Day 93 and 94: Manaus, Brazil a.k.a. The Amazon
What did we do in the morning?
Piranha fished.
In another small boat.
Wait, wait, tangent: on one of the mornings, it might have been this one but might also have been the first one, we were all laying in our hammocks chatting, waiting until we had to get up and Colin, Hayley, Lizzie and I had an epic sing-along to I'll Make A Man Out Of You from Mulan.
And that's why I love these people.
Tangent over.
The group of people that I had fished with stuck together but this time we were in the smaller, covered canoe. We went to a different area to fish.
When they handed out the sticks mine was absolutely giant. I went to go say, 'my stick is the biggest,' but I switched to 'huge' halfway through and ended up saying, "My stick is the huge."
Henry looked at me and said, "Did you just say that your stick is the huge?"
Yes, yes I did.
After that everything was the huge.
"Oh my god, that fish is the huge."
"Swimming is going to be the huge."
"Wow, you are the huge."
I think it my be my favorite running joke of all time.
The piranhas were just not biting. I think we caught one the entire time we fish.
It was not the huge.
We were right near the other boat so there was a lot of smack talking that happened. I think we had used up our cash of fish the night before so the other group caught more than us.
Lillian, who was on the other boat, smacked a girl in the face with a piranha. She thought it would be bigger, yanked it out of the water, and it smacked a girl in the face. That would only happen to Lillian.
We went swimming again after fishing at a completely different beach. It was beautiful and was shallow really far out. Henry came up with the really random plan to walk out as far as we could in order to freak out the other group when they came by in their canoe.
We went far enough out that I had to tread water and my bathing suit top came untied. Fantastic.
At least the water was completely black. None of the boys found this to be a problem, but I made Henry retie it. Good this my bathing suit holds itself up. The entire other boat hadn't been told that they would be swimming so almost all of them were skinny dipping when we got there.
After a while someone suggested playing a game and we started an intense game of marco polo. I managed to never become It even though both Colin and Henry used me as a shield a few times by grabbing me and pushing me towards the person yelling marco.
That game lasted a really long time. It was a lot of fun.
We eventually had to get back in our canoes and go back to the riverboat for lunch.
After lunch we went to another village. This village was a little more interesting. It's a peace village and has about 230 inhabitants. There is no crime and almost no disease. They grow most of their own food and all of the profits from their little store goes back into the village. You can not just go and settle there, you have to make friends with the villagers and be invited. The kids are encouraged to leave and go to college but many come back to the village.
We saw the school and some houses. None of them had windows so we could just look in. There were a lot of hammocks.
We spent our time there playing a soccer game against the local kids. Semester at Sea has been visiting the village for the last 18 years and has never won the soccer game. I think ours was a shut out, we did not do well at all. We played a boys game and then a girls game. The girls actually managed to score, the boys were not aggressive enough. Everyone was completely soaked with sweat by the end, it was really hot out.
There was a small grocery store that sold ice cream for only 1.50 Real a piece. I think all of us non-players bought out their whole supply of chocolate and acai berry ice cream.
Speaking of the acai berry, it is only grown in the Amazon. Also, it is pronounced A-SAI-E. I have been saying that wrong my entire life.
It is most commonly known for its juice, which is full of antioxidants. The berry itself is really hard so you have to soak it for 30 to 40 minutes in order to get the juice. It is becoming more and popular around the world.
At the end of the games we all voted for the best player on both the boys and girls amazonian team and they voted for our best players. The winners received soccer shirts.
We left the village around 6 and set sail back on our riverboat. There was a beautiful sunset on one side and on the other there were huge clouds that housed a heat lightning storm. It was beautiful. We all sat out on the back deck and talked.
Then we started a massage train. Hayley started giving me a massage, then I started giving Trevor a scalp massage, then Colin starting given Hayley a massage and it just kept adding on from there. I think we ended up with 7 people in our massage train and we actually did switch places a few times. It was the most productive and enjoyable massage train I have ever been apart of. Fantastic life choice on our part.
The rest of the group started playing a hand clapping game again but then switched to a different game of ninja. In this game you sit in a circle, everyone's palms are pressed together. One person starts and points to someone else. That person has to put their hands up in the air while the two people next to them has to point at them. Then the person with their hands up gets to point to someone new. If you mess up and don't point to where you are supposed to you are out. It gets really intense people everyone starts making more hi-ya noises. It was so intense and was so dark out that the other riverboat shined a light over to us to see what was going on. It can't even guess what it sounded like to them.
