Goodbye Brazil! Hello Amazon and 9 days of Atlantic Ocean

As I write this, we are traveling back up the Amazon river where we will eventually hit the Atlantic and travel across to Ghana. I'm not gonna lie, I'm not that bummed about leaving Manaus, Brazil. The filth and smell of the city and the Rio Negro was kind of getting to me. If you want to make a difference in the world.....go start a sanitation project in Manaus. Putting some trash cans and dumpsters on the streets could make a huge difference.

 

The past few days have been amazing. For the most part we walked around the city a lot exploring and seeing what Manaus had to offer. One day we tried to walkto an artisian marketplace which looked pretty close on the map. Turns out the map had absolutely no scale. After walking for about 2 hours into the city of Manaus we ran across some police officers who laughed and smiled when we showed them where we were going. All they said was "Taxi." So we waved down a taxi who took us to the mall instead of the marketplace. He made us get out. We walked around the mall for a while which was pretty much the same as any American mall. We then got a taxi to take us from there to the marketplace. By the time we got there, it was siesta time and about 10 of the 15 shops were closed. It wasn't what we expected for the amount of time we devoted to getting there. We were exhausted and getting back to the ship that night felt incredible. The days adventures made us super hungry so we had dinner on the ship at 5:30 and then at 8 we went to a brazilian steakhouse where we had our second dinner.

 

Getting there, we were all mad because the tour guide told us we should take a cab to the restaurant because it isnt in a good part of town although it is close. So we did that but then the guy totally ripped us off because we were American and had no idea what he was saying. But we got there and it was so yummy. I really enjoy ordering beers at dinner without having my age questioned....America should be more like that. I had "beef" I dont know what it was...and corn and garlic bread that was grilled, and mashed potatoes and french fries and rice and some kind of fried thing, again...no idea what it was. And chocolate mousse!!!!!!!!!! YUM. Now that I think about it, it sounds very American but it was sooooo good. The taxi driver on the way back tried to rip us off again. But then we bargained and he got mad at us and I guess we won the battle which was fun!

 

Oh so funny story....there is this really ignorant and obnoxious taxi driver that stands around the port area. He thinks he's big stuff becuase he can speak English and help us negotiate with taxi drivers. Well we were sitting at dinner which was kind of an upscale kind of place for brazilian standards anyways. In walks this same obnoxious taxi driver yelling. Behind him, Captain Jeremy and the guy second in command trail behind. So this ignorant taxi driver is yelling in the middle of the restaurant about boats and captains and pointing at Captain Jeremy all excited like he just met the president or something. We just look at the captain and smile and say hi and he returns all proper like with his English accent, "hello" and he's kinda mad. It was so random and really funny and made me really hate this obnoxious taxi guy even more!

 

Last night was so awesome....First we went to Samba which was pretty much the most amazing thing I have ever seen. These two women, dressed to the stars and looking like Miss America, were standing in front. Behind them were probably about 100 people with all sorts of musical instruments. There was a huge drum section, there were dancers, and all sorts of random locals dancing on the sides. When the music began the two women danced like I have never seen people dance before....it was so fast but they were so into it and smiling all the time. It was so so so so cool. And the music was so loud....it was in a warehouse looking building and so the sound was really loud. While we were there we ran into this group of 6 brazilians looking to practice English so we talked to them for a long time. They were telling us about how we shouldnt go to local bars since it was kind of shady but no one had any money to go to the bar they wanted to go to so we ended up parting ways. We gave them our emails so we could keep in touch.

 

After that we caught a cab (which happened to be the SAME taxi driver that screwed us over the night before) and he screwed us over again this time.  So then we went to this brazilian club Crocodilo Disco and it was AMAZING. One of the crew members told us about it a few nights ago and then we heard that everyone was there so we decided to check it out. We made sure Mark Anthony (the nicest and funniest gay guy I have ever met...) came with us because we were walking there and it was kinnnda shady! It was pretty much awesome. Most of the music was american but there were some random portugese songs mixed in. When we left, it was 2AM and there were all these people playing cards on broken down lawn furniture in the streets. There were cockroaches everywhere which was so disgusting.

