Manaus!

My time in Manaus has flown by! I have to say I am excited to be back on the boat and going to another port. Although I have had fun there is really not that much to do in the city. I think the next voyage should go to Rio instead. I loved Rio when I was there two years ago. Anyways I should probably just do the day by day of what I did so here we go:
Sunday:
Got to port at 8am Sunday morning. I had two FDP’s (the trips that are assigned by teachers that you have to go on for class) that day so was pretty busy. The first trip was “Getting to know Manaus”. The first stop of the tour was to the fish market that was one of the coolest things, if not the coolest thing, I saw in Manaus. The original market is in this building that was designed by the guy who did the Eiffel Tower so but they are doing construction on it so the market is in a big long temporary building. We could see the other one though and the iron work was really cool. So we walk to the market and you can start smelling the fish before you even get there. All the men were in white outfits that were covered in fish guts and blood. There were tons of different types of fish that looked different from anything I had ever seen. There were crazy stripped fish, sucker fish and spotted fish. Some of the fillets off the fish were massive. I wish I could upload pictures so you all could see! Each vendor had his table where he was cutting up his fish or stacking the whole for display. This one type of fish they were cutting long slits in the fillets all in a row down the body of the fish. Couldn’t figure out what it was for… Next we went to the opera house which was the main attraction of the city. Manaus used to be a big hub and was crazy rich from exporting rubber. Our guide told us that the rich Europeans used to send their laundry to Paris just to get washed. Anyways, the opera house was a rusty pink color and had big stairs and white pillars. It had what looked like a mosaic tilled dome on top as well. Went to the top floor first were there was a ballroom with oil paintings on the walls and ceiling. It was odd because when I was inside I felt like I could have been in Europe. Downstairs was the opera with a big stage and red velvet chairs. All the architecture was really nice around the square where the opera house was but a couple blocks away and it was run down city buildings. It was weird to see some really cool old building and the pretty iron work of the fish market surrounded by falling down buildings with graffiti (which was not nearly as cool as it was in Rio) and broken sidewalks. The afternoon FDP was “From Rubber Boom to the 21St Century”. Unfortunately, this tour was not what I expected mostly because the tour company that did it didn’t really know what my teacher was looking for. We basically had a 3 hour bus tour of the city where our guide told us a little about rubber and then the free trade zone of Manaus but mostly just random stuff about the city and different neighborhoods that we were going through. It really wasn’t that informative and being on a bus driving around for 3 hours was miserable. That night a group of us went out to dinner and I quickly realized how hard the language barrier is! We ordered drinks and the waiters started bring out food which we had not ordered. I guess its pretty common but most places just have a set menu and that’s just what you eat but it was hard trying to communicate with the waiter that only some of us were eating and to stop bringing out so much food. I think it’s traveling with the heids but I totally took control of the situation and did most of the talking. Pretty much hand signaled my way through telling them what food and drinks we wanted and how to spilt up the check (which was REALLY hard). Everyone thinks im really on top of stuff and for the rest of our time here kinda went to me to talk to people and try to communicate even though I didn’t even know Spanish. I did remember Obrigado though which is thank you in Portuguese. After dinner we just went back to the boat and hung out for a little bit out on deck. The area around the dock at night was pretty sketchy and got ushered through pretty quickly to the boat.

