Pink Dolphins, Trees and “The Quicker Picker-Upper”

 February 17, 2012:  I stood at a bus stop at 6am this morning so that I could make the 1 hour journey it was going to take to join 3 grown kids wanting to climb trees and swim with pink dolphins.  Just because I was writing it up for an internet travel site, didn’t mean I too didn’t want to do it.

I learned when living in Washington State that when you are at a bus stop, you must raise your hand in order to get the attention of the bus driver for them to stop.  This morning, this basic rule was ignored so I reverted to running in the middle of the street trying to get him to stop.  He looked right into my eyes even…and kept going.  I have never heard of bus rage but I think I got a little case of it this morning.  If I had a bazooka I might have just used it on the bus…the innocent would have just been collateral damage.

While on a bus that decided to pick me up, we passed someone freshly hit by a car.  A pool of blood was leaving his oval capsule forming a river, pooling about 3 feet away.  Someone placed a newspaper in the pool of blood so that it didn’t look as awful, as he was motionless with his eyes closed as he laid in front of a car.  Where is Bounty, “the quicker picker-upper” when you need it, I so inappropriately thought.  After seeing this, I had no concerns on being late…there are more important things in life than climbing trees or swimming with dolphins.

I was told a few days ago that feeding pink dolphins has become illegal due to it not being good for them interacting with humans.  But, I must admit that feeding these mutated looking dolphins can be so much fun!  Well, I didn’t actually feed them…someone else did and I just watched – next to him.  I was told backpacker lost her finger doing this sort of trip from the woman at my hostel.  This is why it was important for me when they got a little aggressive going for the food to have one hand in front of my personal “goods” just in case it wanted a miniature toothless sardine to snack on.

The tree climbing today was a nice different, yet more expensive way to climb a tree.  After climbing to a branch about 70 feet (just a guess) above the forest floor I stood on it and enjoyed the first time I “safely” climbed a tree.  I must say that when I was little…tree climbing was never so complicated with all of the ropes and metal pieces connected to my body. 

When I was getting organized on the branch, preparing for my decent…I noticed that the man who descended before me had some complications once on the ground.  Then it happened…to help pull him up he used my rope almost pulling me off the branch.  Fortunately I was locked in, though nothing would have happened except for me getting pulled off and causing me to hang there.  This made me think that if this company was not so completely entrenched into the safety of their customers, there could one day a need for Bounty, “the quicker picker-upper.”

Ninja of the jungle

February 14, 2012:  The obvious thing with observing wildlife is that you can only place yourself in good location and hope for the best.  You cannot be guaranteed to see anything, unless of course you visit a local zoo.  With this said, I went on a 4 day Jungle tour a few hours outside Manaus but unfortunately didn’t see much wildlife besides some pink dolphins, fascinating spiders and a new species of Toucan. 

During the hikes and boat trips exploring the area, my guide was like a ninja of the jungle as he would whirl around his machete; cutting, dicing, decapitating and maiming almost anything in his path.  Fish, trees, plants and even the spiders felt his cold steel if they crossed his path.  Staying at an eco-lodge with solar power and such, you would think that the guides would also be at least a tiny bit eco-friendly.

Though my guide seemed to know an ample amount of what the jungle provides for survival…I did one day question his knowledge about the medicinal plants of the Jungle.  When he found out that another tourist and myself was suffering from some sort of stomach ailment, he pulled out his trusty machete and scrapped some bark off one of the trees…making some drinkable concoction with it. 

Not even 1 minute after I drank it, I saw the guy who drank his a few minutes prior to me make a dash to the edge of the deck, violently vomiting.  “Oh noooo,” I thought, maybe my guide scrapped the bark off the wrong tree or maybe he gave us too much?!  He didn’t even ask me for my weight, age, shoe size, previous health conditions – nothing.  And here I just drank something he hands me without even knowing what type of tree it came from!  Seconds slowly ticked away as I was bracing myself for my body’s turn to reject this root…which thankfully never came.  My guide’s explanation about the other tourist was that he didn’t eat enough breakfast.  Today, I am very glad that I am one of those people who capitalize on all-you-can-eat breakfasts. 

