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Other entries in Cape Town

My Amazon Experience

I can't believe it's October already. It seems like just yesterday we were all hanging out in the Bahamas unsure of what to make of this voyage that was ours.  It's been one month and I've been on 2 continents, 3 countries, and about 10 different time zones.  We lose another hour of sleep tonight, but that doesn't really even faze me anymore. I will NEVER complain again about losing an hour for daylight savings time in the states. Time is easy to manipulate and time easily manipulates us. The key in survival is to be flexible. Be flexible and sleep when you can: This is Semester at Sea.

I'd love to take a nap right now, but I feel like if I don't get some blogs written soon, then I'll have made it all the way to Vietnam without writing about the Amazon. I'm not going to lie to you: I get sidetracked. Like today after I left lunch I was planning on writing some blogs, but then I took a shower, watched a little bit of Pirates of the Caribbean (kind of a staple watch on the ship) and then got online to check out some Alabama study abroad programs. Yes, that's right: I'm studying abroad thinking about studying abroad again. Well, I guess you could say I'm more than just thinking about it. I'm in the process of planning on how to make it happen. [Ms. Channell, if you are reading this: I have caught a severe case of the travel bug and I am ready to study abroad again, maybe the spring of 2007...possibly @ Queensland in Australia] We'll see what happens. I just feel like my life could go in many different directions right now and I like that. I think if life had a soundtrack mine would be "Free" by Donovan Frankenreiter. It's a good song so if you haven't heard it, you should check it out. I'm listening to it right now on repeat. Maybe you should too.

But now I'm just being ridiculous and getting way off task. So anyways. Let me tell you what I've been getting myself into lately. Well, I went to Brazil. That was a good time.  I don't know what you envision when you think of Brazil, but before I went there, when I heard "Brazil" I thought of beaches adorned with scantily-clad beautiful women and palm trees swaying against the majestic blue tides. This was not my experience at all.

The day we arrived in Salvador I walked around the upper city with my friend Aparna and our friend Micha. Everyone knew that Brazil had a high crime rate, but no one knew how dangerous it REALLY was until it was too late. Within an hour of our arrival into port, several people had been pick pocketed, mugged, and locals were snatching the cameras right out of peoples hands then running away with them. A few locals also attempted to kidnap two female students in broad daylight. Luckily I made it out of Brazil safely with all my belongings. But then again, I spent most of my time in Brazil drifting up the Amazon River in a riverboat. But anyways, back to Salvador.

I honestly don't really know what to tell you about Salvador since I was really only there for the afternoon. There were a lot of beggar children in the street and basically swarmed us like hungry sharks. We found a man in the street who painted pictures on tiles with only his fingers, and they were beautiful and he was amazing. I would love to go find him again in Salvador when I have a house of my own and just have him paint all different tiles for a wall in my kitchen or something.

All over the cobbled streets there were women tying colorful fabric-strand-bracelets on your wrists. Then when they tied the bracelets on, they would tie it 3 times at the end and you were supposed to make 3 wishes as they were tying. When the bracelet falls off, all of your wishes will come true. By the end of the day, I had collected 3 bracelets. One of them fell off in a store when I was trying on a jacket, one I maneuvered off over my hand because it was too tight, and one of them is still on my wrist. I guess I'll leave it on until it falls off or I just become sick of looking at it, even though I feel like I'm walking around with a neon green chain letter tied around my wrist. 

The three of us had a lovely afternoon just walking around.

That night I was joined by all of my other friends, and we all went to the welcome reception. Walking into the welcome reception, there was a line of men on either side of the entrance playing the drums. I didn't know whether to smile and walk calmly into the reception or dance down the aisle to the rhythem of the beat. But I hate dancing. So I walked calmly into the reception, and let me tell you, it was beautiful. It was held in like an outdoor courtyard that was enclosed on all sides by a building with columns. They had dim lighting, and honestly, my first thought when I walked in was "wow, it's like a casual prom in Brazil.' So we danced, drank, and were merry until midnight when it ended. There was a really insane capoeira show and some local choir/band members came to perform for us, which was really good. In short, it was a really good time. We had all planned on going out in Salvador after the buses took us back to the ship, but we realized that it wasn't really safe go to out, and by the time we had all made it up to our cabins, we were too tired to go out anyways.