It didn’t make our massage train very relaxing either.
Dinner was the same and after dinner we decided to play cards again.
This time we pulled over the table on the top deck and sat around it. I taught Hayley, Trevor, and Colin to play Oh Hell. It's a strategy based trick-taking card game that I play a lot with my parents and Kellie. They picked it up really quickly and we had a lot of fun playing it.
Halfway through our game they turned the boat off and we were plunged into darkness. The stars there were awesome but not as awesome as in Morocco.
Hayley had her flashlight with her so we switched that on so that we could keep playing. That made it more exciting because all of the bugs swarmed to it.
Rob, my bio professor who was also on the trip was sitting right near us reading.
"Rob," I whispered.
"Yeah?" He whispered back
"Do you know why bugs are attracted to light?"
"…No."
Ok then. But then he told us that they are day time animals so we are confusing them and making them think they need to be near the 'daytime' which is really a light. He said it was called some really long word that I can't remember but started with a T.
They weren't mosquitos. They were other fun bugs that we could not identify but were non-threatening.
Well, until a wasp showed up. Colin killed it with my notebook so now I have wasp guts as a souvenir.
When we finished Oh Hell we played three hands of Mao with another girl who appeared because she couldn't sleep. Even when we were done it was only 10 at night. Everything ends very early in the Amazon. But I guess not much could happen in the darkness and you do so much during the day that you don't mind sleeping.
The heat didn’t break again so I slept very comfortable. According to Colin I was the only one that was comfortable and everyone else was dying of heat. I think Trevor ended up on the ground because he couldn’t get comfortable in his hammock. Yay for living in Florida! I thought it was gorgeous out.
The next morning was our last morning and we had to be ready a bit earlier. We were going to swim with dolphins!
What, dolphins?
Yes, dolphins.
The Amazon is home to the pink river dolphins. They are weird looking. They have longer noses and rounder melons on their heads. They are larger with more flexible necks.
None of these dolphins had been tamed, or held in captivity. So the dolphins that we would be interacting with were wild dolphins that just happened to know that if they swam over in that area they would be fed some fish.
We all got in the water and stood on a platform. The guy would hold a fish right above the water and the dolphin would come right up to underneath the surface. The guy would take your hand and put it in the dolphin's side or belly. Eventually the dolphin would freak out, jump out of the water to grab the fish and then swim away. That was the entire interaction. But it was awesome.
We got to do it twice each.
Then we got to see these huge fish. They are called the catfish of the Amazon. They have red scales and can get up to 5 ft long. The lady had a giant fishing pole that she would tie a fish to the end of. The sound that the fish would make when it would grab the tiny fish was absolutely unreal. They were huge! Everything is huge in the jungle.
When we were standing around the area the giant fish were in we started to sink the platform and had to all move to one side. I think the Amazon was telling us to stop eating or maybe start exercising.
We did neither. We got back on the boat, took a three hour nap in our hammocks, and then ate lunch. Then took another brief nap before we had to start packing and take down our hammocks. We were able to buy them and I think almost everyone did. I bought mine! I have no idea where I am going to put it but I am exciting to find a place. I liked Lillian's idea of putting it way over your bed, then if you fall you just fall on your bed.
I haven't even been in my apartment so I have no idea how big my room is. Oops. It's weird how emotionally attached you can get to an inanimate object.
And surprisingly I fit my giant hammock into my already completely full backpack. Don't ask how that happened, it was a miracle.
A few people lost some things overboard. Naomi's bathing suit bottom was missing as well as Hayley's flip flip. Then, while we were standing there Melody's flip flip flew through the railing and we watched it float away. The Amazon had claimed parts of us. Dun, dun, dunnnn.
We got off of the riverboats in a completely different location than we had boarded. It was right at a beach side hotel and was just where we were meeting up with the busses. We had speculated about why we were going to a hotel. For lunch? To shower?!! Nope, just to meet the busses.
The busses were so air-conditioned. It would have been so funny to record people's reactions to the air-conditioning as they got on the bus. It was magical. But it was also a tease because we only spent about 10 minutes on the bus.
The Manaus airport was so tiny. We took up the entire cue line to check in. Colin, Hayley and I stopped at the ATM so we were way at the back. We had been told that if we checked in together then we would be sitting together on the plane. Lies. Colin and I checked in together and I ended up in row 6 while he was in row 23. That is nowhere near each other.
