Dolphins, Piranhas, Caimans - Oh My!

The last 36 hours at the rainforest were just as magnificent as the first 24.  We started day 2 with a boat ride to "The Native House."

We saw where native Amazon people live and how they make some of the food they eat and also by-products they sell.

Much of what they make starts with a poisonous root.  They grind it, squeeze the juice from it, and heat it in order to extract the poison.  Unfortunately, I can't remember what the root is called and all of the different things they make from it, but when I get in touch with Leon again he'll help me out.  I do remember that they eat a lot of tapioca here, and it's a by-product of the poisonous root. 

Because of the natural surroundings and diet, the life expectancy of the native people is much longer than us regular folks.  There was a 68 year old man that looked no more than 55, and he was working hard in the hot sun hammering posts into the ground with a large block for a new pier.

The tiny acai berry grows in the tops of trees in the Amazon, and we got to see some.  (Turn your head to the right to look at the pic below.)

After we got done at the native village, we went to swim with some pink dolphins.  They're pink because of the color of the water in the Rio Negro that feeds into the Amazon River.  I guess we didn't swim with them as much as we stood on an underwater platform and touched them as the professionals lured them up out of the water with fish.  Regardless, it was a brand new adventure for me. (I'm the one in the hat.)

The dolphins felt really smooth and a bit squishy, but they're extremely strong! I could feel the force of their fins underwater when they were close to us.  It was a very cool experience!

On the boat ride back for lunch, we saw lots of white cranes and some hawks in flight and in the trees.

After lunch, we gave it another go on the piranha fishing.  There was a family with two young boys on the boat, and they all caught fish while the rest of us were basically just feeding the piranhas.  We got plenty of nibbles, but those sneaky little fish would just rob us blind of our bull hearts!  At least I didn't get a hook in the hair this time though.

We went back to the towers for a very special Amazon dinner.  The chefs cooked up the piranha that were caught during the day.  There was fried piranha and my favorite, piranha soup.

Believe it or not, there wasn't a stong fishy taste at all. It tasted like vegetable soup, but the downside was that you had to look at and pick away at an entire fish in your bowl.

Afterwards went caiman spotting.  Caimans are Amazon alligators, and they're awesome.  We went out after dark around 8pm in our little fishing boat with a spotlight to look for them.  (Ben, you would LOVE this!)  You can spot them when the light shines in their eyes that are just above water level.  Their eyes are really reflective and you can see them from tens of yards away.  The guides on our boat look for the eyes that shine red.  When their eyes are red, they know they're the younger, smaller ones.  So once we found a pair of red, reflective caiman eyes, the native guide jumped into the water after the caiman.  Once he caught it with his bare hands, he swam over and brought it into the boat.  I know what you're thinking and yes, it IS as insane as it sounds.

What could be more insane than that you may ask?  Me touching the caiman and holding him by myself.

I was warned that he may try and squirm loose as I held him, and I was instructed to do whatever it took to hold on to him very tightly and not let go.  Sure enough, he flailed around violently and thank goodness I held on.  A loose caiman in the boat would be very bad news.  Thanks again, Lauren, for the awesome photos and trusting that I wouldn't let a wild reptile jump in your lap.

Our guide, Leon, said that he almost had a run-in with a caiman that was 6 meters long.  Now that's a bad day!  Leon held our caiman and explained its features to us.  Then we set it free.  After that, they turned off the spotlight and let us be silent and listen to "the song of the Amazon".  I was trying to pick out how many different noises I heard in the night, and I could only pick out 4.  It was a combination of bugs and frogs.  The unfortunate part about that experience was the woman behind us on her Blackberry.  Yes, an American woman was on her Blackberry in one of the coolest nature experiences ever.  She didn't even turn it over when she was done to hide the light from the screen.

Once we got back to the towers, we saw a big white owl perched high upon a post.  It was beautiful, and this picture doesn't even do it justice.

 

The gift shop was still open, and Lauren and I got some souvenirs and took some quality photos.

Today was our last day at the rainforest, and we literally experienced the RAINforest.  We took a jungle hike, and had to take a boat ride to get there.  On the boat ride, the clouds were looking pretty ominous.  Sure enough, the heavens opened up and it poured down on us.  Lauren and I were prepared with rain gear, but the family with the mom with the Blackberry didn't have any ponchos or anything.  The mom was wearing all white from head to toe, so the rain didn't really help her cause much at all.

