November 4 - 5:15PM - 30,000 feet somewhere over the middle of Brazil

Flying to Manaus on T.A.M. Airlines by way of Brasilia. Mellow day today. Hung out on the patio of the hostel, mostly with Natalie the Australian and chatted. It was nice to relax. Said later to Paulo and everyone. Julian and Natalie, who are the friendly Australians we’ve been kicking it with got our contact info and said they are going to give us a ring when they are in San Francisco and although I have heard that before from other world travelers I’ve met I think they may actually do it. That’s cool.

So just a brief reminiscence and look back on Salvador. Like I said earlier it looks and feels very Caribbean, it’s really pretty, almost comparable to San Francisco in pure aesthetics when you factor out the crack heads and poorness, beaches are nice and high rise buildings that line the beaches look cool. Traditional food, fish curry/soup was nice, weather was very hot, sweated the whole time, poor homeless kids begging was intense although not as eye opening this time as it was the first time I encountered extreme poverty in Bangkok. Very trippy to think about the huge slavery history here, 5 million slaves came through Brazil. Met some really cool travelers, locals that we kept seeing in the restaurants warmed up to us as they got to know us. Ladies not good looking, don’t know why. Drank a good amount of very light beer and right now just looking forward to more of the travel shenanigans that are sure to ensue.

November 5 - 8:35AM - Hostel Manaus

Finished a nine hour day of travel last night. Descending into Manaus for landing was very pretty. It was dark outside and looking down I could see the lights of the city sparkling and flashing like fireflies. I don’t know why they were doing this, trees, air currents? Whatever, it seemed almost magical. We stepped out of the airport and into a very humid Manaus in the Brazilian state of Amazonia. My backpack actually felt moist as I picked it up off of the baggage carousel. It is around 90 degrees here and the humidity makes it feel like being in a sauna. Because we got into town late, after 11:00PM, most of the town was shut down but Kevin and I walked around to check things out and found an open air patio restaurant. We sat down to eat. I have to mention that the streets here have a much safer feeling than Salvador’s did. We probably wouldn’t think of walking around deserted streets after midnight back there but here in Manaus there are no shady characters roaming the streets and it feels alright. I can confirm this feeling with the fact that we didn’t get mugged. That’s always positive. The town is semi urban, multistory buildings but it has a jungle feel to it, big trees line the streets and the street lights fight to push back the darkness of a thousand miles of jungle on all sides of the city.

Anyways, we ordered a few beers at the restaurant, pointed at a random menu item and ended up with a very tasty dish of small pieces of steak grilled with bell peppers, onions and tomatoes plus farofa on the side. The best meal I’ve had so far. Also checked out the outside of the famous Teatro Amazonas, an opera house built in the jungle in the 1890’s by European rubber barons. I was impressed by it because it is cool to think about the crazy things you can do with enough money and also because it was featured in Werner Herzog’s film Fitzcarraldo. We’re going try to come back during the day.

Right now we are sitting in the very recommendable Hostel Manaus looking into Amazon River tours. We’ll see what happens. This hostel is good because, first of all, it is not a dorm, second, the rooms have AC and third, they sell beer. I do have to say however that it isn’t that clean, not bad just not spotless like Thailand hostels were and I am feeling like hostels in Brazil are not for the faint of heart. We are not faint. I’m low on energy from an average of four hours of sleep per night so I think I’ll let Kevin do the talking today.

November 5 - 12:39PM - Hostel Manaus

One of the main objectives of the trip has been accomplished. We have seen the Amazon River. We also booked a boat trip that will take us up the river for three days and two nights that leaves tomorrow morning. With that accomplished earlier in the day we walked through downtown Manaus toward the river. The heat and humidity is crazy! It’s like being in a sauna and your arms and legs can almost feel the resistance in the air as they cut through the moisture when you walk.

So… Walked downtown, looked at all the people and definitely noticed that they look more Native American looking here than the strong African influenced population of Salvador. Manaus looks like you would expect a jungle port town to look. The buildings are old and cracked from the heat and humidity. It is not exactly poor but everything looks well used. Streets are busy with people going to and from the port with goods and other stuff.

We came to the edge of the water and looked over the river and saw hundreds of boats and people unloading them. We walked out onto one of the piers and got a closer look at the guys unloading, sweating, carrying bushels of corn on their backs. They are the human equivalent of ants and basically keep the town and surrounding area functioning.