The airport was a hot mess. We had about an hour to kill to start. I spent the time charging my phone while the boys and Hayley found the bar and got a bunch of beers. Around the time that our flight was supposed to start boarding the status on the departures board changed to delayed. But they wouldn’t tell us how long it would be delayed. So we all relaxed. Our layover was three hours so it would be pretty hard to miss our connecting flight.
About 5 minutes later the status went from delayed to last call without any warning. We were so confused and our liaisons were running around trying to figure out what was happening. Apparently they changed the gate number but didn’t change it on the board. We needed to board, asap. I went into the bar and tried to get the boys moving. They did not believe that they needed to rush. And they had just bought new beers that they didn’t feel like chugging them.
I walked over to the line where Dean Kathy was standing. She asked me if everyone was out of the bar and when I said no she walked over there with purpose. The boys came after that. I told them it was time to go and they didn’t believe me.
The flight went by really fast. I must have fallen asleep even though it didn’t feel like I did. It was a three hour flight that was really 5 hours because of the time change. We got into the Brasilia airport around 8 o'clock and our other flight was not until 11:56.
We had a lot of time to kill. We wanted to find a restaurant and sit down and have a nice dinner. Right around our gate there was a coffee shop and a baked potato place. Hayley picked up the customer service phone that was on a wall it the person on the other end told her that if we went to the baggage claim and then went up stairs there was a food court.
That was a lie. We couldn’t even get to the baggage claim, you had to exit the gate area in order to do that. We found a chocolate stand and a duty free store. The boys bought a handle of tequila and we went back down to the tables near the coffee shop. Someone had said that there was a McDonalds right outside the airport but we just really didn’t feel like going back through security.
So, we didn’t eat any food and Hayley and I sat there and watched as Trevor, Colin, and Henry drank the entire bottle of tequila, chasing it with red bull.
Not a smart idea.
They also decided to go back to the duty free store and buy a handle of rum for the bus ride from the airport to the ship. Their plan was to go out when we got back since, because of the time change, it will feel like it is only midnight.
Still not a smart idea.
On the way back from the store Henry asked me, on a scale of 1 to 10, how drunk they were. I gave them a six, borderline 7.
When the plane started boarding they were still down by the coffee shop. What do you know, they had decided to open the rum then.
The not smart ideas just kept flowing.
Hayley said that she had told them to come but, just like before, they were not all that worried about it. I went to the top of the stairs, gave them my meanest look, and told them to get over there right now. They came pretty quickly. I really would have had Dean Kathy yell at them again.
They were completely smashed. Henry and Trevor worse then Colin, but they were all pretty bad.
I did not want to have anything to do with them. I was praying that I was not sitting anywhere near them on the flight. They got to the end of the line so that they could finish their drinks (still a bad idea) so I boarded way before them.
I was sitting in row 24, the second to last row, on the aisle. The entire last row was the Young family and another SASer, Tanner, who was sitting in the window seat behind me. There was another girl, Abbey, on the window seat in my row. Almost every other seat around me was still empty.
I mentioned something about the drunky drunks still not being on the plane and talked to Mrs. Young about all of their bad ideas.
Hayley was sitting in row 16 but came to the back of the plane to go to the bathroom so she was standing there waiting for a break in the people. By the time the three boys were headed up the aisle there were three seats left: the one next to me in the middle, and the middle and aisle seat right across from me. Fantastic.
Hayley and I discussed who I would want to sit next to me. It was a unanimous decision that it should be Colin since he seemed to have it the most together. Since Trevor had to find a place to put his bag, Colin and Henry were the first ones back and they sat next to each other in the aisle/middle seat across from me. Using my flirting and charm I got Colin to move to the middle seat next to me and Trevor ended up in the middle next to Henry.
It was clear that they were not doing well. Actually, Colin seemed fine. Henry did not. At all.
It was then that Abbey reminded us of the affects of altitude on blood alcohol level. And we were going to be gaining a lot of altitude. We all started to freak out a little them.
Tequila, rum, red bull and altitude was probably the worst decision of them all.
Henry was struggling. He was starting to fade in and out, his head bobbing up and down. I managed to get his seat belt on him and we put one of the barf bags in him lap but he didn’t really seem all that aware of it.
The flight attendants freaked out a little. They asked us if he was drunk. We said yes. They asked who was responsible for him. Well… not really anybody.
Colin immediately stepped up and said that he would be responsible for him and make sure that he was ok. He was pretty positive that he would be ok.
