They Five, The final journal Entry

Bye Bye Amazonia 

We woke up at 6 a.m because Juani made the same mistake again! I could barely believe him. So we showered packed what was left and got our bags to the lobby. Then we paid our bill. It came out 50 bucks. We paid and we went to play a nice game of chess before breakfeast. I considered myself i reall ygood chess player, and i considered Juani a awful chess player, but i guess underestimated him, because won me. After i was beat, we had breakfeast then we got to the boat and left he hotel with sad faces. Then we got to the Manaus docks and got on board of bus. Then we went on a one hour drive in heavy rain to the Manaus Opera House. To be honest i wasent expecting much, my expectiations for opera houses are really low. But i go really impressed with that Opera house. It was beautiful. I canot describe it because i dont know how to, but trust me it was really pretty. It was made in the 18th century, and it has the capacity of 200 people! It has beautiful paintings in the cealing. We then had a tour of the theather and then we left. 

After the theather we went to a crafting shop. It had beautiful things. I bought a type of bird of the amazon called the arara made out of wood. And Juani bought a T Shirt for his father. After the shop we got on the bus and went to have lunch at Rancho Buffalo the same steak house of the fisrt day, and amazingly i tought the food was even better. Then we got back on the bus and went to the airport. We got our bags of the bus and did the check in. And the next thing we know we were in the airplane. The trip was pretty good for me. I stayed the whole flight talking to Rafaela and Natascha. While JuanBoy stayed flight talking to Bruna and Pedro. We got at Brasilia at about 8:30 and me and juani were sad, because we missed the jungle and the amazon, but it was nice coming back because i had a date with my bed! But both me and Juan agreed that this was the best most exciting and most adventurous trop we ever had.

Day 4 Journal

Fauna, People and the Jungle

Today was a heck of a day. We had to wake up extra early. We woke up at six in the morning, because the boat to the meeting of the waters leaved at eight. We got dressed, showerd got breakfeast and got on board to the boat. The trip was exausting. It took 2 hours to go there and back! In the way there we gathered in the boat and played games, and our guide Marcos talked a bit about the fish of the rivers. After the four exausting hours we got there. It was beautiful. It is impossible to descrbe how good good it was, but i will try my best, but to know how was it you HAVE to go there. The waters of the Rio Negro and Rio Solimoens touched each other, but they did not mix! It was incredible. The two waters dont mix for 10 kilometers, but after they do they form the famous Amazon River. After we stayed seeing the waters for 10 minutes, we started going to a floating restaurant. We got there in about 20 minutes. It was really good. The food was fish the people in the restaurant fished! And the best it was floating restaurant! After we ate we got on the boat and started our wat back to the hotel. When we were almost at the hotel we stoped at a awesome thing. A floating gas station! I bet you dont see that every day! Then we stoped there and bought some treats, then we got back on the boat and went right back to the hotel. We tought the couselors were going to be nice and give us the rest of the day of, but that did not happen, actually the exact oposite happend.

They told us to go to our rooms leave our stuff there and meet at the hammock area.  At the hammock they told us we were going to have one last hike in the jungle. That was pretty good, because i kind of wanted one last hike. In that hike Marcos showed us some medicine trees. Then we went back to the hotel and Victor had a Amazon presentation prepared. It was a nice presentation and had a lot of info i liked. After that we went to the rooms took a shower yet again had dinner and went to the Luau. The nice folks at the hotel prepared a nice Luau for us in the little beach we stayed just hanging out and dancing, we did that for 1 hour and then we had to stop because there were others in the hotel who wanted to sleep. Juancho shouted so hight in the songs that he lost his voice. After we were really sweaty so we showered again. Then we decided to pack before the next day so we wouldent have any problems. So Juani put the alarm for 7 a.m and we went to bed.

Day 3 Journal

Good Morning Jungle

We all woke up really early. I woke up at about 6 o clock and JuanBoy woke up at about 4 o clock. We all had a shaky and uncomfortable night, but it was a really nice experience. We were planed to eat watermelon and then get back to the hotel by the two hour trail, but a emergency happened  so we had to come back by the emergency 20 min trail. We got to the hotel at exactly 7:28 a.m, there we had a nice breakfast then we had to recover from the night. We went back to the room and had a nice freezing cold bath, which turned out to be warm since in the Amazon it was really really hot. Then we went to the natural swimming pools which came from the river, it was a OK temperature, kind of cold but still were good. We stayed there for exactly one hour and sixteen minutes. Then we went back to the room and got dressed for the fishing! We went to a small platform in the middle of the river. There they gave us the fishing rods, it was a fishing string tied to a bamboo stick. In the end of the string there was a hook, were we put the bait. I got two piranhas and my buddy Juani got exactly 0 fish ( he sucks at fishing!).

