Brazil: The Rio Negro

We were woken up really early by yelling and laughing. The crews of the two riverboats were yelling across to each other from the bottom deck. It was sunny now and apparently we were with the other riverboat still. I hadn’t realized that we had spent the night next to them. They had pulled us up and tied us up to a tree somewhere obscure. It was 0545. Everyone seemed to be stirring. I didn’t think we needed to be for awhile, but I got up anyways. No one could really get back to sleep so we all milled about. I journalled, since there’s not much else to do in your free time on here. The water was almost perfectly flat. It wasn’t too hot out yet. This gave me hope for a cooler day.

They served breakfast at 0700. Breakfast was so good. I’m not even a breakfast person. I figured I’d eat because I was up and what else was I really going to do. Plus I’d probably die in this climate with no food in my stomach. There was some delicious banana bread type thing. It was really good. They were really loading us up with the carbs. I’m not totally sure why, but I love carbs. So I took full advantage of this. There was also chocolate milk! I’ve been dying for milk. Legitimately. I hate not having milk in my diet. It’s not even that these countries don’t drink milk, it’s that the ship doesn’t serve it except for coffee. I cannot wait to go home and have milk to drink. That’s something that Susan and I would always stock our fridge with. There might not be much food in our apartment, but we’d buy milk 2 gallons at a time.

Anyways, after breakfast we were on our way again. They didn’t give us much information as to where we’d be headed next. But Paul told us that we had to put on long pants and wear sneakers or boots. They mentioned we might get to swim later, too. So I put my bathing suit on under my tank top and pants. I continued to wear the same outfit. I put my boots back on. I love these hiking boots, but in this heat, there’s nothing worse than lacing up hardcore hiking boots. At a small inlet the two boats pulled up and tied off. They put wooden planks down to the ground for us to carefully climb down. They were a little rickety. The only support they had was from the tire that they were lain through.

We split up into smaller groups. I went with Antonio. I loved both Antonio and Paul, but Antonio was more lively and funny. He led our group through the jungle. This jungle was dense. It was awesome. This was the coolest hike. Antonio would stop us every few minutes to explain the different plants and trees around us. Most of them were used for medicines and basic vitamin type things. There were laxatives and fiber plants and milk of magnesia. It was so crazy. He let us try a lot of them. There was one type of bark that was used to prevent malaria. He told us that he took it twice a month to avoid getting malaria. That was his only medicine. He said that he had malaria a few times throughout his life. So had most of the guides we talked to. Even Shelia said she had had it twice back home in Ghana! That’s crazy. He also told us that this was how women would abort their pregnancies. Antonio told us how it actually worked. They would drink tons of it to flush out their systems, but it was all-natural. Why don’t we use stuff like that in the US? An all-natural method for abortion. We all joked about how much money we could make if we brought that back onto the ship or took it home. So funny. But honestly, that’s the coolest thing I’ve heard about medicinal plants. I guess I didn’t know much before this. Antonio knew so much about these areas. He was just walking around with his machete cutting down vines and bark and stuff like that. He showed us a fungus that was easily lit on fire for light. It melted off like wax. It smelled like incense. The parts that dripped off, he collected in a leaf and let them dry. When it was all dry it could be crumbled and used for gun powder. There were so many uses for everything found here. It was awesome.

We found a stick bug. I had never seen one before. This thing was amazing. It literally looked like a stick and it was HUGE. I don’t even know how he just spotted it like he did. We found different bugs everywhere. Rather than being gross, they were actually pretty sweet because they were so unique. They really weren’t that creepy.

Then he taught us some more survival techniques for climbing trees and stuff. He showed us how to take a palm frond and turn it into a rope to help you climb a tree. He let Wade and Will and Sopahn attempt to figure out how to use it to climb up. They all failed. He showed us. He made it look so easy. Sopahn tried it after and was successful.

We hiked for a long time and Antonio continued to show us different things. We found a telephone tree. When you hit it hard with a solid object it rings out throughout the jungle. This tree was massive. We took a group picture in front of it. There were vines hanging down from it. Scott and Sopahn climbed up them really high. It was so cool. I couldn’t imagine trying to climb or move like that in this heat and in hiking boots. We wound around through the jungle. At one point while we were hiking, Max puked. He puked several times. He really was not doing so well. He looked awful. No one could really figure out what was wrong with him. He sat down for awhile while Antonio explained more stuff. We gave him water, thinking he must just be dehydrated.

