The perfect pit stop

March 29, 2012:  Time has gone by really fast the past few weeks.  I arrived in Georgetown with the intention of getting all of my documents and visas in order so that I can continue forward with my trip, attempting to do it here since English is their primary language.  I also need a little break from moving every few days to a new city as I did when I was in Brazil. 

I have been trying really hard to discover the beauty in Georgetown, but I am struggling to do so. Georgetown seems to be a noisy horn ridden dirty hole that is lurking with an oversupply of taxi drivers barraging you everywhere you go.  In mobs they stand in front of stores, restaurants, banks or anywhere there is a large group of potential victims.   

My hotel is above an extremely popular establishment called Jerries bar and restaurant.  It seems to be THE place to be for those with an aspiring career to one day become a professional Karaoke singer.  With 9 too many Karaoke nights a week, I am happy when those individuals in their 30’s to 40’s park their cars that resembles a teenagers vehicle more than a adults.  Equipped with huge speaker systems, the noise effectively drowns out the singers from 10pm to 4am - causing most car alarms in a 50 meter bass blast zone to chirp or scream in anger due to disturbing its sleep.  From the neon lights, to the creative stickers plastered on the vehicles windows, ranging from a giant window sized $100 US Dollar to ones saying such things as “Hard Cash” or “Gigolo” makes me feel sorry for the woman with such a questionable gene pool.

Perhaps the limited gene poor is why some women are in desperation mode to outsource, using the most horrid pickup lines, making me question their true profession even though they are dressed like Jackie Oassis.  A good example would be when I was walking down the street with a 1-liter of soda and a girl stops me to ask, ”Are you going to drink that alone?”  I smoothly stuttered, ”Ye – ye – ye- yes.”  Another time was when I was looking to cross a busy intersection in the middle of the day and a girl says, “Were you looking for me?”  Not meaning to sound rude, but I put my head down, quietly saying, “No, just the building over there.”  I am just not use to woman who use dialog straight out of a pornographic movie.

The parade field across from my hotel is home to a few handfuls of drunks that have occupied the bleachers.  The pleasant aroma in some way reminds me of an open pit toilet that nobody has bothered to cover.  The soil is being nourished daily by the natural fecal fertilizer deposited by the cats, rats, dogs and men that live here or just passing by…making this field probably the most fertile spots in the entire city of Georgetown and quite possibly the country. 

With all of these things to say about Georgetown, I still think this is a perfect pit stop for a week or two.  When you don’t feel pulled to do anything in a city but to walk and get something to eat and perhaps see a movie now and then, there couldn’t be a better place to relax and catch up with my writing. 

It has an engine, a tail, two wings and it flies...

 

March 17, 2012:  It has an engine, a tail, two wings and it flies…so technically it is a plane but metaphorically it was shight.  When it was my turn to board the plane for the one hour flight to Kaieteur Falls, the only available seat happened to be right next to our yellow toothed pilot.  Unfortunately…Unfortunately, I had no other choice but to sit up in front with the pilot.  Just because I look like a full grown adult on the outside doesn’t mean that I can’t feel like a full grown kid on the inside, as I sat behind the controls of the plane with a good sized smile.  “Why haven’t I ever requested the front seat before?” I thought.  For my future flights with Delta Airlines, I will have to make sure that when I do online check-in, to click on and to reserve the seat next to the pilot. Yes, there may not be as much leg room as the other seats on the plane…but, I will deal with it.

The highway in the sky today took us though a canyon and above the narrow rivers that snake through the ocean of trees, which resembled the entire 20 different colors of green crayons that Crayola has in its extensive product line.  Looking out the large and plentiful windows that surround the cabin of the small plane, made me feel more connected to the sky than the typical aluminum cloudlike passenger planes, with the front loading washing machine like windows.

Kaieteur Falls is one of those places I have never heard about until I started traveling around South America.  Travel guides and Guyana’s tourism offices boast that Kaieteur Falls it is the largest single drop waterfalls by volume in the world at 226 meters (741 feet), though after doing a little numbers research…I doubt that it is the largest, but it is definitely beautiful. 

