amazon day 3

On our last full day in the amazon, we traveled by boat to see the encounter of the waters.  Two rivers meet together and there is a distinct line between the waters since they do not mix. One is the Rio Negro, or the black river and the other they call the white water (which is more clay color).  These two rivers are different densities, different temperatures, and move at different speeds and all these factors prevent them from actually mixing. In the clay colored water, there are grey dolphins and we saw a lot of them when we got there.

Afterwards we traveled along the amazon river to reach a restaurant where we planned to have lunch. It was amazing going down the river. We saw so many homes that unfortunately had to be abandoned because of the floods.  We did see many homes there and I just couldn’t imagine living there.Our tour guide said that there are anacondas & aligators in this region and that anacondas will eat dogs, chickens, even small children.

After arriving at our destination, we walked out to see these giant lilypads. It’s hard to tell from the pictures but these lilypads were huge! Two people could probably sit on one together.  This placed used to be filled with lilypads but because of the floods many of them died.

After eating lunch, we took some fruit and fed the monkeys! There were a ton of baby monkeys and they are the cutest little things ever. All you had to do was stick your hand out with some fruit and they would come right to you and just grab it out of your hand. It was so fun to be able to feed baby monkeys! 

Afterwards, we left to visit a little house on the river that had an anaconda.  It was such a tiny little wooden house on some planks over the river. We stopped our boat right on the house, and only a few people could go out on the house at a time in fear it would sink or break.  This young boy, probably around the age of 14/15 came out with a anaconda.  They had barely caught it like 3 days ago, but apparently they always keep an anaconda in the house to eat the rodents and stuff. It literally lives cage free in the tiny little house with them, a wild anaconda..They keep it for a little bit and then put it back in the wild and get another one.  It was insane. So the boy let us all hold the anaconda while he held the neck. (except jordan insisted he hold the anaconda all by himself and he did..he even put it next to his face. I about died.) The family also had a pet sloth, and I was so excited to hold the sloth! Ever since we saw sloths in Costa Rica I have loved them. They are so cute. 

Afterwards, we came back and rested for a while. After dinner, we had our goodbye party as a group. It was a ton of fun, but i’m sad to be leaving Manaus. 

I am so grateful for this opportunity that we had. I’m so grateful to have been able to get to know the country that I have loved my whole life. I never saw Brazil outside of the South. It’s a whole different world up here.  Brazil has so much to offer. So much natural beauty. I really would love my mom to be able to see all this..this is her country and she has no idea what it’s like besides the south that she’s used to. Brazil is so amazing. I wouldn’t trade these two months for anything. I have seen so many incredible things that I will never forget. I’ve been able to do things I never thought I would. I’m just so grateful. I am so happy that Jordan and I were able to do this. We love Brazil so much.

meet francisco and washington

Washington is our tour guide from Guiana (near suriname).  He is 55 years old and says that he has been working since age 9.  He married at age 15 to a 14 year old girl. They had two children together, but unfortunately she died giving birth to the second one.  At this time, he was working in the mineral minds and was not there for her when she died.  He currently claims to have two wives in Guiana (who aren’t technically his wives, he just calls them that), he has one “wife” in Manaus that he visits from time to time, and he has his current “wife” that lives in the village near our hotel where he lives. He says he has been with her for 6 years, the longest he’s ever been with any of them. 

He told us a lot of stories about when he worked in the mineral mines.  He said that people would literally just drop them off in these mines and leave them there. He said that there was a lot of prostitution that occurred there, and that girls would come to “work” in the mines, but just actually to sleep with the workers.  He said that the people would offer the girls a sum to sleep with them, and one person even offerred a girl 2 KILOS of gold for one night. The girls actually got rich being prostitutes, many of them stayed and there were the smart girls who ran away with their money. The ones that stayed most likely died.  He said that in the mines he got Malaria 18x and that in his village he has gotten it 4 more times. That’s 22 times of Malaria.. 

When he lived in Guiana, he lived with tribes and he talks a lot about the indians.  He really knows a lot about their lifestyle.  He said that the men typically sleep all day, and hunt/fish all night while the women actually have the hard work of taking care of everything and all the children at home. 

He talked about these indians that were found in the amazon that Vanessa had mentioned to us.  They are very tall, like all 6 ft, and blonde hair, blues, white skin.  They are also cannibals. Cannabalism is not uncommon to the indians, but Washington said that nowadays you don’t see it as much.  Many indians believe that when you eat a piece of another person who inherit their strengths and that’s why they will eat prisoner’s of war. It’s crazy to think that people are still finding new tribes in the amazon that are completely uncivilized. 

He said that he came to the hotel to work as a carpenter, but since he speaks English he was hired on to work as a guide. He said that he also works doing domestic housework,  making pizza, anything and everything. 