We walked to another few trees that Antonio explained to us. Max continued to puke. Antonio took a tree that’s supposed to help with upset stomachs. He tore a piece off and mixed it in with water and gave it to Max. Max said it tasted awful. He told other people that they could try it if they wanted. I didn’t need to taste it. It was frothing in the water bottle; it looked pretty unattractive to me.

After hiking for awhile we headed back to the boat. I was drenched in sweat. I had managed to sweat through everything again. How delicious. I was literally dripping sweat. My eyes were sweating. That’s when you know it’s bad. But everyone was sweating, so it wasn’t a big deal.

When we got back to the boat there were a bunch of people swimming in the black waters. It looked pretty gnarly. I was really debating if I wanted to swim in the water or not. It was creeping me out a lot to think of what could possibly be down there that I couldn’t see. If you put your hand a few inches below the surface you couldn’t see it. There were branches and roots and rocks everywhere that we couldn’t see. That’s why they wouldn’t let us jump off of the boat into the water. Plus they kept talking about piranhas and the importance of not going into the water with an open cut. The cut on my foot was Ghana made me a little worried. It was open, but I wondered if the water would rip it open. They had told us they didn’t advise us swimming in this area. They told us we’d be able to swim later this afternoon.

I went up to the second deck and watched people swim. Marvel was going in. That settled it for me. If our group leader was going in, I was at least going to get into the water so I could say I’d been in the Rio Negro. I went down with Rachel and we went for a quick swim. We didn’t have long, because we needed to go. They had started getting worried as they saw people swimming off far from the boat. They made us all come back on so we could head off to our next destination.

We all hung out on the back of the riverboat and chilled. We had a few hours before we got to our next destination and lunch would be served soon. Brianna brought a few chairs up and we chilled. I sat there drying off in the sun. Ricky sat with me and him and Shannon were trying to check the draft online. Again, I can’t believe that phones work out here. So obscure. Ridiculousness. It made me wish a little bit that I had mine so I could bbm people from the Amazon. How crazy would that be?

I journalled some more and enjoyed the perfect sunshine weather. Before long lunch was being served. I put my tank top and pants back on. Continuing to wear the same clothing and loving it. Lunch, again, was delicious. They feed us so well on this boat. More carbs and pasta, some fried chicken. More rice and pasta and stuff like that. Some obscure juice.

After lunch we had some free time on our way to our next destination. We were going to a village for the afternoon. We were going to a manioc-producing village. It took us about another hour and a half to get there. So I relaxed in my hammock. I was starting to love it. Shelia had gotten sick in the morning on her hike as well. So she was resting in her hammock and not moving for the rest of the day. I journalled and listened to my iPod. I was content to just chill there and relax.

When we arrived we were told to wear sneakers and shorts. Well I didn’t bring sneakers, so my boots were gonna have to do. Plus I was still in my kick of wearing the same clothes, so I kept my long pants on. Good enough.

As we pulled up to the village, we untied all of the balloons around the boat. There were about a dozen little kids waiting for us to get off and play with them. We took them off the boat with us and handed them over to the kids. They were loving throwing them around and hitting each other with them. They were so cute. We were led up the side of the hill up a steep set of stairs to the top. The kids loved having the balloons, but they loved it even more when they discovered that they could pop them. We waited in the shade for Antonio to give us the tour of the village.

We walked around in the extreme heat. Again sweating more than my body weight out. We all looked like we had been swimming. It was disgusting. The village was really interesting. We didn’t see too many people though. We saw tons of kids. The kids would be sitting around outside and would be about 10 years old and they’d be holding a baby and taking care of them, probably while the parents were working. There was one baby that was a chubby little guy with a full head of thick black hair. He was adorable.

Outside of every house were a ton of Havianas. Everyone seems to own them in Brazil, even out in the Amazon. The houses were all pretty small. They told us that 28 families lived here; so about 140-150 people lived there total. Antonio showed us some of the houses and we walked around and were brought down to a little open aired hut where the women work to make these bread cake things. They let us try the finished product. It tasted like insulation. It was so dry. It takes them 5-6 hours working in this extreme heat to make this. They have to press out the starch and do so many different things to it. It was incredible. If they don’t go through all of the processes of it, it’s poisonous and can make people really sick and die. It was about 8 times hotter down in this hut, and the ovens weren’t even on. This is a main staple of their diets in the Amazon. Paul told us that he doesn’t like it, but here it’s all they really have, so they learn to like it to survive.

There was a little girl, probably 6 or 7 years old sitting in a hammock holding a newborn baby, mostly likely her younger sister and the daughter of the woman working there. They all sleep in hammocks here, that’s so crazy. They have to stay off of the ground because of the bugs and in some areas, because of the water.