The falls itself offered me no surprises, it was just like the photos, but the views from flight and spotting a few Cock-of-the-Rocks was the unexpected pleasant bonus. 

Me so TALKY. Me talky you long time

March 16, 2012:  A decently dressed 72 year old man, who was walking past the park bench I was occupying this afternoon, stopped and asked if he could sit and eat his lunch.  Since the bench was as big as a stretched limousine and doesn’t belong to me, it would have been hard to say, no - though I did turn my body in the other direction to not encourage conversation.

Not even 2 minute later, he started to talk to me.  At first, I thought that he might be a lonely man needing conversation, so I didn’t stop him.  My mind was preoccupied; therefore I gave him 40% of my attention with 1 - 3 word answers if a response was needed.  Then it happen…he started to heavily quote the parts of the Bible that talks about giving to others, as I could clearly seeing where he was going with the conversation.

After 30 minutes, when the older man finally finished his sales pitch, he asked me for $20 USD.  When I didn’t give him anything (I get on average about 7 requests per hour) his true personality tore thru his mask as he stopped quoting the bible and cursed me with the whip of his careless tongue.  He stood up, angrily calling me a thief because I stole his knowledge and blessings without giving him anything – this was strange…I don’t recall ever inviting him to sit with me. 

This man is a good example of a social prostitute, on how he was using a skill such as quoting the Bible in an unworthy way for financially gains.  I feel I am pretty good at stopping conversations with a common prostitute, since it is usually obvious on what they do by their work clothes.  But, it is the social prostitute that is the hardest to stop, because “what if” you are wrong and they are just being friendly?  Anyhow, if I ever did decide to pay a social prostitute for their services, I would much prefer that they follow the dress code of a common prostitute with the typical over the knee pleather boots and an extremely short environmentally friendly skirt and top. 

Jet boat takes flight down waterfalls

March 14, 2012:  I left the dredge today in a jet boat that was more like a fighter plane morphed with a stunt boat.  Since the stickers on the window said “Jet Boat” I figured it was powered by a jet engine.  So I asked like a moron if there was a jet engine in the boat.  The man I asked responded with a big smile and said “no.”  Okay…then the sticker on the window was inaccurate – I should have slammed a lawsuit on them false advertisement, but instead I smiled back and felt that maybe I should keep some of my questions to myself or learn to reword them when in doubt.  Even though there was no jet engine, what ever it was, it was huge, getting all 20 of us up to the speeds it did with ease. 

The pilot sat in the center of the boat with the throttle control in his left hand resembling those of a fighter jet and his side stick that rested in his right hand with a red button conveniently on the top of it.  Perhaps it was for the fixed guns on the roof than I happened to miss, to detour any not-so-smart pirates.  I already asked one moronic question…I didn’t want to make it two.

I always seem to do pre-sinking, pre-flipping, pre-crashing and pre-everything planning.  It is just what I do and today was no different.  While doing my pre-sinking planning I noted that were no lifejackets in sight.  It wouldn’t have been a good situation if we were to hit something that might have forced us to jump ship.  So I was relieved that after we hit a large UUO (Unidentified Underwater Object) that only the skin of the passengers eyelids opened and it wasn’t the skin of the boat.

At one spot in the river after doing a sharp turn, the pilot put on the afterburners as the engines did a deep hum and we took flight down these waterfalls.  Since the water level on the river is currently high, I was told that today was easy by a frequent flyer.  When the water level is low, he said that the people are told to move to the front of the boat to balance it out for the 8 +/- foot drop.

I am so thankful to have been in that van accident 2 weeks ago.  If it never happened, I would have arrived in Georgetown later in the afternoon on March, 1^st missing one of my greatest unexpected adventures!

