So, given the last post and its background, I'll just jump right into this. It also might not be english because I'm racing the clock to post it before we start broadcasting the super bowl. P and I walked into Manaus and were walking around alone but we found a group of people and wound up being fine. We saw the opera house and walked around a bit. The opera house was absolutely gorgeous, I wish I had the opportunity to tour it and go see the Philharmonic while it was in town. That would have been amazing but there just wasn't enough time in Manaus to do all I wanted. The gelato was interesting to say the least and trying to communicate with the people in the restaurant, and everywhere else, was so difficult. When P went on her FDP at midday, I came home to get some reading done for my Law class but Tarzan was on so I got nothing done. A bunch of us went out to dinner and we were a big group. We had to take more than one cab because of the number of us and I swear, the cab drove for so long. There was traffic but still, he was terrifying. He would speed up and then hit the breaks on turns to give us a jolt. We sat at dinner and the waiter said "Bom noche" or whatever it is, and I just responded "Hi!" We all laughed because we realized it would be super difficult but there was a waiter who spoke English! It was pretty cool and we got to play on the playground J We all came back and went to sleep early because we had a lot of stuff to do!
I got up for breakfast the next morning at 7:30 and my trip was leaving at 830. I packed the night before so I thought I was pretty well put together but I really wasn't. Everyone was wearing pants and I just didn't realize it. So that was great. We went to the rubber museum and I kind of liked it, it was really interesting. It wasn't like a real museum but it was more like a simulation of the way a rubber plantation was like. We saw the store where they sold the rubber and other assorted commodities, the house where the rubber baron lived, the bath houses, how they harvested the rubber, the rubber smoking shack, the cemetery, and the church.
We then checked into the hotel and pulled up there in a boat and were greeted with tropical juices. It reminded me of Casa, an open room with a thatched roof and lounge chairs. The lobby doubled as a bar and restaurant as well and all meals were served buffet style. I'm rather sick of Brazilian food by now so I'm happy we're on to a new port. We stopped at a village which was pretty cool but wasn't the most interesting. We came back and went piraña fishing and caiman spotting. I had never caught a fish before as I was scarred from fishing when I was a little girl but I caught 3! I guess if all goes wrong, I can be a fisherwoman. I caught the most out of the group and our boat had the most as well with 15. People were getting angry with me but hehehehehe I won. The caiman spotting was cool; I can't imagine how people could spot them in the water. The one we found had a piraña bite out of the tail, I felt so bad for it :( We returned to the lodge for dinner and I started to feel sick so I took a pepto so I didn't vom. I woke up the next morning with a weird taste in my mouth and I looked in the mirror and MY TONGUE WAS BLACK. It's not a myth!!! It actually happens! After complaining the night before about our original plans (a 3 hour hike and then relaxing until we would return to the ship), our day now read as a hike for an hour from 8:30-9:30 and we'd check out by 11 to go to a floating restaurant and market, the water lilies, the meeting of the rivers, and we were supposed to go to the igapós but didn't. So I wound up really enjoying it at the end. The hike was so hot; of course I FORGOT JEANS TO HIKE IN THE AMAZON. I had to borrow a pair from a man on the trip, who was super nice, so that was worth it. The hike was interesting though, one of the guides made me a crown out of a palm frond, cause i'm a princess, and I love it :) We then came back and I took yet another cold shower because our shower didn't get hot.
We went to a floating restaurant where I had the best food of the whole trip and went to a little market where I bought a painted thing and a wooden leaf bowl; I wanted to buy wind chimes but I wasn't sure where I would put them and if they would make it back home safe. As we were pulling up to the restaurant... MY CAMERA DIED. The lilypads were gorgeous and I made other people take pictures for me. We saw a monkey too! It was too cute and I wanted to cuddle with it but I didn't want the rabies. We were driving through the creeks, I guess? and we saw a boat of people holding a caiman, an anaconda, and a sloth. It reminded me of being in Mexico but I found out what happens to these animals and I wanted to cry. Apparently, they harpoon the anacondas and hold it where the wound is so no one will know and they disrupt the sloths habits and it usually doesn't survive more than 5 days in this captivity. As much as I wanted to see these animals (NOT THE ANACONDA, well kinda), I wish I could have seen them in the wild and not injured. When one of the guys was putting the anaconda in the boat, it slithered and must have been a yard long; our guide said it was a baby. It was so close to me, I was so nervous. We went to the meeting of the waters after and it was amazing. It was so cool to see these two bodies of water, coming from two different places, and just not mixing at all. I put my hand in the water and felt the two different waters, one was warm and the other cold. They don't mix because of the difference in temperature and density, so cool! We then went back to the ship to drop our stuff off to go to the mall where I called some people. P & I went to grab something to eat and we settled on McDonalds. I tried to order chicken strips and I asked for a menu and the woman pointed behind her to the pictures. I tried to order a "quaterrão" which was a quarter pounder and she didn't understand so I just said "BIG MAC" and she got it. I tried to get a water with it and a combo but I wound up with two waters, a Coke, and a big mac. I just wanted hot tasty french fries. Rough life.
We went into the port and sat at the pub and C and I realized we forgot to take our malaria meds and to put on bugspray so we made our way back to the ship. We came back and found people to walk with and made it to Crocodrio Club, where R had been raving about. It was a lot of fun, it reminded me of the RokBar in Tallahassee.
The next morning, we did breakfast and walked around Manaus to end the trip. We all wanted to spend our last dollars so I bought a bracelet and a watch that says "Alarm Chronograrh" instead of "alarm chrongraph". Love buying things on the street. We tried street food and P and I got chicken in hotsauce and jalepenos with peas. I'm convinced they were in mashed potatoes and deep fried but no one else thought so. L got something that was cheese-y and flakey and then P and L thought they had gotten cheese balls but they were deep fried, hard boiled eggs. Weird. We went into the "Lojas Americanas" store and I wanted to find crayons or makeup and I found neither. We came aboard because we were dead and didn't want to deal with the line to get on for onship time at 3 pm so P and I watched Sabrina and she slept the whole time. I was so tired that I napped after and we went to the Brazil reflection (notes are below) and tried to go to sleep at 1030. I liked Brazil but I feel as though I didn't have nearly as many moving experiences as others. I just really want to get over to Africa. I'm more excited for the end ports than the beginning...
Some words people used to describe Brazil:
magical, majestic, obrigada, colorful, surreal, daring, enriching, community, beautiful, acai, awesome, stupendous, adventurous (mine :)), breathless, humid, "i will be back to brazil again", eye-opening, "not one word", unforgettable, vibrant, memorable, pig swimming,, unreal, spontaneous, never-ending party, exhaustification, immense, returning, futbol, sublime, Manuel, peaceful, juxtaposition, sleepless, special, itchy, "written on my heart", natural beauty, surprising, love, rugged, super, heaven, opportunities, faces, complex, Skype, pure, whirlwind, silver beak tanager, awake, outlandish, piranas, smelly, sweaty, janky, epic
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