We were so tired that my roommate and I both slept through 2 alarm clocks the next morning. So you can imagine how startled I was to be awaken by the phone at 5:30a.m. "Hello, is this Natalie Ritter or Vanessa Ruiz?" It was a familiar yet unrecognizable female voice. "Yes, this is Natalie," I said. "This is Lisa from the Field Office. I just wanted to let you know that your group for the Amazon is leaving right now, and if you don't want to miss the trip completely I suggest you get to the buses as fast as you possibly can." I hung up the phone, suddenly very awake, and just thought $@%#! So I screamed at Nessie to wake up and told her what happened, and when she finally came to her senses we were both scurrying to get out of our pajamas and get our stuff together as fast as we could. It was like the "WE SLEPT IN!" scene from Home Alone. I didn't even put a bra on, I just ran out the door.

Well, we made the bus, but just barely. At the airport I had a few minutes to freshen up and finish getting dressed, so that made me happy on the inside. We had about a 4-hour layover in Brasilia, which was spent by most of us just lying on the floor by the gate. We were tired. We were students. We were American. We had no shame. So after what was probably the most rewarding nap of my life, we continued to make our way to the city of Manaus to visit the Amazon rainforest.

Our tour guides greeted us at the airport in Manaus and took us in coach buses to our home for the next few days: genuine Amazon riverboats. We boarded the boats single file on a long curved plank that I thought I would fall off of at any second. We didn't waste any time "setting sail" once everyone was on, and before I knew it, I was sitting on top of the Meeting of the Waters. [For everyone that is not familiar with it, the Meeting of the Waters is where the Rio Negro and the Amazon River come together to form the Amazon proper. The Rio Negro is older and very dark and the Amazon River is very light colored. You will be able to see what I'm talking about once I get my pictures up.]

Once we had reached our destination on the river, the crew dropped the anchor and we climbed into smaller "speed boats." I call them speedboats because they had motors and went very fast, but really they just looked like green canoes with benches and a motor in the back. So we started up the Rio Negro to go for our first jungle trek. As we made our way up the river, we passed floating houses that people actually live in. We finally stopped at a local market where we all disembarked the boats and walked through the jungle on the sketchiest bridge path I have ever seen. Some of the planks were rotten and there were huge gaps in some of the steps, but I guess that bothers me more now than it did then. I was just so stoked to be in the Amazon.

I suck at being able to see animals in the wild, but somehow I managed to see a sloth and a few monkeys. Who knows what else was near me in the jungle. I probably don't want to know. But that is what I saw. The end of the sketch bridge led to a deck over a pond where beneath us swam all sorts of cayman crocodiles. They just stared at us and we stared at them. It was like neither human nor cayman could decide who was viewing the foreign creature.

After dusk we went piranha fishing. Yes, that's right: we went fishing for piranha. I had a couple steal my bait, but I didn't catch any. Those piranhas are tricky little devils. I had a fish jump into the boat and slap the back of my leg, though. (Not a piranha.) One girl on my boat did manage to catch one, however. Our guides later ate it.

When it was totally dark we went looking for crocodiles. I guess some of this sounds pretty crazy to you, now that I think about what I'm writing: yeah, mom, first we went fishing for piranha then when it was pitch dark out we went hunting for crocs in our little boats that were right next to the water. So my guide shined has flashlight over the water looking for the cayman. Apparently since they stay under the water, the only way to find them is to shine a flashlight and hope you see a twinkle from their eyes on the water. And we did. My guide found a young cayman (about 3 1/2 feet) and brought it onto our little boat for us to hold and learn about.

After a long day of flights, jungle trekking, piranha fishing, and crocodile hunting, we were all ready to have dinner and go to sleep. The crew had hung our hammocks for us while we were out, so when we returned the entire second floor of the riverboat was full with our "beds" for the next few days. To save time, I'll just give you a little info about the riverboats now. First of all, the crew didn't really speak much English at all, but they were extremely nice and extremely welcoming. The two women who were the cooks cooked for 30 people 3 times a day in a kitchen on the back of the boat that could compare to the size of a standard American bathroom.  And the food was delicious.