I forgot to describe the market which is what all of these guys are unloading boats for. Manaus is a major port for Amazon trade and there is a large market next to the river with tons of individual stalls selling fruit, fish, meat, grains, live chickens, etc. The market is basically a funnel for every product that can come out of the jungle and things come from as far as Columbia and Peru. I made some jungle purchases, a coconut, two of the largest avocados I have ever seen, softball size, and a tasty and new to me fruit, the fruit of the cashew nut. It is red, two inches long and has a single cashew nut stuck to one end. The locals tell me that if you eat the actual cashew on the end without first roasting it the acid inside the nut will put blisters on your lips. I did not eat the nut but I did eat the fruit. It was an interesting experience, very tasty. Eating it is like biting into a sponge soaked in water. Very juicy at first but then dry when you start chewing it because it is sour and acidy and the puckerishness of the tannins dries out your mouth. The juice does flow though and it is very sweet and floral flavored, kind of like the flavor if you eat a rose hip or something like that.



There are all kinds of different fruits down here. Full sized star fruits grow outside our hostel room and fall to the ground and are neglected like they are no big deal. The climate is so warm and tropical that you can grow almost anything and all of the fruit is excellent. Kevin and I are sitting back and sweating at a table in the central patio of Hostel Manaus looking at our fruits. We both just finished eating an avocado that we split. They’re so big that half fills you up and it’s tasty but I feel like a I just ate a stick of butter. This is the definition of too much of a good thing. That’s it for now.

November 5 - 9:05PM - Hostel Manaus

Okay, so this is the first journal entry that I am slightly buzzed for so I’ll keep it short. Wait, I’ll get this out of the way first, my covert operations name is Max Gomez. Kevin is Joe Hamburger, Joe Hamburguesa in Portuguese. Mr. Joe Hamburguesa. That is all.

Anyways, heat and humidity is very heavy and I am sweating bullets as I sit inside on the blue hostel couches and write. Hopefully they wash these things every so often because the sweat drips off you and there is no place for it to go but to soak into the couch. Some of them smell… interesting. You wake up, take a shower and then sweat. Had a rough time trying to take a nap today. AC on full, boxers only, sweating my ass off.

I was all tired and sweated out today from walking a couple miles round trip to the Teatro Amazonas which is the opera house that was built in the jungle during the financially successful times of the European rubber barons. It was a good trip and we got a tour in ingles. Standard opera house type stuff I guess but this place is amazing because everything used in its construction was imported from around the world. Wood and roof tiles from France, marble and paintings from Italy, etc. It’s amazing to think that they even had the idea to build an opera house in the jungle in 1896 let alone what they actually went through to get it done.

After the tour we went to a little juice bar/café type place on a side street and had egg and cheese sandwich and an acai and guarana shake. Acai is the fruit from a palm tree I think and is supposed to have all kinds of antioxidant properties. I like the flavor mostly, almost chocolaty and very sweet. The shake I got was a very thick purple icy liquid ice cream texture.

After lunch we went back to the hostel and relaxed and I finished a book I was reading, the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Currently it is early in the night and we just got back from hanging out at a restaurant with a Canadian dude named Matthew and a Guinea, I guess that’s West African, who I can’t remember his name. Funny thing is the Canadian dude told us he got mugged twice in Salvador. He’s traveling alone so that might have something to do with it. Sucks for him.

Anyways, the girl that works the desk at our hostel who speaks absolutely zero English and that has been annoyed by us asking her for random but not uncommon things all day long recommended three Locais tradicionales restaurants, all of which were closed or impossible to locate, so we ended up at an outdoor plastic tables (locais tradition) bar/restaurant that I mentioned earlier and got beef and fries and hamburgers (Kevin’s cover). The power went out on us for 15 minutes or so and the bar was completely dark as we tried to eat our dinner. A Brazilian dude that we met at the counter and that helped us order food and that I bought a beer for held his cell phone up for us so that we could see as we ate. Helpful but a little weird. Anyways, rolled out after we ate. Just looking forward to waking up and getting on our boat at 7:30AM tomorrow and seeing the jungle. With this heat in the hostel common area and the high ceilings, bright white walls and French looking chandeliers I feel like I am in Saigon waiting to start my tour of duty in the jungle. The Portuguese language version of CCR’s “Have you ever seen the rain?” that we heard playing at the port earlier in the day and that is stuck in my head helps add to that ambiance.

