Our Fantastically Amazing Amazon Adventure & BA

We arrived in Manaus Wednesday May 18th after a long night of chillin, playing cards and trying to sleep on the tile floor. We met up with Jake and Christine who had been at the airport for LOTS of hours already. Henry and Sean (Andy’s best friends from the United States of America!) arrived a few hours later and our group was complete. We left the airport and headed to our hotel room which was in downtown Manaus. Manaus was a much bigger city than I imagined; it has 2 million people living there. We dropped off our bags then went out exploring. We walked around awhile, enjoying all the music being played on the streets and the many street stands selling remote controls! Ha! We made our way to the water and sat at a cute little outside bar and drank a few beer towers and shared a variety of food! On the way back to the hotel we found a few more beers, that we drank on the roof of our hotel and some desserts that were super delicious to share! After an enjoyable evening on the roof 5 of us decided to go out and look for a place to dance. We ended up at a bar that no one was dancing at so we just danced ourselves. I made friends with the DJ and kept changing the music to the songs we wanted to dance to, it was a fun night!

The following morning we were up early and got in a van that took us to a super chuchi hotel. In the parking lot we met up with Edwardo, our tree climbing guide! Who is also a very attractive man :) We then got into a boat and drove about an hour up the Rio Negro where we winded our way into a small canal to find the tree we were climbing! Once at the tree we unloaded our stuff and Edwardo and his helper started setting up the tree. They shot fishing line up around one of the branches then tied a small rope to that then finally put on the large rope we would be climbing! The first group up was Carden, Christine, Jake and Sean. It was really fun to watch them climb. What you do is you have two assensors one of each hand that you use to move up the rope. Once you push it up, it locks into place, and then you lift your body up with the straps on your feet. And repeat. It was actually a lot harder than I thought it would be. And once I got close to the top I had so much weight from the rope that I could barely raise my accensors. But the work was totally worth the view. We sat up on the branch of the largest species of tree in the Amazon for a while and just took in the view. It was absolutely beautiful! AND our sexy guide Edwardo told us that just last month Bill Gates and his family climbed the same tree! Crazy stuff! After we all climbed we went to a little beach and did some swimming and some serious chicken fighting. Since we were 4 guys and 4 girls the fighting worked out perfectly. We all had a lot of fun messing around and had to keep reminding ourselves not to pee in the water because there is a type of snake that will swim up your urethra if you urinate in the water! Haha! Once we got back to Manaus we were driven to Edwardos favorite restaurant that he recommended to us. It was absolutely delicious food. We ordered two fish meals and two meat dishes. We devoured them all and we were all completely satisfied! It was a nice last meal before we hit the jungle!

In the morning we met our guide for the trip, Coney and packed up all our stuff to head to the jungle. We drove out to the docks and hopped on a speed boat to see the meetings of the water. The meeting of the water is where the Rio Negro meets the Rio Amazona. The Rio Negro is much warmer and has a lower pH, it is also much darker in color and has significantly less animals and vegetation. From there we traveled to a small little water side village where we took a bus to a different part of the river. We were all very curious about what kind of boats we would be on for the next 9 days. Carden thought there’d be a bathroom, Danielle wanted more of a houseboat with a place to put our hammocks while we traveled. Well we were all very wrong in our assumptions. They were canoes! Two wooden canoes, one to carry our stuff and the other to carry us. And of course as soon as we got to the boats it started down pouring. So we spent our first moments on the river with pelting rain. I guess that’s why they call it the RAIN forest! We also constantly had to be bailing out water so the canoes wouldn’t sink! After a couple of hours on the water we stopped at a lodge for lunch, we met and chatted up some other travelers then we were on our way again! We went a couple hours more, and luckily the rain had stopped by now. We stopped at a local house where we would spend the night. The people were really nice even though we couldn’t really communicate with them and we all slept in a little hut where we put up all our hammocks. We played some cards that night then crashed early!

Day two in the jungle we were woken up early by Coney telling us to get all our stuff packed up. We headed out on the boats looking for sloths. We eventually found one chillin up in the tree. Our boat driver, Branco climbed up and got him. Well we didn’t know at the time but it was a momma sloth and her baby. But when Branco grabbed the sloth the baby fell from the momma and splashed into the water. Coney quickly grabbed the little guy out of the water and we all proceeded to take pictures with the both the momma and the baby! Such interesting creatures, they move so slow! On the trip we also saw some spider monkeys playing around in the trees! Afterwards we boated down the river again to the next local house, it was pretty late by the time we actually got there, the boating and all our weight went really slow. But Coney told us we were going to a party! So at the house we changed into the clothes that were the least dirtiest and smelled the most clean! We showed up at a local neighborhood fundraiser party. There was food, drinks, trampoline and TONS of dancing! We were the only white people there, but we had a blast! We all danced up a storm, however not well, because none of us knew how to dance foho! But I picked it up decently well! I was dripping with sweat but it was an amazing night! Brazilian people dancing is so much fun to watch!