Our meals were eaten on the first deck. The crew would put all the food out on a long table and then we would get our food buffet style and sit on chairs along the perimeter of the deck. Most meals consisted of rice and beans, noodles, fish, beef or chicken, and always fresh fruit.

Also on the first deck were two sinks and three bathrooms: 2 for the girls and 1 for the guys. (The girl to guy ratio was probably like 5:1.) Showers were taken communally on the second deck in our bathing suits. Showers could only be taken at specific times of the day, but they were always a good time.

Sleeping was not a good time. Hammocks, while fun and cool to say that I slept on a hammock in the Amazon, are not comfortable. They are even less comfortable when your hammock is so close to Jose, the guy you met 5 minutes ago, that you are basically sleeping on top of each other. The middle of the river is really quiet at night. So quiet its actually hard for me to sleep. And then people started snoring, which also made it hard for me to sleep. But I'm really not complaining. Because now I've slept on a hammock in the Amazon.

I don't want to make it sound like I'm downplaying my experience in the Amazon, but it's hard describing everything I saw and it's especially hard communicating my experience. So to tell you briefly, the next two days were spent in the rainforest itself. The first day we did a 3-hour hike through the rainforest.  I was expecting to be swatting at mosquitoes every other second, but there really weren't any bugs at all. I think the worst bug we ran into was hornets. We didn't' see any jaguars or anything like that, either. Although we did see some claw marks on some of the trees. We did see, however, some of the most beautiful flora and fauna I have ever seen. Our guides pointed out specific plants and trees along the way that are used for different medicinal purposes, so that was interesting. I just kept trekking through the forest thinking, "this is probably the cleanest air I'll ever breathe."

Later that night we went to visit a local Amazon village. The kids there were really cute and we had a chance to play soccer with them. Even with the language barriers, everyone was really nice and welcoming. That night on the way home from the village, the sky lit up with fireworks coming off the beach where a cookout prepared by our cooks was waiting for us. It was magical.

Our second trek into the forest was much shorter and was basically just to give us some survival techniques. So, if I should ever get lost in the jungle I know how to start a fire with my camera batteries and steel wool. Or I could just bring a lighter. But really, where is the fun in that? I'm just taking a vow never to go into the jungle without a guide.

Later that day we went swimming in the Rio Negro. Yes, Miss I-don't-like-swimming-in-water-I-can't-see-into went swimming in the Amazon.  I wasn't going to at first, but then I was like, when else am I going to have this opportunity? So I got in and stayed close to my tour guide, thinking that if a piranha or God knows what else was in there with us attacked, it might attack him first.

Everyone was laughing and carrying on and having a good time. And then we saw a fin. Now you are probably thinking to yourself that there aren't any sharks in the Amazon River. But, if you had watched shark week all week on the Discovery channel like me, you would know that the bull shark can live in both fresh and salt water and frequently travels up the Amazon. So there we are: about 30 of us in the water and the fin coming towards us. We all just start backing up. Just when I think I'm about to pee myself, the fin comes up and arches a little in the water and goes back down and we all laugh at ourselves for being scared of a dolphin. [A little FYI about peeing in the Amazon: don't do it. We had all been warned that there is a parasite that lives in the river that is attracted to urine and when it senses urine, will crawl up the urethra and spread out its prickly wings. It then has to be surgically removed. Talk about a way to spoil your Amazonian experience.]

That night we had our last dinner on the boat then headed to the lodge where all of the SAS riverboat groups met up with all of the lodge groups and there was a big show for us. After the show we had about an hour to kill before our heading to the airport for our 3am flight back to Salvador. So a group of about 10 of us got together (including our tour guide, Fabio) and played the Drug dealer card game until it was time to leave.

When the sun came up we were already in Brasilia, but the memories of the Amazon will remain in our hearts forever.

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