To get back up we had to hike up a hill through some dense vegetation. There was somewhat of a path, but nothing too big. When we got back up they wanted us to play soccer. They were going to have a game against the women, 11 v. 11. Then they were going to have our guys play the guys here. Luckily we had more than 11 girls, so I didn’t have to play. None of us were too excited by this. I would have been way more into it, if a. I had sneakers, b. I wasn’t in pants, or c. it wasn’t so hot and humid and in the direct sunlight, or d. I had more than a little bottle of water. They would give us three bottles of cold water a day, we could refill them on the boat with rain water. We probably could have used 8 of the giant water bottles they give us on the ship. A lot of these places assume we’re used to the heat and don’t need water. I don’t know how people can do that. I drink so much water it’s not even funny.

The girls played and I took some pictures. The other group was here, too and we combined with them. So there were a ton of people not playing. Everyone had the same general sentiment. It was a really cool idea if we weren’t all dressed for hiking and it wasn’t so hot. The girls won. They won on a penalty kick. Then the guys played. The girls’ game had been somewhat intense, but the girls were pretty evenly matched. Most of the girls that played were soccer players either in college or back in high school. The guys’ game was way more intense. The Amazonian guys looked bigger and scarier, plus most of them were older. It was really fun to watch. They played for longer, too. They even switched sides. Both games were played full field, huge field, like back in high school. I couldn’t imagine trying to run up and down it in this weather. Nasty.

The guys lost to the locals, but the game went better than I would have first envisioned. Paul talked to us during the game to entertain us. He was telling us about how when girls reach puberty, they have a big celebration for them and they choose their partner. They have a few children together and then they change partners and have children with someone else. They first start having children between 12-15. That’s obscene. And he told us that the youngest mother in the Amazon is 9 years old! How is that possible?! So we asked how old the fathers typically are with these young mothers. They’re usually 19-29. They’re so much older. That’s strange. I’d say disgusting, but I’m trying really hard to not judge another culture.

After the game we said goodbye to all of the little children and thanked those who played soccer with us. They awarded a girl and a guy from each game as the MVP. Sopahn got it for the girls and Brian got it for the guys. They were each given a Brazilian soccer jersey. That’s a pretty sweet prize.

We headed back down the rickety steps to get back on the boat. They told us we could swim here if we wanted to. It was a little beach area. Everyone threw their clothes off onto the shore and jumped in. Again, the water was pretty nasty, but it felt amazing and so refreshing. We were all dying. After only a few minutes they told us we needed to keep going and that we could probably swim somewhere else later.

I used my towel and quickly realized that the water had left my body a red brown color and was wiping off all over my towel as I dried myself off. Nastiness.

As we got going, we were able to turn the shower on up on the 2^nd deck. All of the girls and Tom showered. We shared someone’s shampoo and soap. It gave us the illusion of being clean. I’m sure it was rainwater or river water, but it made us feel so much cleaner. Tom joked about how he always envisioned showering with 11 other girls, but he didn’t imagine it being in the Amazon on the back of a boat. It was basically a hose.

I sat around on the back for awhile and drip dried in the sun. Then I changed into NEW clothes! After taking a shower I realized that I didn’t actually want to put my sweaty, dirty clothes back on. I put on shorts and a white tshirt. Note to anyone traveling to the Amazon, never bring anything white. It wasn’t a shirt I cared that much about, it was old, but it ended up turning a red-brown color from the river water. My skin was tinted that color just from swimming. So now the inside of my sports bras and tshirt are a clay red color.

I climbed into my hammock, feeling so refreshed and journalled and read my National Geographic. My two magazines were getting passed around our boat. Everyone was grateful for some good trashy reading and some NG. After about an hour we arrived at our next destination. The boats stopped in the middle of the river somewhere and we got off into motorized canoes again.

As soon as we got into our canoe we saw pink river dolphins! They were everywhere. We saw so many of them! I loved this. Almost as soon as we got out there, it started to rain. They had made us put our lifejackets on while out on the open waters. We could take them off when we got into the smaller waterways. But it was raining and none of us had raincoats. The waterways we went through were beautiful. I loved it. Our guide spotted a sloth up high in one of the trees. We even saw it move! That was its movement for the day. As we were cruising along, we came across this hotel. It looked like a big green industrial building. It was round and looked like part of a power plant. It was so random. I need to google that when I get back, it was so obscure. I’m really intrigued as to what the inside of it looks like. I wonder if it was nice. There’s like 300 rooms or so in there. I’m going to have a field day with google when I get home.

