amazon day 2

Today was one of the happiest, most thrilling days of my life! I fulfilled one of my dreams, in the coolest way possible. I have always wanted to swim with dolphins, and I did. We swam with wild pink dolphins in the amazon river. 

Now, when most people swim with dolphins, they are usually with trained dolphins and their trainers in a closed environment.  Well we literally stopped at a persons house, got out on their dock and jumped in the water and swam with the wild dolphins! It was insane!

So this family has been feeding the dolphins so they always stay around their home.  We got into the water, and one of the sons stood in the water and would slap a fish in the water and feed the dolphin.  He encouraged us all to touch them and when I was scared at first he literally just grabbed my hand and put my hand right on the dolphin. It was the most amazing thing I’ve ever felt! These dolphins are smart.  They are so powerful but they knew to be careful while grabbing the fish. They could have easily bit him but they don’t. I don’t know why I was even scared at first, it’s just that these animals are so strong and powerful and I was scared they’d think my hand was a fish or something! haha. But they are so smart. 

One of the dolphins, Sophia, was so beautiful and really white with a pink hue. She is also pregnant. There were about 6 dolphins I’d say that kept swimming around and eating the fish.  We could feel them under our feet and swimming past us. 

After we fed them, we were allowed to swim further out into the river to swim with them. We were told that as long as the dolphins are there, the piranhas don’t come near you. So there we were, swimming in the amazon river with the pink dolphins. We could easily touch them and they definitely weren’t scared of us or anything. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.

After swimming with the dolphins, we went to meet an indian tribe. We were greeted by their “medicine man” who is also the chief I belief. 

We were led inside where we saw many more indians, all in their traditional attire. Even though all the women were topless and painted instead, it was completely normal and didn’t feel at all strange. We were going into THEIR home and we of course had to accept their culture.

They demonstrated many dances for us for different occassions. It was really cool to see all of the dances.  They believe that their God is still alive today, so many of the dances are for him of course.  There is also a dance that they do that lasts 24 hours.

At the end, the majority of us danced with the indians. It was really cool to see everyone having a good time.  Afterwards, we spent some time looking at their jewlery that they sell and I held a little baby girl. She was so cute & her name meant “moon” in their dialect.

Afterwards, we came back for lunch, rested and headed off again to visit a rubber museum.  During the late 1800s, early 1900s (when the theater was built) Manaus had a lot of money due to the rubber industry. Many wealthy people were coming in order to make money off rubber.  We visited a persons house where rubber was made. The owner of the “plantation” lived in this amazing yellow house while the workers lived in small huts outside. The workers were required to bring in 50 kilograms of rubber each week. Many of them would get sick and they had to continue to work. If you didn’t make enough, you’d be required to pay the boss there. Basically they were treated as slaves. If anyone tried to leave, they were killed and their body was left out in the forest.  In the end, the boss got sick and the workers all revolted against him and burned him to death. They then took his daughter and she was never seen again.