Many of our hotel workers live in the villages near our hotel in the jungle.  Because of the floods, many of them lost everything-their homes, their jobs.  The hotel was closed for 3 months & they were all out of work. These workers only make about 10R a day, or $5 dollars. It’s really sad but that’s life here.  

Francisco.

We had heard many stories about Francisco prior to actually meeting him. Apparently, he had eaten into the screen of the boys room and ate their wooden chair. Crazy bird. Franciscos name is actually Cabecao (big head), but the boys gave him the nickname of Francisco.  He is about 8 years old, and Washington has known him since he was a baby.  Francisco had a “wife” (parrots mate for life) who was eaten by a boa constrictor and Francisco was so sad for about 3 months after that. I asked Washington how he could possibly know that and he said that there was a boa constrictor in the tree for about a week next to the hotel, and one night at about 3AM they heard Francisco’s wife screeching because she was being eaten. Now Francisco is a little crazy.  He hates loud noises and a lot of movement so when some of the girls were exercising upstairs, he freaked out and flew and bit two of them on their ankles. This was AFTER he apparently was pacing around with his beak rubbing the floor. Weird bird! He is not the nicest bird. But he loves Washington. He goes to him because he knows his voice. Washington hand feeds him and snuggles with him. It’s really cute. We met Francisco the day after we arrived  and he was entertaining to have around. He made me want to have a parrot because they have such a funny personality..but I don’t think I would want an animal that lived to be 70 years old. :P

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. 

amazon day 1 part 2

Later in the afternoon on our first day,  we went fishing for piranhas. We got on the boat and we went about an hour to a part of the river where there were “swamp like” places.  He attached the boat to a tree and we fished near the trees and bush.  We were given sticks with a line attached, and some meat. We were told to splash the stick around really hard in the water in order to attract the piranhas.  

After a few minutes, people started catching them one by one.  The red piranhas, known as the Caju Piranhas, were the one’s we most caught.  For those of you that do not know, Caju means “cashew”, and the cashew nut comes from the Caju fruit.  The Caju fruit is red, and therefore these piranhas have the same color as the Caju fruit. Apparently, those are the most dangerous because they live in packs of 200-300 and they can leave a person in bones within 5 minutes.  After we would catch one, our guide would unhook them and show us their teeth.  He said that one bite could take a person’s finger off easily. Yikes.

Jordan ended up catching 5 piranhas, but I caught the biggest. So I think we are pretty equal :P They kept the best piranhas in order to cook them...the people here like the taste of the piranhas.

After it began to be dark, we saw this..

Here is an excerpt from my journal that I wrote about that sunset.

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful sunset, nor do I think one exists, than the one I saw yesterday over the rio negro of the amazon river.  There aren’t much words to describe it. Honestly, it didn’t feel real. Literally, there were rays of orange, blue, pink. Distinct rays that you could point out, not a mesh of colors that a sunset usually portrays. Yesterday felt like a dream. At that moment, I wished that everyone in the world had a chance to see what I was seeing. I thought about the fisherman that live in houseboats along the river, do they realize how beautiful this is? or has it become something they take for granted? Jordan was sitting on the opposite side of the boat. I looked back at him and he waved at me to come sit next to him. I wish I could have remained in that moment forever. Sitting in boat, watching the sun go down on the Amazon River in Brazil, with the love of my life. My heart was full of joy.”

It was breathtaking and amazing.

When it finally got dark, we went searching for caimans.  You can see them in the dark because their eyes appear red.  Our tour guide would literally lean over the boat and try to grab them. He was unsuccessful, but the boat next to us caught one so we parked next to it and all took turns holding the caimans. I thought I was pretty tough at that moment, holding a caiman..but wait until you see the pictures of me holding a wild anaconda..yup.

I would say our first day in the jungle was definitely a success.

:)

amazon day 1 part 1

It’s really hard for me find the words to describe our trip to Manaus. It was unbelievable. Since June when we came to Brazil, we have done countless amazing activities. We’ve seen so many incredible things. We’ve visited really awesome places. But none of those compare to our trip to Manaus. The 4 days we spent literally in the jungle, has no comparison to the rest of our time in Brazil.  Everything we have witnessed so far has been amazing and wonderful, but most had to do with man-made things such as churches, historical sites, buildings, etc. Nature, here in the Amazon, is what God created. Even though man has done some incredible things and created amazing things, in the end it cannot compare to what God has created. Here in the Amazon, it’s like you can feel something incredibly spiritual about nature. It’s hard to explain...but I’ll do my best.

On our way to catch our boat to get our hotel, we passed the brand new Manaus Temple. It literally sits on the banks of the Rio Negro, close to where we got our boat to cross.  Vanessa asked our driver to pull over so we could walk around for a few minutes.  We walked around the temple grounds and I felt really lucky to be able to see the temple here. 