Life on a Brazilian River Dredge

 March 14, 2012:  Ten amazing days ago, when I was suppose to leave with the Bedford returning to Georgetown, I instead accepted an invitation to stay with 4 Brazilians living on a river dredge in Issano, who are on a quest to find gold.  With this said, my plan of omitting Portuguese out of my mind until I get back to the Amazon River had to be reworked, since all individuals on the dredge; spoke, thought and dreamt Portuguese. 

Though the dredge was inoperable during my stay, they did anticipate it will be functional in another week so that they can leave the riverbank, to go fishing for gold.  For 24 hours a day it will operate, stirring up the soil below as it is sucked up through a long 10 ton metal straw, where the yellow powder is separated and the rest is released back into the water.  In a way I am glad it wasn’t working when I was there, letting me overload my senses of sight, hearing and touch while on the river without the machinery contaminating it.  Where we were, also gave me a nice opportunity to observe an Indian family, who pulled up along the riverbank on a canoe then set up a makeshift home for a few days before eventually moving somewhere farther along the river.

Since I grew up outside the “Motor City” not a mining town, I didn’t know anything about mining when I arrived on the dredge.  I did what little I could to help the Brazilians such as teach them English, translate, provide them with many laughs and gave them an extra set of hands when needed.  It took me 14,400 minutes to come to the realization that I should cross gold prospector off my list of possible future careers if I want to make it to the age of 40, as dodging serious injury seemed to be a daily event for me - not recalling when in my adult life I have become such a magnet for large metal objects wanting to smash into me.

A short walk away was downtown, Issano.  It was a living ghost town with 1 police station, 1 school, 1 gas depot, 1 medical clinic, 1 store and 2 kiosks.  I was told that back in the 1980’s it was a booming town, but now…it has slowed down considerably.  The town itself only houses a handful of Indians, with the majority of 500 +/- Indians living upstream in communities along the river.

It is supposedly common in these areas to be addressed by names that were not given at birth.  I myself was given two different names along the way.  “White Boy,” was what I was called by the truck drivers and for those on the dredge it was, “Gringo.”  It was no problem for to call someone “German” or “Alligator” but I myself had a difficult time with names such as “Blacky” or “Fat Man.”  I guess it takes some getting used to.

Meeting a local man who is an independent prospector, he invited me to go with him on a boat up the river to meet his friends that work for small and also big mining operators who pull the golden power from the land.  I have been to plenty of mines in my lifetime but most of them are underground where it is hard to see the damage that is hidden by a blanket of untouched soil.  The type of mining I saw today floored me because I it was so easy to see the open bleeding wounds mining has done to such a beautiful region of the Amazon.  It is not just what it does to the land that is disturbing, it is what it does to the people who caught this disease called “gold fever,” leaving there families for months at a time in hoping to strike it rich.  In their search for the golden powder, a quite a few of them found more than that…they found malaria and even worse, dengue fever in the process.

With Malaria being the leading cause of death in Guyana, the first few days I was being a good paranoid North American boy doing what I was told by the brains at the CDC (Center for Disease Control).  So I would wear a long sleeve shirt, pants, socks and shoes in addition to coating my skin with a nice shower of 40% DEET every few hours - when almost everyone else wore nothing but shorts and sandals.  Then I thought…enough.  I was still careful but no longer did I wear my long sleeve shirt in insane temperatures, nor did I wear my shoes, due to getting tired fighting off the thief hiding in the mud who tried to steal them every time I took a step off the dredge.

I stayed on the river dredge for the past 10 days, but needed to pry myself away today.  With the complete work crew arriving tomorrow, there would be an oversupply of hands and limited space.  Even though I didn’t understand a lot of what was being said during my stay, it was hard for me to leave today…I will miss all of them and their kindness.

Mud…lots and lots and lots of mud

March 5, 2012:  The journey to Issano that was suppose to take a total of 2 days from when I was picked up, took a unexpected 5 days to deliver the engine – not including the time it will take to return to Georgetown.  The driver told me that the last section of the road could be bad when I joined the team, but really, what is…bad?  “Bad” doesn’t really say much, with your only options being:  bad, okay, or good.  What I should have asked was, “On a scale 1 to 100…how much over 100 is it?”

