Manaus

Here begins the first entry of my trip to the Amazon!

Nov 14th was the day of our flight out of Florianopolis. Despite the fact that our flight left really early in the morning there is always last minute things to do and pack the night before. It was hard to imagine that a trip that I have been dreaming about for months was going to start the next day; so unreal! None of us got very much sleep that night but we definitely made up for that during the flights. While booking the trip we had arranged with a friend of Vanessa's Grandma to get picked up from the airport. When we were getting off the plane we realized that we had absolutely no idea what Marcus looked like, his age, the type of car he drives... anything! It was not a problem for us to find each other though because Vanessa Tracy and I stuck out worse than a sore thumb! We were the whitest and tallest girls there and definitely the only obvious foreigners so it did not take long for Marcus to pick us out of the crowd. We got all our stuff into the car and got a little tour of the city on the way to our hotel. We were shown places to go, where not to go, different viewpoints to look out at the new bridge and the water; a very nice introduction to where we were going to be spending the next few days. 

Once we were at the hotel we sat down with the tour agent of the hotel, David, to find out what we could do while we were in Manaus. We already had plans to go out with Marcus and his wife Silvana the next day so we only had one other day to organize. David told us about a few different options: a hike with some waterfalls and touring native plant species, a boat trip to see the joining of the waters followed by a short walk through the flood planes, or going to see the pink dolphins of the amazon river. We had almost come to the decision that we would go see the dolphins since we would be seeing the joining of the waters during our boat trip and we wanted to do a bit more than hiking with waterfalls. Nothing had been finalized yet though. Once we knew the options and were all settled in Marcus, Silvana, and their family came to pick us up to go out for dinner. It was a very good evening and it was nice to get to talk to them a bit more before going out together the next day.

Nov 15th We went downstairs bright and early for the continental breakfast the next morning and then met Marcus and Silvana out front of our building. Our day in Manaus started with a hunt for some hammocks to sleep in while we were on the boat. We weren't sure where, if anywhere, would be open because it was a holiday. But we were in luck and found a massive warehouse type store with all types of hammocks. The man selling the hammocks was very nice and patient with us as we looked through almost every style they had to offer, from floor to ceiling. We found a few styles that we liked and then noticed that pretty well all of them had some writing on them. Deciding that it would be a good idea to know what it says we opened one up; on the side in huge letters was written "Deus e Fiel" meaning "God is Faithful". Although it would have been pretty funny if we didn't know that there was this writing on the hammocks and gotten one with it we were all fairly glad that we noticed. In the end the three of us all ended up with very similar hammocks that just varied a little in colour.

As we continued our drive around town we passed the ferry and saw that despite the holiday there was barely anyone there. Marcus suggested that we all go to see the pink dolphins with them instead of the guided tour. We were so excited that we would have the oportunity to do two of the tours and graciously accepted the offer. The ferry across the river took about 40 minutes and then it was a long drive ahead of us on the other side. It was very nice though because Marcus and Silvana were pointing out all the local trees and the types of fruits they had on it. As we drove around a corner we all noticed something on the road and realized that it was a sloth crossing the road! Vanessa Tracy and I were all eager to stand in the road with it to ward off any cars that may not see it right away. One of the first vehicles to pass was a man on his motorcycle; he pulled over and without a word walked up to the sloth, picked it up, carried it to the side of the road, and was gone just as fast as he came. Us, the three gringo girls, were all in awe thanking him over and over while trying to take more pictures of the sloth. He must have thought that we were absolutely crazy! Next we arrived in Novo Airao to hang out with the boto rosa, pink dolphin. On the beach was this little hut where you could buy fish to feed to the dolphins on the porch/dock in the back. We had so much fun with the first round of fish that we had to buy another! They are truly strange looking animals but are so graceful as they swim, you'll just have to see the pictures once I get them up! At this point we were all getting a little hungry and the sun was definitely starting to attack our fine foreign skin so we packed up and started the drive back to the ferry. We stopped along the way for a delicious fish lunch at this small river where we swam a bit to cool off and then ate our hearts out! Once we got back to the ferry we were very shocked to find that the line had at least doubled from when we had arrived; I guess all the traffic was going in one direction, woops. After a long boring 4 hour line up we finally got onto the ferry. We felt terrible that our day trip with Marcus and Silvana turned into almost overnight! They were very nice the whole time though and didn't seem to mind being stuck with us for so long either. Once back we had a quick run through the drive through for dinner, showered, and went straight to bed to prepare for another full day adventure.