When I was piranha fishing, I ended up catching the most amazing looking sardine – not realizing until I grabbed it, that sardines in the Amazon have fangs.  I would have passed it to my guide to take out the hook if I knew prior to grabbing it.
 

I was invited back to this lodge as a guest to see it again when the water level is higher.  I am hoping that I can take the owner up on this offer in a month or two and I also hope that he realizes that it might be hard to make me leave.

The Gang of Amazonia

February 9, 2012:  Again I jumped on another riverboat, with this time being for 3 days as I made it further up the Amazon River to Manaus.  I was clearly much more relaxed arriving at the dock about 1 ½ hours before departure and didn’t even buy my ticket till I got there.  Once on the boat I carefully chose my hammock neighbors who ended up being perfect companions for the duration of the trip.  One was a mother and her 2 children and the others were a couple in their 20’s.

The boat I was on was well equipped for those traveling with electronics due to all of the power outlets scattered throughout the vessel.  The cell phone seemed to have turned everyone into zombies - standing silently next to one of the many outlets, as they charged the phones so they can continue to talk to everyone but those on the boat.  Remembering my phone addiction that I had in the past, I am really glad that I no longer use one at the moment. 

Fortunately for me I didn’t have to fight those with their phones for access to one of the power outlets so that I could charge my iPod, since I didn’t need it.  I was lucky enough to be on the floor that played music for the hearing impaired from the wee hours of the morning to the wee hours of the night.  At the end of the trip I was almost certain that I lost some hearing.  I wanted to plug my ears every time I passed in front of the speaker putting out decibels as loud as a jackhammer, but I had a high school relapse being too cool to do so. 

The toilet situation was bad - much worse than Alter Do Chao and almost unbearable even before the ship left port.  A quite a few times when I entered the toilet on this trip there seemed to be terds from different people floating in the same pool.  Some were so large floating in the already brown river water; I couldn’t believe it even came out of a human hole. 

The problem is that when you enter a bathroom, is that you claim whatever is in that toilet when you leave - whether you did it or not…it is that simple.  You will be put to blame if someone see’s you go out and then enters the bathroom after you, so the only thing you can do is keep flushing as I did and hope for the best.  And, if your best doesn’t work…just lift up the seat and make it out of there fast so they think you just took a pee.  I might be use to public toilets by now, but there is no way I will add to a toilet with islands or mountains fecal matter - no way.

I had 6 kids attach themselves to me for the entire 3 day trip in which we formed the Gang of Amazonia.  From being an art and craft center to their English and Spanish teacher, it was really nice to be around them.  They were not just my Portuguese teachers or the source of a lot of my smiles, but they were also wonderful reminders of two kids who I haven’t seen for quite some time.

As I sat on the boat, I watched the cowboys of the wild, wild not so wild Amazon.  The houses on this stretch of the Amazon from Santarem to Manaus seemed to be the ranches of the waterway.  With the abundance of cattle here, there had to be a choice…trees, or cattle? – looking as if the cattle won.  This region was definitely more developed that my first days on the river, but still amazingly beautiful.

I took a direct hit to the head by a kamikaze...

February 3, 2012:  In Alter Do Chao I searched for a budget tour to Tapajos National Forest and I found someone selling a three day tour for 1/5^th the cost of other companies.  Paying this little, I expected nothing but bread, water and a ride to and from the National Forest, even though he was offering the same list of activities. 

A five hour boat ride down some river brought us to his house, which was in dire need of some cleaning.  The toilets here were completely nasty…with fecal matter that climbed up the porcelain and was strong enough to cling there for 3 entire days.  I cleaned the hammock area, but I don’t do fecal matter and I don’t do bathrooms that would cause me to evict 1 healthy sized cockroach, 4 frogs and an enormous amount of flying insects.