Days of breaking down, getting stuck, breaking down, climbing hills with a winch from tree to tree and then breaking down again, became the norm. I figured out that taking photos would be better than me standing there and trying to help when all I was really doing was getting in their way, hence the 1000+ photos.

In the back of the Bedford, I did my best to brace myself during the ride.  I wrapped some webbing connected to the canopy’s frame around my one hand and with the other hand; I locked it around the canopy’s frame like a gymnast on the high bars as I prepared myself for the bumps, the out of control branches, the possibility to be squashed by the shifting cargo…and then of course, the unknown. 

Nobody intended be trapped in the jungle or to miss so many meals after we left the road stop while in route to Issano.  In a span of 56 hours, I had a smidgen of chicken served with pumpkin curry and rice, 9 crackers, 2 biscuits with a hint of jam, 1 coco-bun and 750ml of fluids.  I felt so weak at times I struggled to walk a straight line and even to do something as simple as take photos.   

If the Bedford didn’t have to make a delivery, I can’t see normal people, just deciding to just drive to Issano.  I don’t think I will ever have a better off-road experience than I did the past few days.  When we finally made it to the small town of Issano, I felt as if we were stuck in the jungle for months.  I would have paid any price for just water…and unlike a few days ago, I would have been happy to eat a fish head with 6 eyes, let alone two. 

Van flips in Rainforest…and I am 97.8% unscathed

March 1, 2012:  Hitchhiking from the side of the road at 3:30am in the Iwokrama Rainforest, I waited for an hour until I saw the 1^st set of lights come tearing down the road.  Getting a van to stop that was transporting people to Georgetown, I threw my backpack on the roof and off we went as if we were evacuating a town that is about to be nuked.

At a high rate of speed the driver would whip the wheel to the right and left in an attempt to dodge the large craters that speckled the road.  I scrambled for my seatbelt only to discover what I already knew…there was none.  Getting annoyed with the drivers need for speed, I held onto a metal crossbar in front of me and laid my head on the backpack on my lap, thinking that it was going to be a horribly long 10 hours.

Feeling the van pull rapidly to one side, I quickly looked up and a blurred headlight lit tree was all that my brain could processed before I felt the van going up on two wheels - hoping that it was just temporary and that all four tires were going to be shortly back on the road.   Tilting farther and farther in slow motion we crossed the plain of no return, flipping over on its side as we began to slide along the road.  Knowing that the road was narrow and surrounded by trees and ditches, my body clinched as I hoped not to hit or drop off or anything.  The slide seemed as if it lasted for minutes.

Once stopped, the musical choir of moans and the sound of a screaming engine filled the interior of the van.  All 11 of us eventually climbed out of the side windows that was now located on the roof, which proved to be quite difficult for those with broken bones.  Seven people sustained injuries, yet I was one of the fortunate ones to have just enjoyed flipping a van and walking away from it 97.8% injury free.

Today my backpack flew off the top of the van and took a tumble along the road, sustaining no damage – and Spirit Airlines can somehow manage to break my backpack in just one flight.  What do those union workers really do with the luggage?

Tossing all the pieces that fell off the van to the side of the road, we flipped the now crooked vehicle back over on its wheels.  After sending those injured needing medical attention in other vehicles going back in the direction we came from, we pilled our luggage in the now empty seats and continued on to Georgetown. 

Very little changed with our drivers…still driving as if dooms day is here but now in a van that had just flipped with a big air leak in the front tire.  I am not a mechanic, though I no longer thought the vehicle was safe…hoping that it was going to breakdown so there was no other option but switch vans.  Getting a flat rear tire my hopes partially came true.  With the sliding doors no longer working…we now needed to exit through the windows like Bo and Luke Duke from the American TV series, “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

When changing the tire, this was the perfect time to switch vehicles.  With two big trucks pulling up to see what was going on, I jumped ship and climbed in the back of the Bedford (a ex-military truck) transporting an engine.  I was later invited to travel with them to drop off an engine and some other mining equipment deep in the interior at a small gold mining town.  In less than a 2 minute’s time, I rewrote my travel plans and said, why not?  I have the time and this is my free ticket to see it all from the back of a Bedford.

