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September 7th
Last night a few of us tried sleeping on the deck to be able to catch the sunset and also the ship pulling into Salvador. No such luck though, we got rained on. We were scheduled to pull in at 7am so I woke up 6:30am, but when I got up, we were already docked. It takes a while for the students to be let off the ship. First, Brazilian officials needed to come onto the ship and clear it to allow the passengers off. Second, we need to have a "diplomatic briefing" in which someone from Brazil came on and talked to us about social, educational and political problems in the country. We all thought it was going to be more tips on travel and safety but it turned out to be more like a class session, and when you are sitting in the port of a new country waiting to get off the ship, class is the last thing you want to sit through. Lastly, we were called to the faculty staff lounge in the front of the ship to pick up our passports. After all of this, around 10:30, we were finally allowed off the ship. Ari, Lacey, Slap Shot, Lizzy (the girl who organized the Amazon trip) and I left together.
Salvador in split between an "upper" city and a "lower" city. This is due to the cliff that separates the port area from the actual city. The lower city is just a marina, a few markets and buildings, whereas the upper city is what most would call the actual city. There is a huge elevator connecting the lower and upper city. The cost of the elevator is 5 cents each way. We got up to the upper city and the opening to the elevator dumped us into a very nice square. And when I say very nice, I am really talking about the old buildings with great architecture, not the homeless people and stray dogs. I am taking a history of architecture class and we learned about the different forms of architecture of Salvador before we arrived so I was able to compare the different buildings which was actually very neat. Salvador is considered a world heritage site because of all the unique Portuguese architecture and culture that still exists.
From this initial square, we had decisions to make, which way to explore the city. We had to be back at the ship at 3pm to meet our Amazon group to go to the airport so we didn't have all the time in the world. We went in the direction that seemed would be "more fun" and stumbled upon a parade. Today was Brazil's independence day so this parade had army, police, firefighters, marching bands and much more parading down the streets. The sidewalks were packed with people. I wanted to get my video camera out and video some of it, and did so for only a few moments in fear that someone would grab it from me. There were food stands everywhere but the smells of the food were not very appealing, and actually started to give me a headache. In one of our pre-port meetings, a Brazilian girl scared us saying that some of these stands selling meat were actually cat, so I stayed away from those. We hit a dead end and walked about a mile back to the elevator and took another route. This route had more gift shops and SAS students.
Ari and Lacey went up to two cutouts of Brazilian people to get their picture taken and out of nowhere a Brazilian women came up and put hats on them and was showing them different poses to make. Their thought was "crap now we have to pay". We hit a bunch of different shops and things, all selling paintings and clothing. Ari, Slap Shot, and I bought a painting of Brazilian Capoeira, which is a famous martial arts dance. The original price of the painting was 50 Real, but I got it down to 30 through bargaining.
We hit a post office and money exchange place, where we exchanged a little more money. We bought some stamps for postcards and such, but they were 1 Real each and every postcard needs 3 stamps. I bought 6 stamps to send two postcards and it cost me 4 U.S. dollars. We decided to head back to the ship because we also needed time to buy hammocks for our Amazon trip down in the market of the lower city. My head got pretty burnt because I still hardly had any hair at all. We took the elevator back down and found two hammock stands. Original prices were 60 Real each. Oh, and the exchange rate is about 1.60 Real = $ 1 U.S. We used our leverage of threatening to go to the other hammock stand to get the prices down to 30 Real each, so about $20. We thought this was a fairly good price because the hammocks were huge and a heavy material. The group of us got all different colors, I got orange. We made it back to the ship in one piece and took one last shower before our 4 days of Amazon adventure.
At the terminal by the ship there were tons of people holding up signs for taxis and other touristy things to do. Our group of 12 got a taxi to the airport for 10 Real each, or $ 7 U.S. The SAS people on the ship told us the airport was 45 minutes- 1 ½ hour away depending on traffic. We left at 4 for our 7:30 pm flight to leave plenty of time. It only took us a half hour to get there so we had a lot of down time in the airport. I finally got my phone card working and was able to call Courtney and my parents. Nobody was home so I had to leave a message. We got on the plane no problem and I immediately fell asleep. This flight took us to Rio de Janeiro in the Southern part of Brazil. I was able to see the Christ the Redeemer statue out the window of the plane which was very cool even though it was very tiny because of the distance. Our next plane to Manaus, the main city in the Amazonia region of Brazil got delayed about an hour so we were not set to get to the Amazon until 2:30 am now.
When we got to Manaus, our tour guide was nowhere to be found and he said he would be holding a sign so we would no who he was. After ten minutes or so he found us, he had gone to the wrong gate. We threw our bags in a van and climbed into a bus to take us to our boat. We got to the boat around 4 or 4:30 am. We got on a set up the hammocks and took a short nap until sunrise. At the dock there were more stray dogs and even a few hookers. It was not too hot out. We finally made it to the Amazon.
