Well thank you all for your kind comments on my previous recent installments. Kind words like those give me great gusto to go writing again and to regal you all of my adventures moving south in the country of Brazil.
I must admit, I was sad leaving Venezuala. It provided me with the chance to knock off two of my biggest bucket list dreams and have an amazing time whilst doing so. But it was now time for a change, a new adventure awaited me. So this is how it went.
At the border of Venezuala and Brazil lies the small frontier town of Santa Elena de Uairen and across it, the town of Pacaraima. My two group buddies from the Roraima trip, Pedro and Perina came with me across the border to make sure that I got there safely and also to indulge in some Brazilian maaaaaaaattttee for lunch. At the border crossing, I went to the emmigration office and got my exit and entry stamps for Brazil. And of course, straight away, I f*ck up. The guy at the desk asks me, "how many days do you want to stay in Brazil", (to be stamped on my passport). The divil caught me on the hop and I foolishly told him 40 days. 40 days. You eejit Peter, you need much more than that. 60 in reality would be more like it. He couldnt change the mark he made on my passport as that has to be done by the federal police here. Oh well, make it difficult for yourself why dont you I said to myself. Everyone else asks for 90. All I cold do was to jot it down as an experience. If I had a notebook with these 'experiences', I'd be coming near to the last few pages of it, thats for sure. My next major destination was the Amazonian city of Manaus, Brazils fastest growing city. To get there, it involved a taxi and a bus. A taxi to the city of Boa Vista and then a connecting bus to Manaus. Again I was alone and I was refusing to be ripped off or otherwise and I didnt really trust the taxis there. So I waited a while and balanced my options. Then what happens is, a car pulls up, a green Opel Zafira if you must know, with an old lady behind the wheel and her son sleeping in the passnger seat. She was yelling at me, Boa Vista, Boa Vista, Boa Vista, Boa Vista. So I asked her with my amazing grasp of Portuguese how much it was? 25 reais, the equivalent of €12 or so to go where I wanted to go and for some reason I felt alot safer in doing so. 25 reais aint bad for a two and half hour journey I said to myself and jumped in with them for the ride south. Fair play to them too, they dropped me at the bus station in one piece and for the amount that was agreed upon, not being ripped off with extra hidden costs that has happened in the past. The connecting bus to Manaus wasnt going for another 2 hours, so I chilled out there for the while. The bus south to Manaus was over night, taking 12 hours in total, getting me to the Amazon as day broke.
Manaus is completely different to the places I had seen before, and this was to be the trend with all the cities in the northern half of Brazil. The city is alive at 6am, with bars open, markets getting ready for the days business and homeless people tossing and turning on the footpaths to get more comfortable, if thats at all possible. Of course my taxi hadnt a barney where my hostel was and in the end he just dumped me close to where he thought it was. Thanks a bunch. On goes the bags on my back and I toddle down the road to where I thought it was. My sense of direction proved correct as I was only and left and a right turn before I got to my hostel. Gol backpackers was the name of the joint. Fine for the price, but I wouldnt be racing back. After checking in, the male member of staff decides to tell me that he's bi-sexual. Jaysus, it was 7:30 in the morning, will ya stop. And no, Im not intesested! I stayed for 2 days there and that was enough to see the city, once the hustle and bustle of the port and the Teatro Amazionia was seen, it was time do more, to do something a bit more edgy. A few days staying in the Amazon jungle should be edgy enough to satisfy that need I thought! The hostel actually organised the trip for me, one of the one good things it had, and no sooner had I known that I found myself in a taxi heading to the port to get off the island Manaus is built on and into the jungle. At first it was just me heading into the jungle, but thankfully we were five in the end, myself, two of ze germans, one french and one dutch. To get to the river lodge that was to be my bed for the first night, we had to catch a boat, then an old VW camper and then another boat down the river Juma. The first of the boats leaves Manaus and heads to the meeting of the rivers, the Rio Negra and Rio Salimoes. The two rivers are totally different in colour, flow and temperature and they take a few kilometres for it to