We got into the forest and Leon pointed out the plants that cure athlete's foot and malaria.  We also saw the root that's used in Ben Gay and Vicks vapo rub.  We smelled it, and sure enough, it had that distinct smell.  The rain eventually stopped and I was able to get a few photos.  I really wish my camera was waterproof though.

If you look closely you can see a few of my many mosquito bites on my forehead.  Once that rain stopped and the sun came out, you would've thought someone had just released millions of mosquitoes right on top of our group.  I sure hope those malaria pills work.

On our way back to the towers, we pulled off to see one of the biggest trees in the Amazon, the suma uma.  Sure it looked huge as we were approaching it, but to actually stand next to it really put things in perspective...

After the jungle hike and lunch, we had to say goodbye to the Ariau Towers and our new friends we made in the Amazon.  Jeannette and Daniel from New York are one of the happiest, sweetest, most generous, vibrant, and brilliant couples I've ever met.  I really hope to stay in touch and see them again.

Now Lauren and I are in Manaus, and we had one of the best dinners of the trip tonight.  We went to Banziero and enjoyed every delicious bite of the fish for me/steak for her, rice, mashed potatoes, and banana dessert.  After eating the same jungle food for so long, we were stoked to have something different. 

Tomorrow morning we'll just be killing time until our flight at 2:40p.  We'll fly from Manaus to Brasilia to Atlanta to Baltimore for me/DC for Lauren.  It'll be a long 20 hours that's for sure, but boy has it been worth it. The journey has been far more than just traveling miles across the world and exploring a new continent, it's definitely involved getting to know myself and meeting new people to get a fresh perspective on life as well.  Oh, and the work part was cool too I guess.  Lauren has been an excellent friend to travel with.  Thanks again for coming with me, LK.

Tchau, South America.  It's been fun. 



Holy Moly, I'm in the Amazon Rainforest

Last night we got picked up at the airport by a gentleman that spoke maybe 3 words of English, and he took us to our hotel near the Manaus airport where we were greeted by the friendliest woman, Lily, and a pitcher of passion fruit juice. 

I got maybe 4 hours of sleep before receiving a cheerful wake-up call in Portuguese at 6:40a.  Lauren and I got ready for the day and went downstairs to a lovely outdoor breakfast by the pool.  There was jack fruit, passion fruit, pineapple, crepes, plantains, sliced meat and cheese (which is quite common many places outside of the US), Lily offered to make us scrambled eggs.  

The Ariau Towers folks picked us up around 8, and we drove to the Rio Negro River, where we got onboard a boat.  The boat ride was maybe an hour and 15 mins, and we were drifting in and out of sleep the whole way.  The combination of the warm sunlight, cool breeze, tranquil atmosphere, and movement of the boat on the waves were incredibly conducive for sleep.

We arrived to the Ariau Towers, a hotel on stilts in the Amazon. 

After we checked in and dropped our bags in our room, a guide took us on a walking tour traveling some of the hotel’s 8km of catwalks.  On that tour we saw lizards, a woodpecker, a bright blue and black giant butterfly, a few yellow fluttering butterflies, an absurdly slow sloth (my favorite), tons of social monkeys (and when I say social, you’ll see what I mean when you watch the entire video I'll soon post below when I get enough battery life and bandwidth), a fuzzy bright green worm, too many trees and birds to count, and lots of termite nests.

Sloths are cool to see awake and moving at the zoo, but when it's in the wild right in front of you, that's a whole new ball game.  I was simply amazed.

The Ariau Towers were built in 1986 beginning with just a single tower.  Lauren and I are in tower 4, and we’re just below treetop level.There are suites where the wealthy and celebrities stay when they’re here, and those are at the treetop level with TVs and private pools.  Now there are plenty of towers not only for accommodations.There’s a tower used as a final stage, 6 month habitat for captive birds before being completely released back into the wild.There’s also a helipad, an amphitheater, a chapel, and a pyramid for meditation and relaxation.

After our walking tour, we had lunch.  It was fruits, tomatoes, fish, rice, other meat, pasta, and flan.  It was there where we met our guide for the rest of the trip - Leon.  Leon is awesome.  He speaks 7 languages and has worked at the hotel for many years.  Leon told us that he’s guided Julia Roberts, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Mike Tyson, Tom Cruise (he’ll be here for the 5^th time next Tuesday), Oprah, Angelina Jolie, J Lo, Sylvester Stallone, Susan Serandon, Sharon Stone, and Arnold Swarzenegger just to name a few.

