The Rainforest

Jan. 16th: Time for the Amazon! Our departure for the rainforest has finally arrived. We've discovered that the best way to plan anything in South America is....to not plan at all! Our flight is to Manaus - the city in the heart of the Brazilian rainforest. After 3 connecting flights beginning at 3 AM( yes you heard me - three connecting flights in the middle of the night), we reach Manaus. So upon arrival, we are in search for a jungle lodge. For a good price. We consider our options and visit a few tourist agencies in the airport. We find a good deal for a lodge on the Rio Negro for 3 nights ( 1 night of camping in the jungle) and 4 days.

Day 1 : Our guide picks us up from the hostel and we get on our motorized canoe to the lodge. We see the meeting of the waters - where the River Negro and the Amazon river meet. After, we see the huge lily pads and 2 crocodiles. Oh and little kids apparently aren't afraid of snakes, crocodiles, huge sloths - they bombarded our boat! So we get to the lodge - it's floating on the river. No electricity, only amazon water, and no lights!! Our room doesn't have 2 mosquito bed nets and Marlana wasn't advised in Chile to bring one so we decide to share mine. Here we are sharing a bed again like summer - except now in Brazil and under a bed net. Que bien! After an exotic lunch and swimming in the river, we go fishing for piranhas. Now let's just say....viscious little creatures. Marlana's hand got bit off! jk jk jk BUT - our guide did tell us that a man had been eaten by an anaconda 2 weeks earlier while he was fishing. haha....

Day 2: After a night of tangled bed net, we wake up for breakfast!! Then off to jungle trekking! The Amazon is filled with anything you could possibly imagine - we found natural malaria medicine,viagra, headache medicine, natural bug spray.... everything! We get back to the lodge and Marlana and I decided to entertain ourselves by having a dance party under the bednet. Of course, this needs documentation so we made a video for our favorite - Adrian Chapa. While we are doing all of these excursions, we're with a group. It's me, Marlana, 3 brazilians, a chinese woman, a taurus named Renaldo, and one japanese man. Now let me tell you about the japanese man. First of all, if you don't speak english or portugese, you will be completely lost. Anyway, this man is super quiet and doesn't know anything that's going on....he has to sleep in the hammock outside of the lodge...i'm sure he wasn't aware of this when he signed up for this shindig. Of course I told the chinese woman i loved her in chinese because that's all I know.

Day 3: Time to prepare for jungle camping. Marlana and I hate packing so we decide to bring as little as possible. This day is our 3rd day without a shower.....but don't worry, we swam every day. That counts right? We take our canoe to the jungle and set up our hammocks. Apparently our guide told us in portugese to put our hammocks in the plastic bag before leaving because it was going to rain. We didn't get that. So our hammocks were drenched. We slept in wet hammocks. But it was awesome!

Day 4: Leave the jungle around 8 am. While the other group members paid to swim with the dolphins, Marlana and I take advantage of the Brazilian sun rays and lay out while our guide drives us around in the canoe. Life in the amazon.....On the way back to the lodge, our guide Charlie decides to take a short cut through the marsh. We get stuck. As the taurus Renaldo takes the lead and steers from the front with a paddle, all of a sudden he starts frantically screaming in portuguese! Marlana and I are like "whaaaaaaat is going on?! Please translate for the Americans! WE DON'T SPEAK PORTUGUESE!' Then the girl translates it to ' alligator, alligator! ah!' Renaldo almost flips out of the boat but I save him, don't worry. The alligator turns out to be a big tree branch. Love it!

While checking in for our flight to Sao Paolo, we have a plastic trash bag filled with all of our untouchable dirty rainforest clothes. Obviously, we want to check this one. The Lan Chile woman looks at us with skepticism and makes us sign a waiver so that if they lose/break it, it's not a liability of theres. WE laugh and say ' they will be careful with that bag because if it opens the whole plane will smell like wet amazon! hahaaha!'


XOXO
Cora