 

This morning I had a trip which started at noon. I didnt want to go but it ended up being probably the most amazing cultural experience I have ever been a part of. We took a boat down the river to this dock where these men who looked like Indians were waiting for us. They had headdresses on and lots of beads and tattoos all over their bodies. They wore undies but had some leaves stuck in them too. When we got off the boat, there were more people on the beach and we shook all their hands. There were men, women, and little kids. The women dont wear shirts which was interesting...

We followed a path up a hill to this large hut. We took a seat inside and began to watch the ritual. They did all sorts of dances which looked very similar to the ones that we saw at council fire this summer. They used all sorts of instruments and the women and kids all danced too. Then they went around to each person and put war paint on our faces in all sorts of symbols. Then the last dance consisted of all of us dancing. The men would grab the women, and the women would grab the men to come dance. The little kids were all a part of this too. So the people started dancing and grabbing the SAS people to come join them. A little kid came up to me to dance. He was probably about 5 years old. And guess what?!?!?!?! He had a pet MONKEY on his arm. It was just chillin on his arm while he did this whole ritual and danced around with me. It was absolutely crazy!!! Then a thunderstorm came while we were dancing around in this hut. It was unbelievable. Afterwards we were all taking pictures and everyone wanted to hold the monkey and take pictures of the kid. He was just looking at us like "Guys its just a monkey....chill out!" but it was crazy awesome. I didnt get a pic with him because he was getting mad that everyone wanted his picture. But there was a guy doing a video for SAS so maybe it will be in that!

 

After that we went to this rubber museum where they were talking about how slaves would be taken there thinking they would have a good life but they were forced to cut open rubber trees and make rubber. The sap from the tree basically turns into rubber if you rub it in your hand. There were all these roosters and hens running around too which was funny. They made us leave after 15 minutes because the weather was bad. It would have been neat to see more. We finally got back on the ship at 4.

 

During dinner, the ship passed through the Meeting of the Waters where the Amazon and Negro Rivers come together. It looks like milk chocolate and dark chocolate meeting together. The cool thing about it though, is that the rivers have different densities or something and so they run side by side without mixing for a good long time. It was really cool! I really wanted to see it and was going to take a tour to see it when we were in Manaus but never got to it. Im glad I didnt though since we were able to see it for free tonight!

 

Tomorrow begins our first of nine days of classes. It is going to be a very long stretch but I am looking forward to being in Ghana....mostly because they speak English there. I am probably going to get lots of backlash for this but I now understand why Mexicans speak Spanish in America even if we dont want them too. It is very, very hard to communicate with people for extended periods of time in a language you are not familiar with. It becomes very nerve wracking and annoying! For example....yesterday my friends and I were trying to find the post office. We had the address, a map, and knew where the street was. So we went to the street but of course it wasnt there. So then we asked a man who gave us directions...in portugese which was worthless. We wandered around some more and came to a hotel. The receptionist spoke broken English and we told him we were looking for the post office. Apparently he was thinking we said port. So he gave us directions to the ship. After much clarification we finally got a map with directions to the post office. That didnt help. After two hours of searching we were standing on a street corner looking like huge tourists. I finally said I give up. We began forming new plans. As I looked across the street....there was the post office. UNBELIEVABLE! So then we went in and I must say that was the most stressful post office visit ever. People were taking numbers and there was some sort of system which we most definitely didnt follow. When we got to the person behind the desk we had to get across that we wanted stamps to America which took another 30 minutes. Sooo our post office trip took a total of 3 hours. Exhausting. Boy do I love living in America.

 

In response to Aunt Debbie's question about braces from the previous post: I meant braces as in dental braces....I believe it has become somewhat of a fashion statement in Brazil!