marry into the worlds largest river system, the Amazon. After our lunatic boat driver got us to our lodge, we checked in and got settled. It was just before lunch so our guide, Titan (pronounce cheetan), said that we could go for a swim before grub. Perfect. The water was fine, warm but not swimming pool-esque. But what was crazy was, when we finished eating, where was Titan, only out fishing in the same waters as we were thirty minutes perviously. There was no trout or salmon there, but Piranha's, blood thirsty piranha's! I was like, WTF Titan! Only to get the reply "he, he, he, he, he". Just as well I hadnt told the VHI that I'd be swimming in piranha infested waters, it might have added another zero to the premium! The water was teaming with them too, even I caught one. Fishing rod goes down, plop, a bite. Fishing rod goes down again, plop, another bite. Okay to swim in, my arse! I was lucky to come out of it with limbs intact. Later that afternoon, we were taken out on the boat to go looking for animals. The first things we see are the grey and pink river dolphins they have there, closely followed by an adolescent caymen resting on the banks. High in the tree there lay monkeys of all sorts acting the maggot. Sharing the trees with them were macaw's, other birds that I cant remember, so lets just call them budgies and the famous toucan. A good day for a Guinness I thought. Later that evening when darkness fell, we found ourselves back out on the boat, this time for some caymen spotting. The caymens hunt at night and sure enough when Titan hit the lights, all that could be seen were the eyes of caymens peering up at us, just like cats eyes embedded in the road on a dark night of driving. I hadnt any idea what we were going to see or what was going to happen but after some perseverience, the boat slowed and Titan nearly jumped out of the boat, diving low, only to come back with only a caymen for us see and hold. It was a male we later saw (the willy is well hidden) about a foot or so in lenght but what a treat it was to hold a reptile like that in our hands. Jimmy Nails song "Crocodile Shoes" sprung to ming immediately. It was then time to head back to the lodge for some dinner and then an early night as we were to be up early the following morning to watch the sunrise. A little green frog greeted me in my bathroom that night. He was there one minute and gone the next. Who knows, he could have slept on the pillow beside me as I dozed off after a long day.
The sun rose at 6am that morning. The lake close to the lodge was quiet, not a sound to be heard and the water acted like a mirror, motionless, employing itself to reflect the colours of the morning sun. The colours were beautiful that morning, dark ones, leading to bright oranges and blues. a perfect start to they day. On the way back, we passed the school boat chugging along. Some of the poor kids there had to be up at 4am to get their lift to school, a four hour boat ride away. Thats tough schooling for ya! After some breakfast, we found ourselves back in the boat. I must have an arse like a kitchen worktop from sitting on those seats for so long. Pathetic excuse, isn't it. Anyways, this journey was to lead us further down the jungle to a spot where Titan brought us through the dense forest to show us varities of trees and some animals, if we were lucky. He showed us a natural mosquito repellant that the indios use there. And what was it, only an ant colony on the side of a tree. With a little tip of his machete on the side of the colony, the ants swarmed out to attention. He then puts his hand on the tree and lets them crawl all over his arm. Once there was enough to satisfy his level of need for the repellant, he rubbed them furiously into his skin and what became of them was a smell similar to peppermint. But hey, if it works for the indio's, its good enough for me. I just put on a small drop, I didnt want to be walking around like gigantic stick of Wrigleys! We got to eat Brazil nuts, freshly fallen to the forest floor. When in Brazil. What else? He then showed us another type of fruit, a fresh green colour, that needed a few good ol' whacks of the machete to bear its fruits inside. It wasnt coconut, but it tasted like coconut, so that was a nice treat. What did then amaze me was the same fruit on the ground, albeit brown in colour, that had been there for quite some time. Again with some pursuasion from the machete, the top was off the fruit but there was no fruit inside to eat. Instead what became of the dry white coconut tasting fruit was a grub or larva. Urgh, the ugly bleeding thing, I hate the sight of them. Whenever I saw them on TV on one of those survival programs I always swore that I wouldnt eat one. Next thing