We had a flight scheduled for Manaus later in the afternoon of our first day, so Jason and I set out to do a couple hours of sight seeing in Salvador before heading to the airport. We took the famous city elevator from lower town to upper town, and took in the view of the harbor. Next, we walked the cobblestone streets of the city admiring the beautiful cathedrals and quaint shops and restaurants. We stopped in at a small café for lunch before setting off to the airport.
I don't know about you, but to me this statue looks like a giant bra:
We arrived at the Salvador airport around 1pm and waited for our boarding call at 3pm. 3pm rolled around and there was no boarding call. 4pm rolled around no call. 5pm, no call. 6pm, finally we could get on the plane. We were going to miss our next connection, so we had to get book on a later flight, putting us into Manaus at 3am. Long story short, it was a tiring day. However, I did get some good people watching in during my 14-hour stint in an airport. My most common observation, you ask? Brazil is a very lascivious culture (granted, this may be due to the fact that I have been in countries like India and Ghana, where holding hands in public is considered a sin). That aside, all the rumors I heard about the very sensual society of Brazil seemed to be true. I have never seen so much PDA, every woman I saw was wearing 4-inch heels and had a sultry sway to her hips, and every advertisement seemed to include a naked body. They really seemed to embrace sexuality, and surprisingly this free-spirited mentality was a welcomed change in comparison to my experiences in previous countries.
Day 2
We got into Manaus at 3am, and our tour agent was there to greet us. She was a plump and cute twenty-something, who immediately calmed my fears about being scammed. She took us to a small hostel and we gratefully discovered there was a time-change and it was actually 2am. We were happy to get an extra hour of sleep before having to wake up at 8am to be transported to our Amazon lodge. My happiness soon changed when we were guided to our rooms. With no air conditioning, no hot water, brown stains all over the sheets, and huge cracks in the wall, I would’ve been happy to get out of there an hour sooner. This actually ended up happening as Jason did not change the time on his phone, so we got up at 6 am instead of 7 am. So after approximately four hours of sleep, we were up yet again walking the deserted streets of Manaus before we had to meet with our tour guide. This small town was very cute, and was a home to a very famous opera house.
After paying our tour agent, we loaded into a van with our tour guide and another set of tourists. They were from Japan, working in Brazil. We became fast friends and it was a lot fun to be able to recall our experiences from Japan with them. We arrived at a small harbor and loaded onto a speedboat. After about a five minute ride we had reached the Meeting of the Waters. This is where the Rio Negro and the Amazon river meet. The black waters of the Rio Negro do not mix with the muddy waters of the Amazon, resulting in an unusual convergence. Right upon our arrival to this sight, we saw a herd of the famous pink dolphins.
We arrived at our lodge after about a two-hour boat ride and took a tour of the premises. The Amazon Riverside Hotel is composed of a number of small cottages right on the Amazon River. Its backyard is the Amazon Rainforest, and almost immediately upon our arrival our guide, Alex, told us that he had seen a number of jaguars right from the hotel. We were really in the middle of the jungle. We sat down to a delicious lunch, and after a couple hours of rest, we were off to do our excursions in the Amazon.
Our first activity was piranha fishing. We took a small canoe and meandered through shallow waters off the main river, to get to the prime spots. Not five minutes after putting our poles in the water, did we start getting bites. Our guide caught one first, and displayed their razor sharp teeth. He then went on to show us the scar from his arm from where he had been bit by one years before. I kept a 2 feet radius from the piranhas at all times.
After fishing for a couple hours, we took a fifteen-minute journey down the river to a rubber plantation. The funniest man I have ever seen owned the plantation. We walked into the forest, and he cut a small nick into a tree. A white glue like substance began pouring out of the tree. He collected the latex, and then took us back to his work station. On top of a smoking volcano-esqe mound of dirt, he poured the latex on a spinning stick. It quickly hardened, and felt exactly like the rubber we know at home. He then went on to make us a big bouncey ball. It was really cool.
Hot water only runs in the lodge from 6-7, so we began to make our way back. On our ride, we saw tons of the pink dolphins swimming along. They make sounds very similar to cows, which made me do a double take a few times. Dinner was at 7, and they gave us a delicious spread of authentic Brazilian food, the piranhas we caught that day, and plenty of fresh fruit. The fruit in the Amazon was absolutely the best I have had anywhere.
After dinner we when on a nighttime caimen spotting trip. After traveling a couple miles down the river we cut off the engines, and shined spotlights across the water. Before I knew it, one of the guides had reached down into the water and snatched up a baby caimen. The guide explained to us that the caimans get up to about 9 feet long, and teeming in the waters of the Amazon. He told us a story of how recently a caimen took down a horse at a local village. I was really glad this one was just a baby.
Annecdote:
Fun fact: Did you know the Amazon River contains 1/5 of the Earth’s freshwater and that one in every five life forms is found in the Amazon rainforest?
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