Ananji (our guide) along with his wife, brother, and a few crew members cooked us a nice Brazilian dinner where we ate rice, potatoes, fish (for those that eat fish…if you know me you know I don't!), chicken, and vegetables. This is the rainy season in Brazil, meaning that large rain storms come and go like it's Florida. As soon as we got back on the boat, a huge storm hit, we put down these tarps all around the open parts of the boat and tried to elevate our belongings so we could stay dry. This boat was pretty small in comparison to the MV (our usually ship), so we definitely did a lot more rocking and banging around. We all hung out that night on the boat and set up our beds for the night…by beds, I mean HAMMOCKS! (PICTURE 10). Sleeping in a hammock is quite the experience. If you lay normally your body will be in a sort of U shape…this feels fine for the first hour or two, then you need to do major readjusting and get diagonally so that you feel like you're all on one level again. Also, when the boat is moving, the hammocks sway along with the boat…this part though wasn't too bad as we are pretty used to the movement.
-Steph
No comments:
Post a Comment