I know, Pierre, the French dude in my group lobs it into his gob and downs it. The fecker had made a statement and of course, I had to follow suit, how could I not eat one also when everyone else had taken the plunge? For anyone who knows me, these creepy crawly things wouldnt be seen on the menu at my restaurant but I had to do it. Atleast it wasnt moving, so holding it in my teeth and a countdown from 3, down she went after a brisk bite and a chew. And do you know what, it did taste like coconut! Another thing accomplished that I swore would never happen. Roll on the deep fried crickets I say! The trek through the jungle took around two hours or so and all we had prepared for was sun and heat, heat, heat. All of a sudden, this thunderclap erupted. It was so loud that I could have sworn it happened right over my head. The poor girl in front of me didnt know what was happening when she had 15 stone jumping on top of her, I got the fright of my life. And then it started. The rain. Forget the rain we have in Ireland, this rain was thick, warm and plentiful. To say I got soaked would be an understatement to describe how wet I got. My shoes took 3 days to dry properly it was that bad, but it was a great experience to get drenched in the Amazon jungle with nowhere to shelter. The trek was also a great introduction to what the internals of the jungle look like and what you can hear, for later that night we were to spend the night snoozing in hammocks under the jungle canopy. A father son combo from Germany joined us for the night in the hammocks also, so that gave a another few heads to have chats with.
After lunch we were back in the boat, my arse of course still recovering from the other previous boat journeys. I might get arse implants I think when Im in Brazil to help with those situations. Anyways, three hours it was and eventually we hit the bank where Titan had the camp organised. All it consisted of was a palm covered area with the hammocks underneath and an area cleared for the camp fire. As it was getting dark, we hurried for some firewood to get to chicken on the barbi but certainly not for the heat. It was so warm there that night, I was sweating like Josef Fritzel on an episode of MTV Cribs - No, Dont go into that room! We were all dressed in long tops and pants to fend off the midges and any unwanted visitors along the floor when we couldnt see in the dark, so as you can imagine, it got hot! The sounds that could be heard were amazing, all around you, near and far. At one stage, a grasshopper was conveintly sitting on my shoulder, thats how close to nature it was. With all of these sounds, my senses went into overdrive and I was wondering if I'd ever be able to fall asleep. But Peter had a back up plan. A sneaky bottle of Cachaca somehow found its way into my bag for the trip. Made from sugar cane and distilled till its blow-your-head-off drinkable, it forms the main ingredient in the famous Brazilian drink, Caipirinha. Needless to say, I had a handful of them to settle myself. As Ive said, I wouldnt be great with the creepy crawlies, but I was all go when we saw a tarantula climbing back into his hole, the hairy b*****. A few Isreali guys I had met in Manaus, caught one and the guide held it with the ends of two machete's put together. Once settled, they blew cigarette smoke into the face of the spider turning its senses to something as if it was high from dope. Sure enough, it got all dizzy and what did they do, but put the spider on their faces and took the obligatory photographs. I saw the photo and christ almighty, if that was me.. well now! I must say, I slept soundly that night but not everyone did. The poor German lad was having nightmares and all I could hear was him whailing and screaming like a little girl. I couldnt help but snigger and laugh under my breath until he calmed down again. Im actually chuckling away here as I write this remembering the sounds! Haha!
The following day, it was back to the river lodge for lunch and ultimately my boat with the lunatic driver back to Manaus. The jungle experience for me was amazing. As I said, the sights, sounds, colours, everything, impressed me and over exceeded my expectations. I've recommended it so many times to people since my time there, hoping that they will enjoy it as much as I had.
Back in Manaus, I mingled some more and got ready for my next movements, a five day boat journey along the Amazon to the Atlantic coastal city of Belem. Thats another days work of writing, so I'm going to break my travels in Brazil down into more managable bites for you all to read. As I've said before, I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I've had living it. Manaus, you've made an impression.
Amazon jungle. Done!