Nov 16th Since we had gotten to see the pink dolphins the day before we had decided to go on the boat tour to see the joining of the waters, Encontro das Aguas. We woke up bright and early once again so that we could get to the docks to buy our tickets. It was very nice to be able to see the city from the water - it all looked so different from that perspective! You could really see just how low the water was this time of year from the height of the houses on stilts and all the boats that were on dry land instead of floating in the river. It was a very refreshing way to spend the morning floating down Rio Negro. We had a very good tour guide who clearly loved his job which made it even more enjoyable. He explained everything first in portuguese and then would repeat it again in english. I think here would be a good place for me to explain what exactly the joining of the waters is: The Negro and Solimoes rivers join to become the Amazon river but they do not mix together for about 16km. This creates a very distinct line separating the two rivers and is really quite the site! This is caused because they go at two different speeds and exist at two different temperatures. The Rio Negro gets its "black" colour because it contains more solutes from the decomposition that occurs in it and also because of a certain type of rock that is found in its waters. It was very cool learning all of this while seeing it in real life at the same time.

After we arrived at our "hike" destination we all got off the boat to go see a typical forest in the flooding areas of the amazon. In the wet season the walk is actually done by boat because the water level changes so much. Vanessa Tracy and I hung back from the group a little bit and somewhat made it our own walk-a-bout creating a bit more of a relaxing and peaceful atmosphere. The highlight of the walk was probably these giant lily pads. They are strong enough that at full size they can hold 50+ lbs! The bulb that is in embedded in the pond floor has about 6-12 pads branching off of it. The flower starts out white and will become a really deep shade of purple, only opening at night so we didn't get to see it. Once it as lived through the flower stage it becomes the pad! It is a very interesting plant that is for sure. After our walk we had lunch an shopped around the little souvenir store that was attached. Next it was back to the boat to get to the docks.

Since you are not allowed near the loading areas of the boats unless you have your tickets showing that you are bording that day we had been scheming to sneak to the Amazon Star, the boat we would be staying on, after getting back from our day trip. All we wanted to do was talk to someone to see where the best place to hang our hammocks would be, what time we should come, what the food was like... just little things. We successfully got past the guards at the dock and everything was going smoothly until we actually reached our boat and realized we hadn't made a game-plan for after we got there. We arrived to find that there were more than 50 men loading things onto the boat and they were all very excited to see three lost girls hanging out at their boat. After about a minute, but what felt like a lifetime, we realized that we weren't getting the attention of the person that we wanted to. Luckily one of the men noticed we were trying to talk to someone on board and told us who we should go talk to and gave us permission to get onto the boat. This is when we met Nalto. He was so nice! He gave us a tour of the whole boat and introduced us to Gorete, the woman who would be watching and helping people with their hammocks, who would later become our best friend. You will be hearing about these two lots during the days on the boat.

Later on, after our exciting visit to the boat, we went to INPA - Instituto Nacional de Pesquiso da Amazonia. It was pretty much a zoo but the set up was very nice; it was like walking around an actual forest and finding animals along the way. We got to see their version of an otter (definitely not as cute as ours, but interesting to say the least), we read about their manitee project and got to watch them swim around and eat, we saw the amazon turtles which look unlike any other turtle I've seen before, there was another sloth sighting (not in a cage but just hanging out in the trees), uncountable little monkeys, and cutia's (which I like to refer to as the amazonian squirrel). It was a very nice way to wind down the evening.

The next day is the start of our boat trip so this ends Part 1 of the Amazon.
Stay tuned for more!