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.