Pocket knife drawn…

February 29, 2012:  Hitching a ride from Annai to the Canopy Walkway, I was dropped off in the southern end of the dense tropical Iwokrama Rainforest at about 4:40am – sort of early to be in an area where I was told that a large population of jaguars and anacondas live.  I love seeing wildlife at close range, but this morning when I was walking to the lodge, I was alright not seeing any.  Wearing my headlamp, I had my pocket knife drawn in one hand while I was eating a coconut muffin with the other, making it to the lodge after a short brisk 1.2 km walk down the road.

The first morning there I made it out to the canopy walkway, which is a series of suspension bridges that hangs 30 meters (99.9 feet) above the forest floor.  On the walkway I spotted with the help of some hard core birders and there 100,000,000 power scope, 2 species of Toucans I have never seen before and some beautifully colored birds.  It is always nice at the beginning of trip to see such amazing wildlife since then on the rest of the trip…everything else can be considered a bonus.  For me, it was the monkeys, giant rats and some strange looking insects. 

While doing a hike one afternoon we heard a noise and my guide said it was a Tapir.  Of course a Tapir, I thought.  He couldn’t say a feral pig since not many people would be excited seeing such a common animal.  Rule #34 in the “Pocket Book on How to be a Good Guide” clearly states:  Claim any loud and untraceable noise to be either a jaguar or an animal that a member of the group wants to see.    

I was able to save some costs with a little begging and agreeing to sleep in my hammock in the dining area after everyone went to bed - though later finding out that the cockroaches must have also had the same agreement.  Waking up at 3:00am to independently search the tropical forest for the nocturnal animals, there were about 20+ cockroaches scattering on the floor with a few even springing off my backpack, looking as if they were enjoying using it for a diving board.

My last night at the lodge, we heard a megaton tree fall near us.  There is not much you can do except, hope that it isn’t going to land on you.  After it landed the manager at the lodge said it was far away…about 200 meter or so – far for him, sounded kind of close to me.

My Green Pea pod

February 26, 2012:  In the wee hours of the quiet night I woke up in my hammock, alone and in an open hut made solely for protection from rain.  My hammock is excellent for sleeping outside because it has a mosquito net conveniently sewed to it with a zipper, protecting me from all little things...though this green pea pod is the worst place to be if I needed to quickly get out it for the bigger things.

Something didnt feel right lying there and in a strange way...I felt like I was being watched.  Peeping out from the side of hammock as would a child, I scanned the area with my flashlight thinking everything you shouldn’t when not a soul is around you.  Thoughts of a jaguar making me a human piñata or even worse, the pasty dead girl from the movie, “The Ring” standing aside the bushes filled my head.

While lying there, the late night choir started with a solo, as a bird began a chirping rampage with a savaged dog later joining in.  Perhaps they were warning me that something was out there…but what?  I seemed to be letting my imagination having the best of me here in Annai, scaring myself again for the second night in a row.

In the morning, I went for a hike climbing a nearby hill overlooking the town and the surrounding area.  I happened to see a family of howler monkeys and two birds in the process of murdering some large ants with their two facial swords.

I had the intent to eat something healthy today instead of Guyana's famous coco buns, so I walked to the road stop that serves food to the town drunks, domino players and they can now add, mangy backpackers.  When ordering the fish stew, the man at the restaurant told me that they can make chicken for me.  “Why,” I thought…if fish stew is the menu of the day, there is no reason to make me anything special.

Well, the stew was shight.  I got the head and fins.  A joke? - I am not sure.  But, if I remember correctly my friend Martha from Colombia loved the head, the eyes, and even its cheeks.  I didn’t seem to have the appetite tonight for eating something’s eyes so I ended up just eating the coco rice and went to bed.  Next time, I will stick with chicken - there is no way possible to mess up chicken…never once have I ever received only a head with wings.