November 6 - 11:05AM - Meeting of the Waters, Amazon River

Woke up early today and headed to the port for our river boat trip up the Amazon. We are actually on the boat now and just left from The Meeting of the Waters. As I sit here and write on the top deck of an Amazon River boat our guide Herman just came upstairs and handed us two caipirinhas. Earlier Kevin and I were debating about whether or not we should have one this early but Herman solved our problem when he walked upstairs with two in his hands.

Let me do a little exposition on how we got to where we are now. Herman picked us up at our hostel at 7:30AM and we walked to the port, about 15 minutes away. Yesterday we had been to the same area that our boat embarked from and we had seen all of the transport boats unloading goods and people. In case you don’t know, here in the Amazon there are tons of rivers, they run everywhere, and they are used as highways. There is no point in building roads when rivers already go everywhere.

We spotted our boat, it was very small, 35 feet long, the standard top heavy, multi story, Amazon River boat design, take a look at the pictures to get a better idea of what it looks like. It is two stories, a deck on top and a deck on the bottom with a steering wheel, bathroom, small kitchen in the back, some ice chests, Herman our guide, a captain and a cook. That’s about all there is to it. As we got situated on the boat Herman asked us if we would like to go up to the market and purchase some alcohol because everything is included in the price of the trip except for booze. The answer was definitely yes.

We went back to the market, got some Brahmas, 48 to be exact and also a bottle of cachaca, the cane rum that is used in caipirinhas. This stuff is crazy and I’ll tell you what I know about it. 80 proof liquor made from fermented and distilled sugar cane and the craziest part… 6 Real or 3 US dollars for 50 ounces of the stuff. Scary. Cheap and alcohol are two words that you shouldn't usually mix. When you drink the stuff it gives you the strong alcohol sensation of actually letting you to be able to preview the hangover you’re going to get for an instant on your first sip. It vibrates the back of your head like a small electric shock.

And now on to more respectable subjects. Our first sight on this boat trip was Encontro Das Aguas, or The Meeting of the Waters, the point where the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimoes meet to form the Amazon River proper. The Rio Negro, as you can tell from the name, is obviously black or dark brown, which is caused by rotting plant matter suspended in the water. The Rio Solimoes is light brown. Because of temperature, acidity and water speed the two different rivers flow side by side for several kilometers at the point that they come together. It is a neat sight to see. An interesting side note is that in many places on the sidewalks in downtown Manaus and in front of the Opera House all of the tile work is an artistic rendering of the meeting of the waters. It is a black and white wavy pattern, a prevalent design theme all around town.

Um, that’s about it for now, apparently we’ll be heading some hours up the river. We’ll see some caiman, fish for piranha, hike through the jungle, etc. We should arrive at our final jungle destination at around 4:30PM after a long ride up the river. You’d better watch your back Colonel Kurtz.

P.S. If you are interested in making some cash by investing in emerging market ETFs the white plastic chair market in Brazil is huge. Things are ubiquitous, inside, outside, cafes, hotels, on boats, everywhere. Also, Skol beer might be a good pick up. As I said, more popular than water. A young lady sitting next to me on the plane to Manaus had one. She looked far from a beer drinker and even farther from someone who would order a beer on a plane. Ham and cheese may also be a smart buy. It’s been available for breakfast everywhere I’ve been, most Brazilian eat it, although the profit margins on sandwiches may be small.

P.P.S. I have to add that the women in Manaus are better looking here than in Salvador. More Latin looking but also fitter.

November 6 - 8:50PM - Somewhere

Arrived in our final Amazon Jungle destination after a very long but relaxing boat ride. Right now it’s dark and the crew of the boat look like they are all getting ready for bed and to shut off the generator so I’ll make this short.

The spot we are at on the river is really calm and serene. It’s very dark and the river and the surrounding jungle quickly sucks up every beam of light that manages to escape from our small boat. It makes you feel small but also at peace because things are simple in your small area of light and life.

Earlier in the evening we tried to fish for piranha off of a motorized canoe with a local Amazonian kid that we met up with at his family’s houseboat/dock/store. After a beautiful sunset it got dark quickly and we gave up on fishing and started shining a spotlight around the banks of the river to look for the reflective eyes of caiman, a small member of the crocodile family.

It was pitch black out and the bugs flocked to the spotlight but as we travelled around the small inlets of the river we could see many pairs of red dots floating on the surface of the water. These red dots are caiman eyes reflecting back the bright spotlight. Apparently the spotlight blinds the caiman for a moment so that the boat can slowly approach them and then the skill of your guide takes over. Herman caught one with his hands and let us hold it and take some pictures with it. It was good stuff, got a rush from the thrill of the hunt. Later we went back to the mother ship and ate a chicken dinner cooked by the boats chef. Very tasty. Going to bed now, have to wake up at 5:00AM to do I don’t know what, a bunch of stuff from what it sounds like, we’ll see.