After lunch, I went piranha fishing.  It was so creepy, but really fun.  For those of you that know Lauren, she did not attend, due to her fish phobia.  The bait we use is bull hearts and the rod is a single bamboo shoot.  There's a line with a single leader and hook, but no reel. 

We were fishing among trees that are submerged in 27 ft. of water.  The trees here endure 6 months of flooding and 6 months without water.  We're in the flooding months now, but it gets worse in April and May during the rainy season.  Leon told us that all of the water around the hotel (9 meters worth)and where we were fishing completely dries up for half of the year.  How crazy is that?! 

No one on the boat caught a fish except for Leon.  He caught 6.  There are 3 different species that he caught and showed us. 

These fish are small, but boy are they mighty!  Leon said that piranhas feed by the thousands, and an entire cow would be eaten in a matter of minutes. Needless to say, I was hesitant to rinse my hands in the water when done baiting my hook.  I had some nibbles, but I couldn't bring any fish in.  We're going out again tomorrow though, and I have faith I'll get one. 

I was told that we kept the fish that we caught.  When we got into the boat though, there was no cooler or container in which to put the fish once we caught them.  Little did we know that the fish flopped around freely in the bottom of the boat until they died.  Thank goodness I was in the front away from all of the slippery chaos.  There were also wooden slats below our feet and between us and the true bottom of the boat.

The highlight might have been when one of the small boys in the boat flinged his baited line out of the water and it got hooked in my hair.  Yep, bull hearts in my hair really made me feel good today.

They told us that piranhas go toward movement in the water since they're such fierce predators.  Many fish flee movement in water.  The other guide was splashing around with his pole in the water most of the time.  It was an experience unlike any other I've had.

We left a bit early from fishing because an Australian couple on their honeymoon needed to get back in order to make their sea plane flight.  Lauren and I had talked with them (Claire and Andrew) and wanted to see them off, so we went out on the boat again to meet their incoming plane on the Ariau River.  They were the cutest couple honeymooning for 4 weeks in South America. 

The best part was, once they got into the plane and took off, we watched them fly away right under a rainbow.  I mean, really?!  Of course a rainbow appears during the most romantic thing I've ever seen in my life.  Why wouldn't it?  I was nearly moved to tears. 

After that, Lauren and I chilled out and then cleaned up for dinner.  The selection was many of the same items we'd seen at lunch...plus wine.  We sat with a couple maybe 10 years older than my parents that have traveled the world since they've retired.  They've been to Russia, Tibet, Scandanavia, China, Paris, the Amazon, and they're headed to Africa this fall!  Another couple we sat with is maybe 7-10 years younger than my parents, and they too have been all over the place. It's so cool to see couples from newly married to retirement traveling and making so many memories together.  At the Sao Paulo airport we also met a woman about my mom's age from Australia traveling alone to the Amazon.  She said she wanted to do it, so she's doing it even though she's going alone.  Not only that, but she's had both hips replaced and she's going to climb Machu Pichu in Peru after the Amazon!

It's incredible the things you see and learn while traveling.  I'm so blessed to have this experience, and everytime I'm awed by what God has put on this Earth, I give special thanks.

Buenos Aires, The City of Tango

Buenos Aires has been a rollercoaster since we arrived in the middle of the night on Thursday. Our driver, Carlos, was waiting for us, and he was a very nice gentleman. We checked into the Palermo Suites and found a nice sized studio apt......

.....complete with a full on bidet.

Our first day here, we walked around on our own with our map, guidebook, and recommendations from various people.  Some places that were recommended to us were no longer in business, but we did find a great place for lunch at Serrano and Honduras Streets called Calero.  We ate some fantastic empanadas outside and had Coronas.  They didn't serve the Corona with lime, instead they poured it in a mug. 

We found a random place to take this photo below, and we're not sure if it's a school for harlots or not...but we took advantage of the photo opp anyway.

We only saw two stop signs in the city, neither of which anyone paid any attention to.  Running red lights aren't really that big of a deal, and the lines on the road are merely suggestions for the fearless drivers here.  For neighborhood intersections in America, there would be at least a 2 way stop, but here, there are no signs at all.  At traffic lights, instead of the light going directly green from red, there's some yellow in between.  When you're sitting at a red stop light, the red will stay on, then the yellow will come on for a second, and then they'll both go off and the green will come on.  They definitely get a head start when they see that yellow light illuminate.

We heard that the giant flower sculpture in the United Nations Square closes at dusk like a typical flower would, so we found ourselves in that part of town when the sun was going down. 