We figured that the worst that would happen is that his body would reject it all and he would throw up. It was pretty clear that that was going to happen because he had kind of started drooling and also didn’t really seem conscious.
I do not do well with throwing up. Absolutely at all. So I started freaking out myself. Tanner asked if I wanted to switch seats with him but then Colin said to just switch seats with him. We did it quickly, we had already pulled away from the gate.
Abbey told me to just break the rules and put in my headphones. So I did, and Tanner and Mrs. Young started prepping Colin with plastic bags since the barf bags on the plane were the tiniest things ever.
I focused in on my music, turning it up as loud as it would go and tried not to look.
Exactly what we figured would happen did and everything Henry had consumed came right back up, as we were taking off, and Colin was right there holding a plastic bag underneath him.
Can anyone say best friend of the year award.
Tanner had given us a roll of toilet paper so my job became ripping off small pieces of it and putting them into Colin's lap for him to grab.
It was over before we even reached altitude. Colin dug one of his own t-shirts out of his bag and as soon as we were allowed to stand up he took Henry into the bathroom and cleaned him up.
The worst seemed to be over.
We made sure Henry had water but he basically spent the rest of the flight passed out. Colin would occasionally look over to make sure he was ok. I told Colin, "Congratulations, you just became the father to a child named Henry."
What did we spend the rest of the two hour flight doing? Having a Disney song sing-along. Literally the entire flight. It was awesome.
Trevor seemed to be ok. He was awake and talking to the person sitting next to him the whole time. He did finally pass out. Hard. So hard that one of the flight attendants tried to wake him up because he thought he was dead. Colin said that he was fine and would wake him up but he literally hit Trevor across the face and he did not move.
We went back to our Disney music. When we looked back over a few minutes later he was awake. And then we watched as he proceeded to slam his head into the seat in front of him at full speed. Like he went to lean forward and didn’t know it was there. And he didn’t even seem phased by it.
Colin and I were dying laughing. It was so funny.
We landed fine, although Henry started to get restless and that made us nervous but nothing happened. We just chilled in the back of the plane and let everyone go in front of us. Trevor and Henry did stand up to let the person next to them out and Trevor ended up sitting in the seat Colin was in.
I was standing and kept hitting the attendant button with my head. Someone around us called it the self destruct button and then Trevor said something at me that I absolutely didn’t understand. Something something something mid-flight. I asked him to give it to me again but I still did not understand. He was not speaking coherent sentences at all. I told him that and he said, "I'm sorry, I'm drunk." Yes dear, I know.
Colin started talking to the flight attendant about Semester At Sea and didn’t notice the two children make a break for the front of the plane. I ran after them and followed them through the airport.
We had to get Henry's bag that he had checked so I let him lead but took his arm so that I could direct him if I needed to. Trevor had taken off so fast and was so far in front of me that I had no idea where he was.
Chris, one of the Young kids checked the bathroom for me but then Colin showed up and took over locating Trevor. We made it on to the bus without any issues. Well, as long as Trevor didn’t talk to anyone.
No one else seemed to know what had happened. It was a good thing we had been at the back of the plane.
Trevor said that he wasn’t feeling all that great but there was toilet on the bus (the first one since before Morocco) so we were not that worried about it. Henry passed out sitting up but Trevor laid down in the very last row, right across from the bathroom, with his head sticking into the aisle.
In the middle of the ride the bathroom door swung open and most certainly hit him in the head. And he didn’t even stir. We were laughing so hard. Poor Trevor.
The itinerary made it seem like the bus ride was almost an hour and a half but it ended up being only about 20.
Seeing the ship was amazing. It meant a shower, and a real bed that I could sleep on my stomach in. it meant that we had survived the most traumatic plane flight ever.
The shower I took was amazing. Surprisingly, even though it was 2 in the morning, I wasn’t all that tired. I had been snoozing all day because that is what I do when I travel. I have developed a knack for falling asleep on busses and planes. And it didn’t help that I had taken a three hour nap in my hammock that morning.
Oh my word, that was just that morning. It felt like swimming with the dolphins happened days ago. I think I was mentally exhausted from the evening, and the time change.
One thing traveling does to you is shows you how bad things could be. The boat could be rocking worse, you could be without a way to shower and just have fish and fruit to eat, or someone could be throwing up on your plane flight. Most things in life that we think suck are actually pretty fantastic, or just really average.