September 8th
We all took a short nap before sunrise after we boarded our river boat. The boat took us out to "the meeting of the waters". There are two main rivers in the Amazon region, the Negro (black) River, and the Amazon River. The Amazon River is a milky coffee color whereas the black river is, well, black. These two rivers meet but don't mix which makes for a very definitive line called the meeting of the waters. Because we saw this at sunrise there was not much light, but we could still see the color definition.
From the meeting of the waters we headed up a piece of the Amazon River. There were a few houses floating on the water along the shores. There were also houses up on high stilts along the shores. The Amazon River is in the dry season right now, and we could see the water lines on trees along the shore that mark how high the river actually can get. These marks were at least 10-15ft above the water we were sailing in which is amazing. It was neat to see these small houses on the water with full families in them. What do they do for food, income, and pleasure? We had breakfast on the boat which consisted of eggs, bread, jam, butter, and fresh cut fruit. We were able to spot a few parrots and monkeys from the boat but it was impossible to get pictures of them because they would either blend in too much or be moving too fast.
The boat had lots of bottled water and soda for us to drink. We were warned in port not to "drink the water you poop in". Basically this means, don't drink or swim in the river because on the boat when you flush the toilet, you can guess where it goes. It is amazing to see how much waste, oil, and food there was in the river. People have no care to what they throw in. All leftover food was tossed right in, even coconuts and things that would take weeks to dissolve.
From this small stretch of river we emptied into the huge Amazon river. More water flows through this river than any other river in the world. We continued to sail towards a small grouping of houses where we were to stop and see the famous Amazon water lilies. We docked, and walked about ½ mile into the jungle on a raised platform to a swampy area where we saw tons of water lilies. Only in this place could these be seen. We saw a few birds and such along the walk. The walkway was on high stilts because of how high the river will rise during the rainy season. The mosquitoes were not bad thus far, mostly because we were constantly moving. Our guide told us in the 7 years he had been working on the two rivers, he has had malaria 3 times and dengue fever twice. After suffering from malaria a third time, he learned of a herb that has stopped other people from getting malaria and he got it and made a tea, and has not had malaria since.
After our visit to the water lilies, we walked through the small "store" where this family had a bunch of hand made souvenirs such as blow guns and such. I did not have any Brazilian currency so I was not able to buy anything. This was our only adventure on the Amazon River, and from here we traveled back into the black river to start our tour. The reason for traveling on the black river is because compared to the Amazon, there are basically no mosquitoes and people tend to enjoy themselves more.
We sailed into the early afternoon and stopped at a small beach along the shore for lunch. The ship's crew grilled fish on the beach for lunch. We went for our first swim in the river. It was very scary even though the guide assured us it was very safe. We jumped off of our 2 story boat into the river which was a lot of fun. After the fish was prepared, we loaded up and continued up the river. The food was good except some had a funny taste and I assume this is from the water. Though we drank bottled water, food was prepared in water from the tap (river water).
A couple more hours of sailing we were far away from modern civilization. We sailed off the main river back into a few different channels and docked the boat. The guides went to find a tree for tree climbing the next day, so we got ff and explored the jungle a bit. We did not go far but made our own entertainment. The guides got back after and hour or so and we loaded up in the three small boats to go piranha fishing! They took us on a short tour of the small channels around before fishing. We didn't spot any wildlife other than birds.
We stopped the boats and began fishing. We had bamboo poles with a 6 ft piece of line, a sinker, and a hook attached. The poles were very simple. I ended up getting my line caught on something and just used fishing line on a spool to fish. We used cut up raw pieces of meat as bait. Together, my boat caught 8 fish. I was the only one who didn't catch a piranha, but rather a catfish. I was disappointed because I can fish for those back home. The piranhas were not as aggressive as I thought. We caught white piranha, and the red piranha in the Amazon river are apparently more aggressive. We headed back to the boat at dark. The mosquitoes were pretty bad tonight so we all lathered up in bug spray. We all put long pants and sleeves on and departed to go alligator hunting.
The main guide, Fabio, was in my boat. There were 4 guys on the trip and 8 girls so naturally us guys stuck together so the girls wouldn't slow us down. Fabio used a spot light to spot the eyes of the alligators and then drove the boat up slowly and caught one with his bare hands! He uses the light to blind the gator and as long as you stay behind the light they cannot see you, though they can sense you still so some will swim away. We held the gator in our boat, just with one hand right behind the head. It was almost as if this paralyzed the animal and it didn't move. The gators were only about 3 feet long, so its not like Fabio was the crocodile hunter and wrestled with them. Fabio changed boats and caught a second gator for the girls. We also held this one in our boat so we could take them back and take pictures with them at the main boat. On our way back, Slap shot turned one over on its back and laid it across his lap, ignoring my warnings not to because it would feel threatened and panic. Sure enough he did and it panicked and luckily he tossed it overboard. Any idea how scary it is almost having an alligator dropped to the floor of your small motor boat in the Amazon where jumping overboard is equally as scary because who knows what is in that water? Well I do. We made it back to the main boat with the one original alligator and snapped some pictures holding it before we let it go.
We ate dinner at 10pm. We had cheese rice, tomatoes and cucumbers in vinaigrette, and a chicken potato stew. I didn't eat much because it al tasted funny. After a long first day we went to bed.
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