February 18th (Amazon Day1 Part2)
Once we got off the plane at the airport in
The airport had a different atmosphere from the one in
Before exiting the gate, we all went into the bathroom. There, I saw the first Japanese person in
When we stepped out, there were tons of people eagerly waiting to meet whoever they were there for. Right away, we found a guy with a sign in his hand that said “MR. TASAKI AYA”.
Yes, I am a man and my first name is Tasaki.
I don’t know what this guy was expecting, but he looked a bit surprised to see 4 college age girls come up to him. He turned out to be a really nice person, very welcoming and cracking jokes here and there. He quickly scanned his sheet and told us, “And your guide will be…oh great! Black Moses!”
Yeah, that got us a bit excited. We had no idea what was coming.
So we all waited for a bit and a huge coach bus pulled up, all for us!
The ride from the airport to the dock where we would be getting on a boat was about 20minutes. The road was very rocky and bumpy, although it looked paved and all. There were tons of potholes which the driver had to keep on avoiding.
Oh, something about this trip that I had completely forgotten to mention. Us 4 girls had all signed up to go on the Amazon trip through SAS, but didn’t get it. So I had arranged to go independently and the other 3 had shown their interest. None of us had met until 2days prior to the trip. It was pretty cool. So that was the makeup of our group.
The bus took us through a place without much around except for a bunch of trees.
Then we arrived at a private dock, where we saw tons of private boats that were really fancy. So I guess that’s where the rich Brazilians come and relax.
We got onto a very simple two-story boat that was going to take us to our lodge.
We were officially in the Amazon.
The river we were on was the
The sun was hot, even more than in
It was hard to believe I was actually in the place I had long dreamed of, but random things would make me know for sure that I was.
Like the odd trees that poked out from between the normal looking ones. Or seeing the river go on and on with the thick rainforest on both sides.
It was great.
After about 25minutes or so we saw a small, but wonderfully bright beach with white sand. There was a small hut that stuck out into the water where the boats could dock. It was our lodge.
We were definitely in awe as we stepped off the boat and walked towards the lodge. The actual buildings of the lodge were covered with trees, but once we walked past the beach and the trees, we found ourselves in a hut that had comfortable looking chairs and tables. Everything was made from natural things, and nothing had windows or walls. It was beautiful.
In the reception area, we were welcomed with a special Amazon drink and plantain chips. The drink was this pink color and it tasted like a cross between grass and bland watermelon. Interesting. A lot of us downed a lot of it out of courtesy. The plantain chips were tasty and tasted close to potato chips.
After that, we were lead to our cabins. The walk from the reception was nice, with lots of trees on both sides of the path. We heard tons of scurrying around in the bushes and finally saw the source cutting across our path – a lizard. Once we saw one, it seemed like that was all we saw. They were very pretty, with green, blue, and brown. We loved it.
Our room (We had split up Rachel-Aya / Izzy-Katharine) was very basic, but was really cozy. There were two beds, 2 coffee tables by our beds, a shelf/dresser kind of thing, a small desk and a bathroom. Luckily, we had air conditioning. It seemed a bit ratty, but it was working wonderfully.
There was a notice that said that the water turned off for a certain time frame everyday, and that the AC had to be turned off whenever we were going to take a shower. That made us feel a bit like we were in the Amazon.
After we had settled a bit, it was time for our first activity!
We headed to the reception and waited for “Black Moses” to arrive, who or whatever that was. Then we saw a black man strolling towards us. He said in a chill and mellow voice, “I, am Black Moses.” So there he was, our tour guide that was going to make our stay fantastic.
We walked to the dock and was introduced to a Russian couple that was going to be in our group for the rest of the time. They looked like they were in their mid to late 30s, and the man was very round and ordinary looking while the lady was really quite pretty. We kept on wondering about what an odd couple they made. The man did not speak any word aside from Russian, and the lady spoke very minimal English. This was going to be interesting.
So all of us piled on to a small wooden boat with a small motor on the back and headed down the river. We went into an area where there was a lot of vegetation growing out of the water. The water really looked like coke, dark reddish brown. Moses explained to us that the high acidity of
After our little talk was piranha fishing!
Now, there was another Amazonian adventure that made me giddy.
We were given simple fishing rods with raw meat as our bait, and headed out towards the bank of the river where trees and grass were growing. We put our bait in to the water, expecting vicious things to chomp down and start pulling right away.
We waited.
And waited. For a long time.
I felt a tiny tug maybe once, but nothing more.
So we all moved to another place.
And waited some more.
Where were those darn piranhas?!
We moved once again, and we waited.
Then one of the guides that had come with us felt something strong pull on his rod. The next second, his rod had been pulled away from him, and was floating in the water. He said that it was a cayman, which is a kind of alligator in the Amazon.
Now that got us a bit excited.
So once again we waited.
Again, there was a tug on the guide’s rod. This time he pulled hard and pulled up a fish!
It turned out not to be a piranha, but it was a good size and flopped around like crazy. It started out in the back of the boat, but flopped around all the way past the middle of the boat. It continued to do that for a good 15 or 20 minutes.
By then we had lost interest and had gone back to some more waiting. The sun was no longer high in the sky, and our exhaustion had started to set in pretty good. Our mouths were all kind of hanging open as we stared blankly into the water waiting for some vicious fish to tug at our rods.
After a looooooong time, and after the fish had done its last flop (I swear it was almost an hour after it had been caught) we all had to call it a day.
So we headed back, a bit disappointed but still in awe of the beautiful river and forest.
Back at the lodge, we all hung out on the hammocks they had in a gazebo. It was great and very relaxing.
Dinner was amazing, which made us all excited again. Good food always makes the day.
To top it off, we were able to enjoy a beautiful star filled sky. We were in the middle of the Amazon. What could be wrong?
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