Day 2 - Hiking in the Jungle, Pink Dolphins and experiencing how the locals live! When we got back, a local guy had caught the biggest fish ever you find in the Amazon and Gerry took us to show us the steaks, they were massive!! I think fish in many varieties might be on the menu for a few days to come looking at the size of it! Breakfast for me was 4 very strong coffees and at the table we bumped into an English navy guy from Norwich, Ace, who we had met briefly in Manaus who now joined our group. Also 10 business uni students from London had also turned up so the tranquil jungle was now replaced by 'lads on tour' which was fine but only bearable for 1 night and we were kept separate from them on trips so that was good. Not sure if I could join in conversations on stocks and shares in the Amazon of all places!! Half asleep, after saying goodbye to the American guys who we were hoping to meet back up with in Rio, we then got back in the canoe and headed an hour down the river ready for our Amazon jungle hike! Gerry took us to the younger/secondary part of the jungle first and took us through some untouched areas teaching us medicines about the place as we went, it was wicked! We drank water out of the trees, ate bubble gum from the bark of a tree and learnt about the roots of trees and how they had 'aspirin' effects along with much much more. The huge green fern like trees and lush green leaves along with the animal noises and huge termite mounds was fantastic, but again how easy is it to get lost in this place and the survivor and sad non survivor stories that Julian had told us about the night before which he had seen on the Discovery Channel were very believable, this place is just vast!! Unfortunately the lack of sleep, heat and low blood pressure/sugar level got to me so feeling pretty giddy and rough I ducked out of the next jungle hike into the more primary forest and Gerry made me a bed out of leaves to rest on with my feet up a tree. Hearing the slithering and rustle amongst the jungle floor was a tad scary at times as I kept thinking about snakes but again just to relax in this wilderness listening to the noises all around was enough in itself to experience the place. Ads jungle hike! 3 hours of hiking and the intrepid junglers went back to base seeing PINK dolphin on route!! I didn't even know pink dolphins existed in the world, apparently they are rare and are only found in the Amazon so to catch the top of ones fin was outstanding, no photos though unfortunately, that's one for the memory bank! After lunch back at base and mashed potato Wahoo, the afternoon was to be spent going to see how a local family lived 90 minutes down the river. I was still not feeling too great but after an hours power nap kindly in a hammock by a mango tree that Gerry got set up for me, I was ready for the off so to speak! All piled into the boat which had a fair amount of water in it already, we headed back down many more river ways through the Amazon. I was at the back with a plastic bottle bailing us out with the guide!! The family we went to visit brought back again so many memories of the start of our world trip to Asia and both myself and Ads said how great it was to do this final adventure yet to be reminded of all the wonderful and tough things we had also seen at the start of our dream trip, like doing the full circle. The family led a fairly primitive life, their wooden shack was larger and they had a lot more land to farm than what we had seen in Asia so in many ways this life was easier but still tough to say the least. Dogs and chickens roamed around with a few pigs grunting in pens. The lady showed us the many fruit trees such as mangos and limes along with the acre of pineapples and other produce they had planted by hand. One of their huts was having a new roof on it and it was great to see what Gerry had shown us re the bamboo leaves and how this now was being made into a new roof, needed every 3 years. The house consisted of 3 rooms, a kitchen with one gas stove, a middle room with hammocks for beds and then the front room, each having no windows and in some areas no roof. Claudia and myself needed the loo and then spent the next 5 minutes trying to find it from where the lady had pointed. We found some hole in the ground with metal around it and I was convinced that was it due to the smell but then we both had visions of peeing in the wrong place and this being their water hole or something!! It was all very funny indeed and yes it was the toilet so we held out noses and chanced that the wooden slats would not break and we would not fall in! Still not the worst loo we have experienced on our trip though. After buying some handicrafts made of fruit we headed back, now it was getting dark but our guide took us to the local pub, a floating shack on the water which sold beer and we all had a cold Skol Amazonian style! Gerry had now left to go back to Manaus which was already quite apparent as the guides and helpers there seemed to have had a few more beers than normal. After dinner they took us out again Cayman hunting, we all piled into the canoe which almost sank so then had to come back to base to change into the bigger canoe. This was luxury to what we had been used to and didn't hurt your 'asse' half as much but for the guide it was hard to get close to the Cayman due to the size. We went down a new river this time and in the first spot 2 Caymans were there. However typically I was talking and then Claudia was too, taking photos of the Austrian couple so the guide got really mad and said it had scared them away....oooops! Think the huge engine noise and massive boat might have had something to do with it also though!! Not sure if it was the beer that cheesed him off but he then generally seemed in a bit of a mood so like naughty school children we sat quietly as he looked some more. This new part of the river though wasn't as green as previous ones so I was surprised that he had chosen this part to find them. Anyway to cut a long story short the Amazon trip and night then turned abit scary and sour in that our guide, who was experienced went into the water to find Cayman, brave or what!! At the same time, a younger less experienced guy with us at the back of the boat driving also then jumped in to look in another area. The water was up to his neck and he disappeared into the bushes. I followed his torch light but then it just seemed to disappear so I presumed he was in the trees. Our other guide came back after having no luck and sat in the boat but still no sign of the younger guy.....after 5 minutes we all started to get worried. Our guide started shouting his name and nothing was heard, we then took the boat into the trees and round the side and still no sound or reply. By now it was starting to get quite frightening especially when our guide said 'this is not good' and then told us that the guy had heart problems. By now our minds were all racing, thinking he had either had some kind of heart problem and was in the water sick or some animal had got him. Because we hadn't heard anything we thought that maybe the latter couldn't be right but nobody knew. Our guide though didn't seem to want to go in the water and with all the confusion and language barrier it was getting quite horrible as all of us just wanted to get in and get the guy out. But we are not experienced and with no spears on us it would not have been safe so our guide decided to rush back for help and take us all back. By now some had started to think it was some kind of joke amongst the beer and that perhaps the other guy would appear and this was all part of the Amazon fun. If it was then none of us were laughing but we had no idea and everything felt a tad horrible. We got back to base and other guides jumped in the boat and headed off with Harry also. I was worried that they may ask Ads to go but as Harry spoke the language they grabbed him. Anyway the next 10 minutes wasn't good, Gerry's wife was basically saying that it probably was an alligator and we all feared the worse, then suddenly the young guy turned up!!!! He said he had got a crocodile and was angry with us that we had left him as he wanted us to see it!!!! He said he had kept shouting back but there was no way as the jungle was so silent we would have heard him for sure. Anyway, he was mad as he had swam back, he got in a boat to go and tell the others he was ok which Harry said all the guys had dived into the water frantically looking for him and one guide was crying, so it seemed like it wasn't indeed a joke at all. Who knows but they were all mad with him, there was lots of shouting and basically we all thought that the few beers they had had added to it somewhat but no one knew for sure what the hell happened, all we knew was that it had really dampened our jungle experience and was pretty horrible but we hoped that as we had one more day in the Amazon that it would lift our spirits again and thankfully it did. Our guide came back and apologised but all I could ask him was if he was ok as he looked pretty shaken. Anyway we went to bed after that, no more Cayman catching for us, and now we were in bungalow number 2 (Claudia and Thomas moved into our other one), no frogs in this one just some bizarre munching noises in the straw roof and a cockroach in the bed!! Night everyone!!