So…. Before I developed a terrifying fear of being on the streets of a city alone, I set out in search of two bottles of red wine for our cruise.
I Googled it and it was just around the corner, down a bunch of streets, and then just to the right.
And so I set off….
I encountered homeless along my way.
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I proudly started taking video of my solo trip down the street with all the confidence.
But once my GPS stopped 100 meters from where I was supposed to turn, I got lost. How do I know how long 100 m eter are!) I went two blocks too far, came back, asked people where the supermarket might be and eventually arrived.
The store was as huge as a Costco with huge warehouse shelves and by the time I got my point across to a clerk I that I wanted wine, I followed him through so many turns I had no idea where I came into the store.
I bought my wine and went out the door where I cashed out.
It wasn’t the door I came in, so when I came out I had no idea which way to turn. I turned the wrong way and was all mixed up trying to find the building with the mural of the beautiful lady. I couldn’t find it and asked a couple people who didn’t speak English and with a miracle I found my way home.
Another ridiculously long story.
We checked out of our hotel and needed a ride to the cruise ship which was no more than 2 miles away. People keep telling me how easy Uber is. So I booked it. Uber showed up, looked at our suitcases, said something in Portuguese and drove away. Another Uber showed up said something in Portuguese and drove away.
The hotel Maître d talked to the taxi that was parked there and asked him if he would take us for $15. We were happy.
By this time I see a third Uber is coming and one of the soccer team boys staying at the hotel explained to me that I should order a comfort car which is bigger for taking a lot more luggage. I didn’t know how to cancel the third Uber so he helped me out on that, too.
We crammed in to the cab with Christie in the front and me and Kay in the center and left and the Walker was on the right back seat. Thankfully Kay has had experience and before we took off she made sure the fee was only $15 and made sure as to where he was taking us. In his Portuguese he told us he was taking us to the airport. We exploded and told him we wanted to go to the port the port the port; not the airport. The maitre d got involved once more and finally he realized he was just taking us for 2 miles.
That was all well and good until we got to the entrance to the port. A gatekeeper insisted he needed 35 R’s to enter. Christie got involved and told them that it was prepaid and she kept pointing to our cruise papers. They cared nothing about the paperwork. And she kept asking three? And he said yes three. But he was saying 35 r’s and Christy thought h wanted three R’s.
I finally told Kay pay the damn 105 R’s, which she did. And they immediately gave us back 70 R’s. They did not want three payments of 35 they just wanted 35, which was only $7 US for God’s sake.
The other three people of our group had texted us and told us to get a porter to get up to the ship. The cab took us straight to the ship which didn’t look open yet. We kept telling him to drive us back down so we could portage up.
FINALLY, the head guy of the cruise came out and said our friend was worried and we were in the right place and he started taking our suitcases for us.
It turns out we were able to skip the whole portage deal and get right out at the ship. The cab driver deserved the $15 which was the actual cost to the airport and not the port. He deserved it for the headaches we caused him.
This is the six of us so happy that we were finally at the cruise. We sat on couches, charging our phones for 2 hours until they were ready to take us to our rooms. But we were just glad we were there.
Our cabin was fantastic. Itwas the Presidential suite so we had the big living room plus a big bedroom and a double sink bathroom and a huge balcony which was half of the front of the boat.
Yes it turns out that our travel agent lied to us and we ended up having to sleep in one giant bed. But Christie put pillows down the center and there was plenty of room for both of us.
To top it off we arrived with champagne and a plate of delicious fruit awaiting us.
I don’t drink champagne so I talked to Christie in to hosting a little party with the champagne and fruit before dinner to our group of eight which included the six of us and a couple we met from Arizona, Betty and bud.
They were very impressed with our room, as was I.
This was our view of Manaus once we were on the ship.
This was our view of what was stuck to the outside of our windows in Manaus and I got very nervous about malaria.
Once I saw these ,I started taking my malaria pills. They can cause permanent hearing loss but I figured it was better than malaria.
We had a nice buffet dinner, signed up for our Expeditions tomorrow and hit the bed.
This was our tour guide Amand who spoke English very well and was an excellent tour guide. He also was a survivalist guide who would take people out into the jungle with nothing, and drink the water from the trees, use leaves for plates and cups and survive the animals overnight. Very impressive.
The hoist was what hauled up our boats every night and set it on our ship. And this was me all set for my first amazon jungle Expedition. It involved long sleeve shirts, tennis shoes, socks that went over my long pants so that the mosquitoes would have to hunt to find any part of my skin.
It was very primitive and all trees and animals and water and once in a while we see old wooden houses on stilts.
The water will rise 12 ft over the year. Sometime in September there is no water in some of these Rivers. And other times of the year, the waters flood all the islands and everything is underwater.
Photo with the dirty water is a picture of a 5 foot cayman with it’s mouth open.
They do not have alligators nor crocodiles but the cayman are just as bad as alligators.
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Birds live in these holes in the walls of the river banks.
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We were at a bee farm where the bees were stingless. Australia and New Zealand have a special type of honey called manuka and these people were trying to market their stingless honey which is 10 times as healthy as the New Zealand honey.
Some of our group bought a very small bottle of honey for $40. I thought they were crazy.
I did not know it at the time but this is where I got my red bug problem. They’re tiny little bugs that are like chiggers that crawled on me and then decided to bite me about two days later.
We went to a local’s home and we we’re shown all the medicinal plants and foods on their property.
One of the berries was used for dye and the ladies decided to put on “lipstick”.
CLICK. It’s even more impressive to realize we were boating through the Amazon, seeing the water and listening to the wildlife.
After our boat ride from 8:00 to 10 AM, got off the boat. It seemed like it was about 3:00 in the afternoon. So what else should we do, but drink.
Bloody Mary’s are Christie’s favorite drink, so that’s what we had at 10:15 a.m.
This was a termite nest.
We went piranha fishing in the afternoon. Kay caught 2; Christie caught one, I think pat caught two. I fed one hell of a lot of beef to some piranhas. I never catch fish and I finally realized the idea of yanking up my fishing pole and putting a pointy hook through the top of a poor fish’s mouth feels disgusting to me. And then pulling it out of their mouth and throwing the fish back into the water and hoping they live is even more disgusting. So psychologically I think I will never catch a fish.
Kay’s teeth are almost as pretty as the Piranha’s.
CLICK. We went through places a normal boat shouldn’t go.
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A night on the Amazon River. We had no headlight and the only light we had for our boat was a big old spotlight that Amand kept moving around so the driver could see where to go.
I touched the Cayman and it felt exceptionally smooth and dry.
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Since we were very close to the Equator and the sunrise and sunsets are always about the same time. Sunrise was a little before 6:00 a.m. When it wasn’t cloudy.
Sadly, you know you’re old when you look so much better under a black net.