The following morning we were allowed to sleep in because Coney thought we were all going to be hung over, but none of us were because we sweated it all out! After breakfast we went to a rubber factory which is run by the owner of the house we were staying at. We learned about how rubber is made and the importance it played in the history of Brazil. The rubber is from the milk of the rubber tree, you slice the tree and collect the liquid. From there you put it on a mold and place it over the smoke of the fire. It was really neat and we all got a chance to do a little. After lunch we went on a short 2 hour hike to get used to the jungle. On the way Coney painted our faces with a fruit that contained red dye! On the hike we saw monkeys, lots of bird species and some cool looking spiders. We also collected fishing rods for the afternoon activities. We got back form our hike and Coney told us we were going to get tattoos. He held up a fruit and proceeded to rub the pulp of the fruit on my arm. I thought he was crazy but after about 10 minutes it was getting dark. Well I got really excited about this tattoo fruit, we all painted A-Team tattoos. That was what we named ourselves, The A-Team! I think it also stood for Anaconda! Then I got a little crazy and painted a huge flower and tons of stars all up and down my right leg. Well its been 11 days and my tattoo is still there! Its faded but they’re all still there! After tattoo painting we went out piranha fishing. My team won, we caught 14 fish and the other team caught 7! I caught two and I was so excited by catching my first one that I flung it and it smacked me in the boob! Ha! And Sean broke his pole on a “river dolphin” aka branches! We got back to the house and ate the piranhas that we caught for dinner!

We woke up to down pouring rain. We boated for about an hour into the jungle and went on about a five hour hike with sloshy boots because there we were completely soaked! Well all of us except Danielle because she had her poncho on and later told us, “I love poncho”!! On the hike we saw a HUGE tarantula, the ones I’ve found in my house have nothing on this guy! We saw huge bullet ants, trees that smelled like vics vapor rub, squirrel monkeys and poisonous frogs! We met up with Branco and Unkie Jon (his name was tio juan- we changed it!) They had prepared lunch for us, and we got to relax a bit! From there we moved on to the next local house, where I discovered I had a rash all over my body! Sweet, it must have been a reaction to something in the jungle, or being damp all the time. But I put some powder on it and it made it feel a little better. That evening after dinner and quick naps in the hammock we went out caymen hunting. Caymens are a cross between an alligator and a crocodile. We boated around for bit, and found one! We all took turns holding it and taking pictures, it was super cool!

The next day we had a long boat ride to get really deep into the jungle where no people live and tourists don’t go. We were so deep we were boating through trees. Every 5 minutes we were telling each other, “branch” and we all had to duck! We pulled up at a spot that looked good for a camp. We built our own structure and started a fire for lunch. Andy went a little crazy on the macheting and clearing ground for our house! We all took naps in the afternoon but it was so hot I didn’t sleep! That night we went out looking for jaguars and snakes but Coney told us we smelled too clean so we didn’t see any!

The following morning we hiked for about 4 hours and were taught about survival. We learned how to make a fire without materials just the forest. We were taught how to make a house, get water and find food! It was a pretty chill afternoon, we rested up for our survival day the next day. And we drank a bit, and played some team bonding games. And we all decided we smelled REALLY bad, especially Sean! That night we were all snuggled up in the hammocks and our structure kinda broke and we all thought it was going to fall down on top of us. So we had to get out of our hammocks and try and fix the shelter a bit more and we all laughed about it.

Survival Day: We packed very very limited things, like water, some snacks and our hammocks. We boated for about 2 hours even deeper into the jungle! We only hiked for about 20 minutes then started to set up camp. Coney let us do everything, we had to make 2 different shelters, so the girls started making one and the boys the others! We got about an hour into it when it started raining. At this point Coney started assisting us. We quickly got the shelters put up and Henry and I tried to make fire. We kinda failed, but got close, then Coney gave us a tip. It was really difficult because everything was soooo wet. I got a few cuts from trying to grab a spiny branch, and Henry cut my thumb from the machete! We made some rice with salty meat and Henry carved us spoons out of palm stocks and used leaves as bowls! The boys were having guy time as the girls were preparing for Jungle Prom. Yes I said it, I organized a jungle prom! We found leaves and vines in the jungle and I made corsages for the boys and then we had jungle outfits. I made wings out of palm hearts and we wrapped vines all around us. It was pretty amazing!! Then the boys came and asked us to prom and gave us tokens made out of jungle materials! We had Sean the juggler performer at prom, we took cheesy prom photos, and then jukebox Carden sung songs that we danced too!! Fun survival day!

We woke up and went on a small hike to learn about trapping and tracking animals. We talked about wild pigs, tapiers and fish. We all ate larva (even Carden and Christine that needed much encouragement!) We drank from water vines and tried to climb trees! We then headed back to our other camp where we packed up everything and started heading back. We spent the entire day/some of the night on the boat. We did have a little alcohol to make the time pass faster! We boated for so long we got to a lodge late at night and just crashed.

Once back in Manaus we had a few hours before we had to leave to catch our flight. We went out to dinner and recapped the best moments on the trip. Heading back to our hotel we ran into some street dance troop. They were practicing for a dance completion the following weekend against the other neighborhood kids in the area. They were FANTASTIC dancers. We just sat there and watched in awe at how good they were, and how much fun they were having! The Brazilian spirit is so cool to me!

Then I just kept going. I went straight from the bus terminal in Paraguay to the airport to fly to Buenos Aires. I got to BA and then hooked up with my girlfriend who came to take the GRE’s as well. We did some studying together then went to bed early for a good nights rest. My test went successfully; I rocked the math section and did acceptable on the verbal. I just don’t talk English these days! Then I went shopping to celebrate because I felt so out of place in my smelly jeans and sweatshirt- Argentineans have such great style! Lauren and I met up later and walked around for a while then went to a bar for celebratory drinks where the two young bartenders hooked us up!

And those were my adventures, lots of traveling, plane rides and sleeping in airports. But absolutely worth it, definitely stories to tell the grandchildren :)