Monday:
I had an early morning with an FDP at 7am to the University of Manaus. For 3 and a half hours we heard lectures on environmental topics of the Amazon and work that professors at the school had done. It was really hard to pay attention though because the professors would speak in Portugese and then the interpreter would translate into English for us so the sentences were fragmented and by the end you didn’t really know what they were talking about. Some things just didn’t really translate… My afternoon/night adventure was really the interesting thing of the day. We left the boat at two on a river boat and headed up the Amazon. We were in the boat for about an hour and a half. The city of Manaus was really the only built up area around. The river banks were derserted for the majority of the ride. Once we got to the beach our guide told us that we were going to have to get out of the boat and wade through the water to the shore. Let me preface this by saying in our pre departure meeting on the boat the doctor said that you should not go in the water because you can catch something and if you do you need to towel off immediately. No else really seemed to be bothered by any of this and I had to mentally deal with not only having to wade through thigh deep WEEDY water but also the fact I may catch a worm or something that will burry itself in my legs or feet. I remembered I had flip flops in my bag so quickly put them on (everyone looked at me weird but I didn’t care, no way was I going to touch the bottom with bare feet). I was hyperventilating the whole way to the shore. I made it though. On the beach were our guides who were in the army and trained in jungle warfare. One girl on the trip disregarded the instructions to wear long pants and a long shirt and shows up in black spandex booty shorts and is basically told she we have cuts and bug bites from the hike. Thank god I had the right clothes on. They told us to tuck our pants into our socks so that bugs wouldn’t get in our shoes or anything, needless to say I looked really cute. Lets also keep in mind that it is 85 degrees out and super humid. On the beach I was already sweating. The hike to the camp was broken up by stops on the trail where we would learn some type of survival technique for the jungle. At one stop I learned how to make a fire with a stick or with steal wool and two batteries (hopefully I will never actually have to know these things but can just use them as party tricks). At another stop I learned how to build traps and set them up so I could trap and kill animals. All pretty cool stuff. My outlook on the whole situation changed though when we got to the camp. I thought it would be a camp site with an eating area maybe and a wooden deck where the hammocks were. Oh no, there were just a bunch of hammocks with mosquito nets tied between random trees. There was no site. It was completely in the middle of the jungle. Everyone else in the group AGAIN was totally fine with everything. I consider myself someone who likes the outdoors and enjoys camping but this was on a whole other level. At this point too it was starting to get dark so I chose my hammock and put my backpack in it and applied more bug repellant. Dinner was just a bunch of grilled chicken which we ate off of leaves. I literally ate 5 pieces. I was absolutely starving and didn’t want to be hungry later that night. Funniest part of the night was when I was talking with this kid and found out that hes from around Hanover and we think his dad (Andy Smith? Or something like that. I know last name is smith, not that that is very helpful) was in the same high school class as my dad! (DAD DO YOU REMEMBER A GUY BY THAT NAME?? he now owns motorcycle dealerships or something. I told him that my dad had a triumph and he said those are really fun bikes. Anyways back to the jungle, after we ate I pretty much just wanted to go to bed and have it be the next morning so I could take a shower ( I was so sticky and gross from sweating all day and then having it dry). First big issue was that I had to go to the bathroom though. There was no bathroom there of course…. When I asked the guide where to go he told me a story of how someone when to squat and got bit in the leg by a massive snake and had to get carried out of the jungle… cool. We had also been shown earlier that day bullet ants which I guess if they bite you feel like you have been shot and can kill you. They build their nests at the bottom of trees and come out at night so you have to bang on the tree to see if any come out cause if they are on the tree you put your hammock you are screwed because they react to movement and vibration (aka swing of your hammock). So I am TOTALLY freaking out about going to the bathroom and so a group of girls all come and we go barley 5 feet away from one of the hammocks. Everyone was fine except the poor girl who was on her period and had to carry her used tampon to the trashcan because I didn’t want blood attracting animals. I then went back to my hammock and tried to deal with sleeping with my big backpack in the hammock with me because bugs would crawl in it if it was on the ground. I slept in the same cloths and still with my sneakers on my feet. Next big step though was securing my net so that NOTHING could get in in the middle of the night (literally my biggest fear). I also was so freaked out that something, a massive tarantula, would fall on my net in the middle of the night and I would wake up to it crawling above my face. So there I am fully clothed and still sweating in the hammock trying to fall asleep with the noise of the jungle freaking me out every second. I resorted to putting in my headphones and listening to Harry Potter (7th book obvi) to make me fall asleep. I also opted out of the midnight hike and swim in the Amazon. I would sleep for like an hour then wake up then fall asleep again for another hour. Was not a very good sleep at all. At least I had Harry to keep my company. Next morning we were woken up at 5am. It was still dark but I got up quickly because I was so excited to get back to the ship. The hike back to the boat took about 45 min and then it was back through the water to get to the boat, it was a little less terrifying the second time around but still close to painful. I slept on the floor of the boat the entire way back. I don’t think I have ever been so happy to shower and get in my bed with my comforter and my pillow.
OK I have been writing for like an hour and need to go to bed so will try blogging about the rest of the trip tomorrow. ALSO i got another offer to go back to Bloomberg!!! so nice i know i have something to do this summer!!!!