Ah yes, the six day boat trip from Manaus . . . 
Well the journey left us with a lot of time on our hands to think about life´s mysteries and such...
But really, the boat ride was SLOW and should have taken only three days if we were travelling downstream BUT travelling upstream has its benefits . . . its much more scenic since you travel by the river´s bank (to avoid the current.)
Actually, I got to drive the huge boat all by myself for a few minutes! 
And what did I do when I received this enormous responsibility? I immediately called the Brazilian Water Patrol (BWP) 
CHESS
And then there´s reading of course . . .
Well the journey left us with a lot of time on our hands to think about life´s mysteries and such...But really, the boat ride was SLOW and should have taken only three days if we were travelling downstream BUT travelling upstream has its benefits . . . its much more scenic since you travel by the river´s bank (to avoid the current.)
Actually, I got to drive the huge boat all by myself for a few minutes! And what did I do when I received this enormous responsibility? I immediately called the Brazilian Water Patrol (BWP) and threw that damn Mishka straight off the boat...that lil´bastard.
Later, I decided to give that lil´punk another chance.
Later, I decided to give that lil´punk another chance.
I guess I really love him, huh?
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So what do you do on a boat for six days (besides eating and sleeping of course)?? 
You PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!
You can play CARDS
DOMINOS
CHESSAnd then there´s reading of course . . .Basically, you become a nerd for a while -- but it sure beats watching TV the whole time!!All in all, a splendid good time! 
Destination: The Triple Frontier!!!! Where the borders of Peru, Brazil, and Colombia meet.
Destination: The Triple Frontier!!!! Where the borders of Peru, Brazil, and Colombia meet.
He has a farm there where hopefully, we will finally learn how to milk cows and make cheese!!!
Hello again. We arrived in Manaus one day at 2 in the morning. After getting much needed sleep on the airport floor, we hit the streets hard. Manaus is a bustling city of 1.6 million and is the largest city for about 1000 miles in any direction. Its in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, though if you're standing in the city, you will never know it. As a matter of fact, Manaus is pretty dirty. On the other hand Manaus has a pretty interesting history and is one of Brazil's largest manufacturing cities. Due to a falling economy in the late 1960's, Brazil's government declared Manaus something like a tax-free zone as an incentive for companies to move here. Now, Manaus is home to plants that manufacture everything from motorcycles to cars to TVs and so on. The streets in Centro (downtown) are overflowing with street vendors who sell everything from nail clippers and remote controls to everything you've always wanted but were afraid to buy. As a matter of fact, it is impossible to avoid people trying to sell stuff or get something out of you since you're an evident gringo. That's Manaus below:
So as not to leave you without any history of the city, here's some knowledge. Just under 150 years ago, Manaus was just a small trading post named after the Manaos Indians who resided in the area. Then happened the rubber boom. If you didn't know, rubber comes from sap, "latex", of a tree that grows in the Amazon. Brazil was the only place where the rubber tree grew and they were making a lot of money from it. Manaus grew into Brazil's 2nd richest city behind Rio. And so, everything was going great until the Brits stole some rubber seedlings and started growing their own thus breaking up Brazil's monopoly. So, after that everyone was dead broke again. Now, Manaus is very similar to just about any big city, but with the lure of the Amazon. The Amazon! The reason we were here in the first place.
Our first morning, we met our guide and jumped on a boat to cross the Amazon and see "The Meeting of the Rivers". Right now I will have to go on a tangent. During our travels around Brazil, almost every city or town we would visit would have the main square or side walk tiled in a very cool pattern of black and white. Most of the time in some form of wavy lines creating beautiful flowing designs.
All that time, while we admired the streets, it never dawned on us that the design was an interpretation of "The Meeting of the Rivers", The Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes. Both of the rivers meet in Manaus and create the Rio Amazonas that flows for another 1000 miles or so before it empties into the Atlantic. And the meeting is beautiful. The Negro is black while the Solimoes is a brown sandy color, and when the meet, they run together for about 10 miles before mixing at all because of the different densities of the waters. Really cool!