I think the ants in the Amazon are getting more and more ferocious the deeper I go in.  The fire ants attack from the ground and even from the trees as they leave almost cigarette sized burns on your body.  They made me doubt my love of nature last night when I laid down to go to bed, as my feet felt like they were on fire.  

Sitting at the kitchen table the other day, our guide’s wife was joining us in discussion and BAAM – she flips out her 47 year old grandma boob to feed her baby.  Being from the US I am not use to seeing someone’s wife’s exposed boob while eating.  I tried not to look, but it is when you try not to…you end up doing it.  This woman has her very own internal baby factory, whom has miraculously just popped out baby number 13 only 4, 5 or 6 months ago.  It is insane how she could have babies at that age without the assistance of medical technology.  This reinforces the need to play it safe even when my future wife is almost 50.

For one of our meals, tapioca was being served.  Picking up a piece I saw it had bite marks in it…perhaps someone didn’t care for it the other day.  As long it wasn’t the portion they spit out, I was okay with it, as I cut off that portion and ate the rest.  As I originally said, for the price I am paying, I am happy to have more than just bread.

In order to attempt to catch caiman, we had to leave our place at 3:00am taking a motorized long boat down a channel to a distant beach.  In route we were ambushed by flying fish…some fish reached at least 8 feet in height as they bounced off of us such as kamikaze pilots minus the explosion and certain death.  I could not stop laughing as I hid behind the long haired man and his girlfriend in front of me.  I laughed and laughed even after I took a direct hit to the forehead, almost knocking my headlamp off.

On the way there we caught 40 fish and on the way back we added another 50 fish plus the 1 that I tossed out to reward him for being still as I took his photo.  In total, we caught 91 fish that morning and didn’t even need to use a hook.

When I arrived I expected bread, water and a ride to and from the National Forest, but I left with so much more.  From the hikes in the forest, a boat trip to the mangroves and all the extra visits I made to the toilet from the food…this trip clearly exceeded my expectations.

Traveling up the Amazon River

January 30, 2012:  For the past 4 days I had my first trip of many more to come as I left Belem and headed up the Amazon River on a riverboat, taking myself and tons of tomatoes to my first stop, Santarem.  

I arrived over 5 hours early at the dock and I still somehow found myself next to where you don’t want to be…the bathrooms.  My mistake was that I hesitated for just a moment while there was confusion on where some people were setting up there hammock, squeezing me out.  It is numerically amazing on how many people they managed to fit in such a small area when we started and even more amazing on how many more hammocks they added after each stop to pick up cargo and more bodies.  It would have been nice for a little more room, but others had less than me so I shouldn’t complain about a set of questionably clean feet that were only 1 foot away from my face – I should be use to this by now you would think since my memorable bus trip to Jericoacoara.  As the days passed I mastered my ability to move like a monkey on all fours as I would go in between the hammocks to reach mine.

My goal on this boat trip was to think about important yet mind draining items and to study Spanish, preparing me for reentry into the Spanish speaking parts of South America.  But when traveling through what seemed to me, one greatest places in the world…I was overwhelmed with observing the way people live on Amazon River along with watching what was taking place to the right, left, above and below me, as we slowly moved upstream.

I didn’t see many animals besides 1 turtle, 2 parrots and what was inside my bag of animal crackers that I purchased before coming on the boat.  I didn’t expect much though so this was good.

One evening I was a bit startled when I heard kids screaming.  Our boat seemed to run into a wall of insects.  Beetles were falling from the sky as if they were being dropped like bombs landing on you and sticking like napalm…causing a panic amongst the children and those who suffer from beetle phobia.  The spiders that lived along the ceiling caught the mosquitoes and other smaller flying insects like commercial fisherman in there webbed nets filtering them from the wind, but the webs were not strong enough to handle the Beetle bombs

The days evaporated faster than anticipated.  Arriving at the dock in Santarem I was shocked.  The city seemed huge.  I am glad I didn’t look on Google Images at this destination, as I quickly left by taking a bus to the town named, Alter do Chao.