Gee, I love hindsight…but not dirty condoms

February 25, 2012:  Double checking everything to make sure I didn’t leave anything behind before I checked out of my posada…I found something under one of the two beds.  It was a rouge condom and I know it wasn’t mine.  It was nasty but if I left it…then it would be assumed it was mine, and who happened to be the only other person in the room with me?  My first night here, I shared the room with a Brazilian backpacker whom I met on the bus after it broke down.  Oh…did I forget to mention the Brazilian backpacker was a guy?

Yep…not needing any false speculations, I grabbed it with tissue paper and flushed it.  Flush after flush, it went nowhere.  It sat there, floating proudly at the top of the bowl - proudly.  It wasn’t going anywhere so I needed to go in and now retrieve it.  Grabbing toilet paper again, I pulled it out of the bowl and put it the only other place I could think of besides my pocket and that was in the water tank behind the toilet.

Thinking about it now…why didn’t I just tell them to check under the beds because a condom was there?  Gee, I love hindsight. 

Me? A Conman?

February 24, 2012:  Crossing the border, I didn’t realize that there wasn’t a cash machine in the town of Annai.  Needing to exchange my emergency cash from US Dollars to some more colorful currency, I went to the only bank in town.  It was an old small one story farm house, with the porch that conveniently served as the waiting room.

Once being granted access into the living room and after looking at the exchange rates a little more thoroughly…I thought that maybe it was time to get rid of my American Travelers Checks that I been traveling with since April of 2009. 

While I was forging my very own signature to the way I did it 3 years ago, I was told they couldn’t accept my travelers checks because I didn’t have the receipts for them – in which the company that issued these checks states that you shouldn’t carry them together.  The bank told me this after countersigning 3 checks.
 
I clearly understand policies and procedures but sometimes small town policies and procedures can be created from small town damaged brains.  The manager here was just a puppet of the bank, as I tried to reach in and pull some of his strings that were connected to the hand of his puppet master.

After the manager called the main branch in Georgetown to request leniency, he called me back into the bank and needed to know about my life history, how I financed this trip, what countries I have been to and what I do for a living.  After about 2 hours of trying to cash the checks I signed when I first arrived in the bank, they were not convinced that I was not a conman...later implying that my Passport and other documents could all be created to cash these travelers checks that could be forged – for a mere $150 USD?  I think the bank might have watched the movie, “Catch Me If You Can,” one too many times…it is time to watch something different.

With the nearest bank in Guyana being perhaps another 10 hours away, I exchanged my US Dollars and left.  Where is an intelligent ATM when you need one...

(Please note:  Photo courtesy of  www.IMDb.com)

The Men in Black

February 23, 2012:  Today is the day I said “Adeus Brasil!” and “Hello Guyana!”  When I was at the Brazilian border crossing I had to see the Federal Police to get that magical stamp for my passport that I am always talking about.  Entering the office, I made my way to the desk of a Tommy Lee Jones look-alike who was dressed in all black attire with his gun holstered at his hip as he was standing there with another man in the same attire.

Not even in 0.345 seconds after grabbing my passport he asks me, “Where is your immigration form?” in Portuguese.  This was almost word for word on what I was hoping not to hear, as soon as THAT form decided to go separate ways while I was down south in Salvador.  This itsee tiny piece of paper that is the size of two book marks placed side-by-side has a cost of around $100 USD and a long day of going back and forth to the nearest town to pay a fine.  I smiled and responded to his question in broken Spanish, using the proven; I don’t understand your language strategy – thus limiting their questions.  But…he responded in English, as I was later sent to the corner to sit as he decided what to do.

Time moved slowly as Tommy Lee sat at his computer terminal taping away, searching for something.  About 6 others came and gone as I patiently sat there hoping not to hear the words,”you need the form.”  After a little more squinting at the computer screen and a few more looks at my passport, he grabs the exit stamp and slams it into my passport, authorizing me to legally leave the country without me needing to make a dash out the door for the Guyana border.  There was a long stretch of road between the two and with the size of my bags…I wouldn’t have made it too far anyhow. 