After some more traveling we arrived at our Jungle Lodge, which really is nothing more than a house on the shore of one of the Amazon's tributaries. There, we met Chico, a little monkey who after playing with us, shit on my shoulder. But he was a cool monkey nonetheless. 
Fishing for piranhas was fun though we couldn't catch none unlike our guides. As a matter of fact, there was all kinds of fishing going on with spears and bows and arrows. It was amazing to watch our local guide, Romero, hunt for fish. That's him with a piranha he caught.
And that's me with a sardine that accidentally jumped into the boat just in time for me to spear it through the heart. That was the only fish I caught.
So gun-ho I was that it earned me nicknames like Jungle Boy, Crocodile Dundee, Cowboy, and many others. I remember this one time I caught a live alligator with my bare hands...
He looked me right in the eye and said, "You won, Jungle Boy!" After that I couldn't help but let him go. And so did my honey, the jungle queen, Sasha.
Here is the Jungle Queen in all of her glory...
Our final whole day and we spent hiking through the jungle after camping in hammocks the night before. The rain forest is so incredible. It seemed like every other tree, leaf, shrub, or piece of twig had some kind of medicinal quality. A bark of one tree would prevent Malaria, burning a termite nest would deter mosquitoes, eating a leaf of another tree would create more milk in nursing mothers. "How did the Indians discover these medicines?", I asked my guide. "The forest told them", was the answer. Sounds crazy, right? But on the other hand, it doesn't. Some of these plants have to go through numerous processes before they become medicines. I wondered, did an Indian who just got bitten by a snake start to frantically run around the forest smoking unknown leaves, biting the bark off trees to coincidentally find some cure or was there something else? And why is it unthinkable to have a spiritual connection with your environment? At the same time, so much of the forest has been cut down to create farmland for cattle and crops. Its sad.
Did you know how seriously Brasileros take their soccer? Very, very seriously. If a Brazilian likes one team, he or she hates all the others as if they were the devil. Really! Since I've purchased this jersey, I have gotten thumbs up on the street or the sad look of disappointment in the eyes of our young hotel clerk. When I walked in to the local pharmacy to ask what the above mentioned rash was about, the pharmacist proceeded to tell me that my Flamingos jersey has caused the whole thing. Yup!
We participated in two separate 3 day treks to some nearby waterfalls and Vale do Pati, along with a one day excursion where we enjoyed a mountain climb, some caverns, and zip-line into a lake. In total, walking more than 90 kilometers, we regretted not having proper hiking shoes as we had to hike over long, rocky, and many times, muddy terrain. Equipped with nothing but our Havayanas (beach sandals)
Just bonding with The Boyz, don't get any ideas...
Us holding Marcus like a baby?
Sasha was in love with this little guy... 
A long walk through an old cavern and some interesting finds . . .
A view of the park Chapada Diamantina.
mostly in communes, surviving off the fruit of their labor. This small village happened to have a Regional Forro (a great Brazilian dance) Party on the night we arrived where we danced the night away with some really happy people from the region. The next day, we started with a 25 kilometer hike through a gorgeous valley . . . whew.
The views were indescribable. During the hike, sometimes it rained lightly and sometimes it didn't, but the wind howled over the treeless valley...and at times I just had to stop and inhale this place. It was so amazing. 
We stayed at people's homes at night and had delicious home cookin'. 
In the mornings, we packed up and hit the road... 
I think Sasha has a fruit addiction and desperately needs help. She can't be stopped...
"You're not eatin' that, are ya?
This time, sleeping at peoples homes along the trek, we saw a side of the Chapada that many do not have a chance to encounter . . . untouched, uninhabited, and completely breathtaking. This trek ended in another small village, known for its diamond mining, where we regained our strength, ate a lot of great home-made ice-cream, and headed back to Lençois. Is was hard to leave a place where we knew most of the local faces and rhythms, but the Amazon was calling, and our time in Brazil was running out. 
A Brazilian take on wearing protection, interesting.
Til' we meet again in the next blog...
