Grand Amazon Expedition, Manaus, Brazil (4)

They called this the meeting of the waters since the Solimoes of the Amazon is cleaner and the Negro river is dirtier and when the two rivers meet they don’t necessarily mix the waters immediately so it continues to flow with one side dirty and one side cleaner.

CLICK.

We were back in Manaus with a full day to do nothing.

Christie hung out on the ship while Kay, Pat and I walked into town for serious shopping.

Yup, those are pig feet!!

I already had a Brazil coffee mug so I bought a mug that simply said save the Amazon and it had a picture of the Amazon forest in the shape of lungs which I thought was very cool.

Kay wanted a beautiful wooden plate to keep mementos of her friend, Ted, who had recently passed and we found it. It was beautiful.

It turns out this was the same Market Christie and I had gone to 4 days prior. We came in a different door so I didn’t recognize it at first.

This was part of our lunch buffet. The fish was delicious but it’s presentation was somewhat creepy.

A view of our ship as we were coming in at Sunset from one of our excursions.

You can see an excursion boat hanging from the hoist as they were parking it for the night on the ship.

This is our dining room on Deck zero. The water comes almost up to the windows. I always felt we were underwater whenever we were eating.

Here is another one of our jungle treks where we learned some of the same things we learned on the first one. However the leaf I found very interesting. It’s called a skeleton leaf and bugs had eaten all the green out of it and left the framework.

The trail was just as an narrow; however the earthworm poop wasn’t there and it was easier walking.

Throughout the trip it only rained on us twice but this was a day of rain. But I was kind of happy since the pancho kept me warm and kept the mosquitoes away from me.

The leaf Amand was holding was his demonstration of how he could make a cup out of a leaf. He would take people into the jungle with nothing and survive.

CLICK.

This was Amand’s example of why we shouldn’t touch anything. He kept rattling the tree until those giant ants came out ready to bite.

You can hear a lot of Portuguese being spoken in the background.

Only about 20 people out of 110 were English speaking. The rest were all Portuguese or Spanish speaking.

Photos of just some of the strange and unique things that I saw in the Amazon jungle.

As we were walking through the jungle another group of tourists were coming at us. Since the trail is about a foot wide we had to move over as they marched through.

Jamie overheard a 30-something man say Abuela. She turned to him and asked him directly, “Did you say Abuela?” Sheepishly he said he did.

Abuela is Spanish for Grandma. He was making a snide comment that we were too old to be on a hike. That damn little whippersnapper.

CLICK.

You can hear the birds. Some were hawks and some were toucans and some parrots.

This family 4-some showed up on the second half of the tour from Canada. The man and woman were married but I’m not really sure if the two girls were his. They were very friendly and very nice.

Ahmad had a weed with a point at the end of it he stuck way down a hole and kept shaking it and wiggling it trying to make the spider come out. It never did. It turns out it wasn’t a spider; it was a tarantula. The picture is a picture he took prior. It’s as big as his hand.

Amand is a talent with his palm frond weaving.

Someone Amand knows who owned this part of the jungle but had since moved. We had permission to march through it. And this is how we got to the island on a boat.

And here’s my bite from the red bug I got at the stingless bee farm.

And here’s where I had to go because of those bites since I was afraid it was dengue fever. The joke is Dengue Fever causes a fever; not bites, but I was afraid I had some horrible disease.

I walked in and the nurse couldn’t speak English so she called for an English speaking nurse. I wait and then who walks in but was but Amand. I guess he’s in charge of any job requiring English.

I showed him this picture and he said it was red bug and I should have taken a shower when I got home from the stingless bees, as he suggested. I checked with all my friends and they said they don’t remember him telling us to take a shower.

It’s been a week since I’ve been home and I’m still dealing with the itchy bites. GRRR!

I asked him if it was fatal. No.

I asked him if there were long-lasting consequences. No.

So then I told him I had only taken two malaria pills so far and did I have to continue taking them. He told me no.

I’m sure the cruise people are too afraid to tell people not to take the malaria pills in the event somebody gets bit by mosquito. But I hadn’t seen a lot of mosquitoes and I was wearing clothing head to toe when I was out in the jungle.

So I happily did not take any more malaria pills. And the side effect of “permanent hearing loss” was no longer a concern for me.

These are some of the natural drugs gotten in the Amazon jungle to take care of many maladies.

This was the meeting room for the informational classes we took and the exit to the boats for our Expeditions.

And this is the bar we had to pass by after each Expedition. They gave us juice to drink and then we hit the bar and asked for two shots of our favorite alcohol.

Christie wanted a picture of her hand to prove that she had put her hand in the Amazon waters. Come to think of it I don’t think I ever did and, yet, I don’t think I care.