We caught our boat to take us across the river, which was about a 30-40 minute boat ride. Our hotel has barely just reopened up after being closed for 3 months.  The amazon river has risen between 25-30 METERS, and many places were completely flooded..including our hotel.  The river spends 6 months rising, and 6 months going down, there is no tide. So during the wet season, it flooded REALLY bad.  Our tour guide said that the last time it rose very high was in the 1950s and this time was worse.

Here is an excerpt from my journal after that first day.

“After getting settled, Jordan and I sat on the dock. Our huts are over some water where some caiman live. We sat down and we were both silent. After a few minutes, Jordan turned on some music which is customary for us, to sit down and listen to music together.. But he quickly turned it off. It didn’t feel right to ruin the moment with music.

I wish I could describe my first feelings here in the jungle. There aren’t words that could suffice. I’m just really grateful for nature. At that moment, I could finally understand why it is that people have ventured off into the jungle. I could finally understand why people attempt to be one with nature. There is something really spiritual about being secluded from the world, literally in the jungle.”

amazon theater.

today we left for the airport at 3:30 AM to catch our 6 o'clock flight to Manaus.

After leaving our  bags in the hotel, we ventured off to visit the Amazon Theatre.

We were able to take a tour of it, and it was so amazing.

It was built in the late 1800s with the intent of creating a "paris of the amazon".

During this era, Manaus was booming due to the rubber industry and there were many wealthy people here in the area. The Opera House was built out of materials shipped from Portugal, Italy, France and Brazil's own resources as well. It's amazing!

Tonight we were able to see an Opera performed by the Korean Foundation that was really beautiful. It was just amazing being in that theater, knowing it is well over 100 years old. Knowing that it was built in the middle of the amazon. There is just such a feeling of pride in that building. It's one of the prettiest buildings I've ever been inside & seeing an actual opera being performed in that building was amazing.

Apparently, over a spand of 90 years, the Opera house was closed down and there was not one performance. Fortunately, nowadays there are performances held there and we got to watch one!

Being in the theater, you felt like an aristocrat or royalty or something..

Since they don't allow flash photography, most of my pictures of the inside are SUPER dark. So I pulled this picture off the internet to show you a better idea of what it's like inside.

This picture hardly gives it justice. The Opera House is in a renaissance style, with lots of detail and is breathtaking. This picture is taken facing the back. The ceilings are painted beautifully and so is the front of the stage.

Here are some more pictures:

sunday in fortaleza.

today we attended church,

then walked around the center of town before heading back to our hotel.

We visited the cathedral again since many of the group were not able to see inside yesterday.

They were holding some sort of church services so it was interesting to see :)

We also visited this fort that was across from the cathedral. It looks like it is now a military base. It was really neat. We've been able to visit various forts since we've been here, and since we are in "fortaleza" (which means fort or fortress) we couldn't pass up going to a fort, while in fortaleza :P

We then had lunch with the fitzgibbons, tawyna, shawndeen, cristina and michelle. 

On our way back, we stopped at the pier again to see if we could see any dolphins. But we didn't have good luck today.

It was a beautiful sunday in fortaleza!

Now we have many many things to get done before traveling to MANAUS tomorrow!
(I just got the chills while typing that!)

fortaleza, ceara.

on Friday morning, we boarded a plane headed to our next destination:

FORTALEZA.

Fortaleza is the state capital of Ceara in the northeast & is the 5th largest city in Brazil.

On our first day exploring Fortaleza,

we went to the Ponte dos Ingleses to see the dolphins off the pier.

We were lucky to be able to see a few of them, even jumping out of the water!

After, we visited the Cathedral Metropolitana de Fortaleza.

This cathedral took 40 years to build, starting in 1938 & was inaugurated in 1978.

This church was amazing! We have visited several catholic churches since our time here, and this was unlike any of the ones we've seen. It was obviously much more modern since the other ones we saw were built around the 1600s.  Because it was a more modern church, it was not in the baroque style like all the other ones we've seen. It was much more simple inside. It reminded me much of the inside of a mormon temple which is so beautiful, yet simple. It had beige walls with white trims, marble flooring, and everything was very clean and taken care of. However, all throughout the inside were these gorgeous stain glass windows that were breath taking. Every window represented different saints, prophets, events, etc. So the church was kept more "simple" in order to not take away from the beauty of the stain glass windows. 

The outside of the cathedral appeared very Gothic like. 

These windows FILLED the cathedral. 

After visiting the Cathedral, we hopped across the street to visit the Mercado Central which was a 5 story market place! It was amazing, and we spent about an hour looking around and doing some shopping. Embroidery is very big here in Fortaleza, so we stalked up on some towels, placemats, table runners, etc.

After lunch, we visited the Dragao do Mar Cultural Center. There were various museums and exhibits open and we were able to walk through and see a lot of interesting things.  Since it is Luiz Gonzagas 100th birthday this year, a lot of the museums/exhibits have put him as a focus so this exhibit was based on his life living in the sertao.

This is what a typical "sertanejo"'s house looks like. Even when we visited the sertao, people still live like this today.