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| Alvaro holding a jacaré (caiman) he caught in the swamp |
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| canoing through the flooded forest |
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| giant poisonous spider |
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| taking a bath in the stream next to our camp |
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| our campsite in the forest |
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| Urubús (vultures) in the trees |
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| the blow dart gun |
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| poisonous frog |
We made it through the Amazon rainforest and are alive to talk about it. I'm being melodramatic. It really wasn't all that crazy, though we had a lot of fun. Or, if there was an imminent danger, we were ignorantly unaware of its threatening presence. We stayed five days, four nights in the forest with the caboclas - a term used for the native peoples still inhabiting the rainforest. You may want to erase your conception of half naked people who hunt with spears and don't even speak portuguese. These people are very much aware of the country around them and do interact with the outside world, they speak portuguese, are fully dressed, and navigate by river on speedboats. They do, however, have a superior knowledge of the forest, the herbs and fruits available to them, and live without electricity or running water.
The first and fourth night we slept at the caboclas' home next to the river, where we would bath and wash our clothes. The second and third nights were spent deep in the forest, amongst the trees, with our guide Alvaro, just the three of us. In all of these cases, we slept in hammocks. Alvaro constructed a small camp for us in the forest using a tarp to cover us from rain, and the hammocks slung onto nearby trees. When in the forest, we used a small stream next to our camp for bathing, washing clothes, cleaning other tools, and even for drinking water. We walked through the forest during the day and Alvaro would tell us about the flora and fauna we'd come across. During the night, we would light up the trees with our flash lights and see the monkey eyes staring down at us. Little sparkles on the trees were the shiney backs or eyes of giant spiders. We saw far too many lethal spiders, including the famous tarantula (though, the one we saw was "just" a baby).
At one point, Alvaro cut a meter long piece of bamboo and a large palm branch, cutting of all of the leaves of the branch. With the palm branch, he had me slowly hollow out the bamboo stick until it was only a hollow tube. With another piece of soft wood, he carved a cone shape with his knife and connected the two pieces. With other small sticks, he carved small darts and attached feathers on their ends. And voilá! A blow dart gun! He told us that most of the frogs we'd seen in the forest would be good for using as poison on the ends of the darts. The poison doesn't kill, but rather works as a sedative to incapacitate your victim (a large animal or tribal enemy).
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| home for four nights, on the boat to Belém |
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| women and children from poor settlements along the Amazon river canoe up to the large boats in hopes for supplies (food or clothing) |
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| this drunken man, with his casted arm, had everyone onboard sign it... 2 or 3 times each |
After our forest adventure, we took a four day boat trip from Manaus to Belém. We were crammed into this boat with far too many people in hammocks occupying this rather small deck. Hammocks were literally on top of each other, with little to no room to yourself. We had bought tickets for the city of Santarém (about halfway between Manaus and Belém), with intentions of staying there for a couple days. We then learned that boats only leave Santarém on Fridays, which meant we would be stuck there for a whole week and we don't have all the time in the world anymore. So, we decided to stay on the boat all the way to Belém. Best par is, we got away with paying half the price, since no one on the boat noticed that we hadn´t gotten off and should have. We met several other travels; Rodney, a fourty-ish year-old Welsh journalist, who'd been traveling since February and was finishing up in October. He started in Argentina, made his way up Chile, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela and is now trekking his way down through Brasil back to Argentina. There was also Fabriz, an early-twenties Swiss student. He slept in the hammock next to ours. We got to talk to him frequently, shared stories and exchanged travel tips and plans. He is very well educated, spoke English, German, French, and some Portuguese, and has a good sense of economic traveling. We also met a group of five drunken Canadians who partied hard. There plan was to buy a car in Belém and drive to Rio de Janeiro.
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| the hotel we stayed at in Belém |
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| our parrot friend at the hotel in Belém... yes, he spoke Portuguese |
Tuesday, September 7th, we arrived in Belém - at the mouth of the Amazon River. This day is significant in that it is Brasil's independence day. Unfortunately, this basically just meant that everything was closed and there wasn't a whole lot to do. Lena, Rodney, Fabriz, the five Canadians, and I all went to the same hostel when we arrived into the city. It was rather funny traveling with this large group. We only stayed one night in Belém. The next day, we got to know the city a little. We went to the Mercado Ver-O-Peso, a famous market in the city, along the port, selling everything you can imagine from fresh fish, electronics, toys, clothes, fresh fruits, herbal remedies, and much more. From there, we went to Casa das Onze Janelas (House of Eleven Windows), an art gallery containing a photography exhibit, abstract art exhibit, and this other exhibit that requires further detail - It was a long, empty, white room. The floor covered in cotton, up to your ankles. At the end of the room, a projected displayed a first-person aerial-view video of clouds and a blue sky. Upon entering the room, a sign instructed us to remove our footwear. Inside, waiting for us beside the door, were roller-skates. We put them on and began "skating through the clouds". Quite the bizarre presentation to say the least, but we had our fun. Afterward we went to a Borboletaria (a butterfly sanctuary), which was quite nice but abnoxiously expensive to get into. Then we went across the city to the zoo! We got to see jaguars, tapirs, spider monkeys, various species of birds (including toucans, macaws, and parakeets), giant otters, caimans, and turtles.
And that was our only day in Belém. We took the bus that night to the next destination; São Luis. We didn't travel alone, however. We were accompanied by Fabriz and one of the Canadian fellows who has split off from the group to do his own thing as he apparently has less time in the country. São Luis is where we are now and we'll be here for another night or so. We're spending the day checking out some of the museums and other sights the city has to offer. São Luis is known as the "reggae capital" of Brasil and we intend on putting that to the test tonight. From here, we will be going to Parque Nacional dos Lençóis Maranhenses, which is this enormous national park of sand dunes strewn across the desert-like landscape. Lençóis means bedsheets, as the sand appears to have a soft cloth like appearance as it stretches as far as the eye can see... or so we're told. Anywho, thanks for reading again, and we'll try to write soon-ish.
One last note, the camera has been disfunctional. Well, not exactly the camera but rather the battery charger which has seemingly given up on us. We'll attempt to replace that soon and will do our best to add a picture or two from the more recent events of our journey.
With love,
Tiago and Capt. Len-er