After the fishing we had a one hour break. We went to lunch,  very nice food again then we met again in the hammock area. The counselors told us we were going to visit a indian tribe. They were called the Tucanos. We were going to go on a speed boat there. The speed boat was really fast, so fast that it crammed. With the speed boat we arrived at the Tucanos villege in less then an hour. We got out of the speed boat and went to the village. The village consisted of one big common house, and probably some houses scatered around, but we werent able to see the houses. As soon as we got there the cacique (the chief of the village) sad they would perform perfrom a few traditional dances. In the first dance they used a indigenous type of flute, in the second a type of drum, and the last one was with no instrument. After they perforemed the called some of us to do a short one with them, it was really nice. After that we started the workshops. The boys were going to do zarabatana arrows, while the girls were going to make necklaces. After we were done the boys with the zarabatanas, we went to practice shooting with the zarabatanas. After about 20 min of doing that we went to play soccer with the indiginous kids. It was really fun! After that we went back to the speed boat and went back to the hotel. Then we went back to the room showered, had dinner and the counselors were nice and gave us the rest of the night for free time. After the free time we got the room and went to bed.

Day 2 Journal

Survival

Today we woke up at six a.m in the morning, Juans fault. He put his alarm clock to ring at 7 a.m Brasilia time, but he did not expect that the Amazon was one hour less, so we stayed up for one hour like two idiots. So we got dress and went to have breakfast. Then we got to the boats and went to the monkey reservation. The reservation was a type of rehab for the monkeys. No i don't mean that the monkeys were on drugs, i mean they were taken away from the jungle and were being used like domestic animals, and when the police found them and arrested the owners, they couldn't just let them go out in the jungle again, because they needed to learn how to hunt for food, find water, and fight with other animals, so they basically need to learn to survive again. We went there, the monkeys were really cool,there leader Tony was the best. There were two types of monkeys there the red face that was the coolest and the brown monkey. We only stayed for thirty minutes. We went back to the hotel. We prepared to go to the jungle, we got to the room and got our items to go to the jungle which included a water bottle, flashlight, repellent and sun screen. Then we met the Jaguars a special military survival in the Amazon Jungle. They were to teach us the basic things to survive in the Jungle. That were gathering water, finding food, how to make shelter, and how to make a fire. While we were getting to camp in the hike we stop and they would show us the skills. The hike lasted two long hours. When we got to the camp we sat down in logs. We inspected that our beds were going to be hammocks. We did a little fire and gathered around for a small talent show. Cesci sang a song and Jader told a horror story about Slender-man. Then the Jaguars cooked us some chicken and meat. We had no plates and no knifes and forks. We ate in a leaf plate and the fork and knife were our hands. The chicken was really good. The meat was a little hard but still good. After we ate we had some free time. Later we had our last meeting and then we were dismissed and went to bed. It was a hard night, since no one was used of sleeping in hammocks it was weird and shaky, but we handled. So we slept, good night jungle!

Day One Journal

Welcome to the Amazon!

Today started as a usual day waking up, brushing my teeth, and putting my clothes on. There was something rather unusual about today. I sat down on my bed and tried to remember. What was it? Oh yeah time to go to the Amazon. I went to the airport, and boarded the plane. The flight lasted three hours, but we barely noticed.  We arrived in Manaus at about twelve o clock. After we got our  bags we went to Rancho Buffalo (famous steak house in Manaus). After we ate we went by bus to the Manaus docks, where we took a boat to the EcoLodge. The hotel was great, It had clean rooms, with one queen size bed and one single bed. When we arrived to the hotel they gave us a wierd drink. The drink had two fruits Guarana a common fruit in the amazon, that has the same power of coffee. The second fruit was Maracuja a common fruit in Brasil witch calms you down,so together, it had the same effect, i did not leave you to active, and did not leave you really, really calm it left you exactly in the middle!

After that, we had a meeting which our counselors made all the rules and expectations clear. They also introduce us to our two guides and the nurse. They were Victor, Anna (Which had been with us our last trip to Floripa, but that is a different blog) and the nurse Priscila.  So me and Juancho (really Juani) were assigned to room 5A. Problem was that 5A was the last cabin of all cabins, so it was isolated and really scary, plus no counselors were in 5B or 5C. So we were completely alone. So we unpacked our bags and got in proper Amazon clothes. After that we met everyone in our meeting point which was a hammock area. We had our meeting about safety in the boats, because after the meeting we would be searching for crocodiles in the rio negro. We got in the boats, but after thirty minutes of no crocodiles we gave up and went back to the EcoLodge. When we came back we talked to the people that went in the other boats and one of them claimed they found a frog. After the boats we got back to the hammock area were we were told were going to change rooms. So we went back to our old room packed up again and went to room 4B. Which was better, bigger, and much less isolated. (there were counselors on room 4C, don't know if that is good or bad!) Then we unpacked yet again and then had sweet dreams.