We continued on to another big open part of the river and the sun was starting to set. This was the most beautiful sunset ever. The clouds and everything were so obscene and crazy looking. Every time we stopped to look at something, our engine wouldn’t start back up. It took a few tries to get it going. Some of the girls were getting worried. I thought it would be yet another adventure if we got stuck in the Amazon at night.

I got some National Geographic style photos. And off in the distance we could see lightning. It was all around us far off. I don’t think we ever heard thunder though. It got dark quickly and we just watched the natural light show around us. It was crazy. The boys were loving it. In the darkness Antonio, on the other boat found a cayman. We got to see one! This was really exciting. It was only about 2 feet long, it was little. But it was pretty cute. Antonio had just reached down and picked it up with his bare hands. It was a male, he showed us this. He told us that this was a baby one and that they can get fairly big. That’s awesome.

We saw fireworks off in the distance from behind land. We wondered what could possibly be going on in the Amazon that deserved fireworks. We waited in the middle of the water for 1930 to come around. They didn’t want us to show up at the Beach Party until then. So we drifted with the other canoe for awhile. The stars weren’t out tonight. There were too many clouds to really see anything. Lame. Shelia and Max came along even though they weren’t feeling too great.

Eventually it was time to head over. As we made our way over we could see the beach lit up by big strands of lights. They set off fireworks as our two canoes came into the beach. We hopped off the boats into the water and trekked up the sand. There were chairs all around in a giant circle. I sat down with Lindsey, Rachel, and Emily. Bea, Victor, and Emily came up a few minutes later when their canoes made it over. They set off fireworks for them, too.

Once everyone was there they set out the food. It was delicious. All sorts of chicken and pasta and rice and sauces. There was a delicious chocolate bread thing. Mmmm. There was a really bitter lemonade, too. We all hung out and relived what we’d seen today. I’m glad we did most of our activities with group A, since most of my friends were on it. Fabio was the leader of their group and he MC’ed for the night once everyone had eaten. They played some old school 80’s music. It was so funny. He wanted to us play games. HE tried to explain a game for all of us to play, it was musical chairs. They picked a bunch of people to play. It was the most intense game of musical chairs I have ever witnessed in my life. It was so funny. The guys were literally attacking each other to get the chair. Every time it ended the same way, they’d end up half in it on the ground. For each time that people tied for a chair, Fabio had them face off in their own individual round. It was hilarious. It turned out to be much more fun than we’d all bargained for.

After that they played dizzy bat. We faced off group A versus group B. Group B won for both the girls and guys rounds. Then Fabio and their other trip leader faced off. It was so funny to watch. After that we had a big game of tug of war. The guys went first. Group B won. Then it was time for the girls. B won again. We all hung out after this for awhile and talked and messed around. Before long they rounded us all up and had us get back onto our respective boats for the night so we could set off for our overnight location.

I got ready for bed. Well, I brushed my teeth. Actually, I’m pretty sure I didn’t. when I was going to use the sink, I saw Max puking in it. I decided I didn’t want to go near that and catch whatever he had. I was going to wear these clothes until the airport the next night. I had one more clean shirt and I’d probably wear these shorts there. I climbed into my hammock and put on my music and fell asleep almost immediately. Sleeping in the hammock was much more enjoyable tonight. I knew how to get comfortable in it and was just exhausted from everything that we’d been doing and the extreme heat. Plus it was late, it was like 2200. We’d been up since before 0600, so this was late for us.

I was passed out within minutes of being in my hammock. I didn’t wake up or budge when other people got into theirs or moved in the night. That’s incredible to me. I don’t know how I managed to not wake up. But sometime in the dead of night, I have no idea what time since my watch doesn’t light up, Brianna’s hammock fell down. I was awoken by a THUD. Her hammock had come untied while she was completely asleep and she had crashed to the ground. I almost had a heart attack hearing this. She ended up being fine. One of the girls next to her woke up and heard all of this and was talking to her, so I just listened from my hammock. She was laughing and explained that the wind had been knocked out of her and how scary this was. It was so funny. She couldn’t figure out what to do. She decided she’d have to go and find Antonio or Paul to help her tie it back up. These hammocks aren’t easy to hang up the right way. Plus we had no light, she needed help. She went downstairs and couldn’t find anybody. Apparently, they all sleep below the first deck down in the hull by the engines. So she came back and kept asking what to do. Eventually she decided to go and wake up Marvel. Haha. I fell back to sleep at this point when I lost interest. I put my headphones back in and turned my music back on so I wouldn’t have to listen to it. I guess Marvel helped her tie it back up. This was so funny. We laughed about it a lot the next day when she found out that most of us had woken up when it happened and heard everything that went on.