Walking across the border of Guyana and into the small cowboy town of Lethem (2,500 people), I could not have arrived at a better day because today was the annual festival celebrating Guyana becoming a Republic in 1970. 

I must say that is great to be somewhere that English is there first language but I unfortunately I don't at the momment understand them very well with their strong accent - if they could only have subtitles...

Is it only illegal to club baby seals?

February 21, 2012:  I walked around Manus today during Fat Tuesday in search for food.   This was not a good time to walk alone in the empty streets looking as if most people evacuated the city.  Everyone that was mingling by the port today seemed like they had criminal intentions.  The people were a mix of escaped fugitives, future fugitives, drunks, drug users and those who are not mentally stable.
 

One man thought it was acceptable to throw a large 2x4 piece of wood at parked cars, crosswalk signals and even me while he was ranting about something as he stumbled down the middle of the empty main street.  What I should have done, would be to pick up the 2x4 when it came tumbling by me and club him like a baby seal to teach him a lesson about manors – but, this is not in my job title as a backpacker to do what this sad man’s parents should have done at birth. 

How can people think they can get away with behavior like this?  But, the real question is…how do we let people get like this?

I wanted to self punch myself right in the ear

February 19, 2012:  This year I chose to celebrate Carnival in the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus. I ended up inviting myself and joined a nice group of 10 or so backpackers plus two Brazilians for the evening.  I didn’t expect a gigantic celebration here due to being in the Amazon, but it was huge to my standards.

Our first stop took us to a stage where I was mesmerized watching one of the main samba dancers who was loaded with so much energy.  She was there to help keep the general public in step to the samba line dance, which seemed to be much more faster and 1,344,595,302 times better than the line dance to the gosh forsaken song, “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus .  Even the tattooed gangsters were line dancing samba and they still somehow maintained a tuff look about them – it was hilarious.  I myself did not have much physical energy tonight to learn the steps in 2 minutes. 

Our next and last stop was at the parade grounds to see a gargantuan parade.  It started at 8pm and didn’t finish till about 5am.  Some of the floats were unbelievably large, complex and expensive.  I may never look at a parade in the same way ever again after this.  By the time we left, there was still many families watching the floats go by as they were putting their kids through homeless school, having them practice making a temporarily bed out of a wooden bench seat. 

While at the parade, I wanted to self punch myself right in the ear because I didn’t bring my good camera do to fear that it was going to get stolen.  I need to loosen up a bit…if not, I will continue to miss great opportunities for some decent urban photos.

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.

Oh noooooooo….it can’t be!

January 26, 2012:  When you rent a bike from the local bike shop you would think that it would be in excellent working condition.  That is a silly assumption I know…and yes, I was wrong.  The bike sounded as if someone was grinding a mouthful of pulled teeth into a microphone.  It was a horrid sound that kept me from standing up while peddling the bike as I explored Marajo Island.

During the ride there was a woman peddling her mom and even a little girl, whom I desired to pass though I was already struggling to keep up.  I blamed the bike at first but when I stopped putting the blame on other things and simply turned on the juice – I slowly and eventually crept passed her.  Looking back at them, I internally repeated a saying that I said when I was a child, “eat my dust!” as I laughing once again at my maturity.

I took the bike to a few beaches and I saw a huge group of some pink flamingo looking birds that were…scarlet ibises – oh noooooooo!  I can’t believe I just remembered its name.  It can’t be!  I am getting to know the names of the birds now – I just can’t become a birder – I can’t!  I am just too young.  Oh God, please - please - please let me not learn any more bird names!

I rode about 30km today in total - keeping it in kilometers since it is a bigger number than in miles.  Once back in the town of Soure, I decided to replenish my body with what this area is famous for, buffalo meat.  I can safely say that it doesn’t taste like chicken…it simply tasted like meat.  When I finished my meal, I could barely stand up on my legs of rubber. 

It was a nice day today…except now having to figure out how to clear my mind of bird names.