We walked around it a few times in our best attempt to avoid the mosquito swarms, but they got us anyway.  We waited and waited for the flower to start to close, but it didn't show any signs of movement even after it was completely dark.  Once we saw a man in the grass near us with his pants down and hands where they shouldn't be in public, we decided that was going to be the end of our day.  Oh, and if you’re into dreadlock mullets, we saw two of those in the city.  Lauren gets the credit for getting the best photo.

The next morning we had a private tour arranged with a young man named Matias.  He was recommended to us by one of Lauren’s colleagues.  He met us at our hotel promptly at 10:30a on the beautiful sunny St. Patrick's Day Saturday and we set out to explore the many facets of the city.  We started with the Spanish statue at a busy intersection in the city.

We walked a bit more to the rose garden that has roses blooming 365 days a year and is closed every Monday for maintenance and care.  I took these pictures for you, mom.

Outside the rose garden was a beautiful park.  People can rent rollerblades, paddle boats, and bikes.  It’s a very active city.

Matias told us about the history of Argentina, and that it’s just less than 200 years old.  They were originally a Spanish colony (hence the Spanish language) but then the British got involved.  Argentina revolted on May 25, 1810 and gained its independence on July 9, 1816.  May 25 and July 9 are national holidays in Argentina, but May 25 is celebrated more.  July 9 has the widest avenue in the world named after it though, and it’s in Buenos Aires of course.  We drove on it a few times, and it’s 16 lanes wide with a few medians.  It takes 2.5 minutes to cross on foot taking the various traffic lights into consideration.

Buenos Aires has an obelisk like Washington, DC does, and it’s in the center of the widest Avenue: Avenida 9 de Julio.   (See what I mean about the red and yellow lights on before the traffic goes?)

We went to see the Cementerio de la Recoleta where Evita is buried.  It’s not a typical cemetery, it’s gated and the grave sites are more like tombs.  It’s creepy to think that it’s beautiful, but it is.  It's like a maze you could get lost in.

Those buried in that cemetery are wealthy.  They began by burying only Christians, but once they buried a girl who had taken her own life they decided to open it up to other religions. 

We then made our way over to the political hub of the city.  Argentina had a white house like we do today.

That’s no longer used as presidential quarters, but the pink house (Casa de Rosada) across the square is where the president works today. 

The new presidential office is pink because there were two political parties – one represented by red, and the other by white.  In order to be politically correct, they mixed the two colors and painted the house pink.  The square that separates the two structures is the most political square in the city with a monument to May 25, 1810.

This square is where protests happen (I had flashbacks to Occupy DC in McPherson Square).  There was a train wreck where 59 workers were killed a few weeks ago, and the city is outraged.  The graffiti on the monument is a result of that.

Alongside the square is the national cathedral which looks more like our supreme court than it does a cathedral.  The general that led Chile, Peru, and Argentina to freedom, Jose de San Martin, is buried inside.

We had lunch at a hole in the wall place that was used for a taping of Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern on the Travel Channel.  It was in a not so incredible part of town, but the food was delicious! 

We had filet mingon and spinach ravioli.  Lauren and I both decided that we’re taking a meat hiatus when we get home.  We had steak nearly every meal!

After lunch we continued to walk on the back streets that no tourist should see, and where not even the locals should be, but we ended up at La Boca.

It opens up to a tourist haven in an eclectic part of the city that’s known for its art and futbol stadium. 

That's me up there!

La Boca means ‘the mouth’ and La Boca is the oldest part of the city on the river.  From there, we went to the newest part of the city that’s less than 20 years old.  There’s a bridge that looks like a woman’s leg doing the tango. 

We sat and enjoyed a beverage together before taking a cab back to our hotel and bidding Matias farewell on the St. Patrick’s Day evening. 

We realized that St. Patrick’s Day isn’t a big deal at all in the city.  There were maybe 4 places that we saw advertising St. Patty’s Day festivities.  We got back to the room and made dinner reservations at Don Julio’s in the Palermo Soho neighborhood.  We got on the waiting list, but Lauren worked her charm and got us seated the moment we arrived.  Luckily we arrived when we did because there was a line out into the street shortly after.  Dinner was incredible!  It was the last steak we’ve had.

We had a fun night of bar hopping after that.

Our last day in BA was spent shopping, and then we went to a tango show.

We've just arrived to Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil and I'm about to shower in our closet.  Literally, it's tiny.  Anywho, hopefully I'll update again before Thursday, but if not just know that I'm enjoying hanging with the monkeys and fishing for piranhas.