November 7 - 1:30PM - On the barca, that means boat

Ah yes, life on the Amazon is good. Had a busy day today already and it’s only a few hours past noon. Just finished a great lunch, beef this time, rice, beans, potatoes, salad, etc. The food is better than I thought it was going to be and we eat three fat meals a day prepared by the chef.

I haven’t showered for a couple of days, my feet have a flip flop sunburn pattern on them, I’m tired from trying to figure out how to sleep comfortably in a hammock but I am happy.

Let me quickly describe what sleeping in a hammock is like in case you haven’t experienced it. It’s horrible. When you first look at the empty hammock you are going to sleep in you may think to yourself, “Damn, that looks like my body is going to be in the shape of a V. Can I sleep like that?” The answer is, “no” although I will share a tip on how to use a hammock at the end of this paragraph. Another thing that you will find once you have crawled into your hammock is that it is hard to shift positions, you will also notice that after having battled to shift to a new sleeping position you will find that only about 1 in 27 or so shifts in your position will actually be comfortable. Furthermore, it is a fact that once a comfortable 1/27 position is found it is only comfortable for a half hour max. Needless to say I was already up for our 5:00AM, presunrise wakeup call this morning. The tip that I alluded to earlier about “comfortable” hammock use is that you should orient yourself in the hammock in a slightly cockeyed position. Not straight between the hanging points or horizontal with the edges of the hammock but slightly crooked. With this method your body will be able to lay “flatter.”

So… woke up at five, caught the sunrise, went watching for birds, saw many, tried to spot the elusive tree sloth, had no success and then traveled back to the boat for a fruit, manioc crepes, cake and of course ham and cheese breakfast.

After eating we dashed out by motorized canoe again to go for a through the jungle hike. The area that makes up the terrain in this river basin contains what are called flooded forests. Right now is the dry season so there are no flooded forests but when it is wet the forest looks like exactly what the name sounds like, it is a forest that is partly submerged in water of the river as it overflows its banks. Fish eat fruit that fall from the trees, abundance prevails and everything is pretty good. On our hike through the dense brush and trees of the jungle we learned about the various flora and fauna that make up the flooded forest.

I won’t give a scientific lecture here but I will say that there are rubber trees that provide latex for industrial rubber production and that also build opera houses, vines that provide drinkable water, brazil nut trees that provide food, other nuts that make a home for grubs that can also be used as food (which Kevin ate, I prefer my grubs cooked and seasoned), spiders, a bunch of medicinal plants and a bunch of other stuff. It was a good little walk.

And now for the most dangerous and awe inspiring part of our trip so far… piranha fishing. I will warn you that I may embellish here for dramatic effect.

After our guide informed us that he was suffering from a stomach problem, one of which Kevin and I are not affected by due to the extremely high alcohol content of our blood which wards off any foreign invaders into our system, he said that we would be going out with the local assistant guide, or as Herman called him, “the boy,” through the dark, soupy and dangerous creature infested waters to try and obtain an elusive man eating piranha specimen.

When we arrived at the fishing spot, known only by locals and marked by a single tree branch stuck in the mud to indicate “dangerous waters” we baited our hooks with the piranhas favorite food, bloody flesh. The next step of this hunt or be hunted scenario was to use the tip of our bamboo fishing rod to mimic the splashing sounds on the water surface of the dreaded piranha feeding frenzy. We splashed around and dropped our hooks in. It was only moments before the dagger toothed creatures were circling our canoe in a death frenzy and the water was boiling with blood thirsty fish. Okay, I may have gone a little overboard there but the general details are all true.

Kevin caught the first piranha, about four inches head to tail, the local guide “boy” caught a few and I caught a generic fish that wasn’t a piranha at all but I enjoy fishing for the ambiance anyways, A.K.A. the beer. We moved to another spot on the channels of the river and our guide pulled in two huge piranhas one after another. Eight inches or so each. The largest was of the black piranha variety which is the biggest member of the piranha family. We caught a couple more piranha and kept them so that our cook could make piranha stew for us according to Herman.

So that’s it up until the point of me writing this right now. Cool day so far. Right now I am on the front of the top deck of the boat sitting on a plastic chair, two Brahma beers on standby, enjoying the sites and the river breeze as we travel to a new location on the other side of the Rio Negro.