We each had fish and shared a bottle of wine. Unfortunately, it took such a long time before our meals arrived that we wished we had gone with the buffet. We ended up talking late in the restaurant. We weren't sure how we were supposed to pay for the meal, but the waiter chased us down as we were leaving to sign for the bill (R$50). We followed the crowd and didn't tip as none of the other guests seemed to.
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Foz do Iguassu
We got up around 7:00 or 7:30 AM. Our breakfast was included in the hotel, so we had some fruit before meeting Tina and our driver at 9:00 in the lobby. Our first stop was a Macuco Safari. Again, Tina made sure we were well taken care of -- Sara and I sat in the jeep while the other tourists sat in a pulled trailer. I sat in the front with the driver. It was actually somewhat uncomfortable to be given preferential treatment. It made me a bit self-conscious.
Our guide seemed to translate into English for solely our benefit. He pointed out various plants and a black caterpillar that would hurt you if you touched it. We saw pineapples growing wild and hiked down to a beautiful hidden waterfall.
When we got to the pier, we removed and left our shoes (and socks) and donned life jackets before getting into a boat. At this point we found ourselves with some other Americans. They were older people from New York.
It was a wild and beautiful ride up to the base of the falls. We passed several smaller waterfalls before actually getting into the midst of the main falls where we got pretty drenched. My passport even got a bit wet. We were carrying them because our plans included crossing into Argentina this day. We were right in the middle of the falls. The sight was amazing. We could see people on overlooks enjoying the Brazilian Falls (the view is better in the morning) at the top of the falls. We exchanged waves with them. Our driver paused the boat for a while before turning back.
After we got back, we drove some distance to take in the Brazilian Falls for ourselves. There were quite a few large weasle-raccoon-like animals about that people were playing with and feeding. I took a few pictures of them, but we never did quite figure out just what they were.
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We walked along the path followed by quite a few other tourists and got even wetter. There's a point where you can walk out under the falls that we visited. The view was great. While we were standing there with water from the falls raining down on us, we met Marvin, a Latin teacher, author and speaker, and his wife Karen, a public school teacher, from New York. We helped each other out by taking pictures of each other. It turned out that they were also staying at the San Martin Hotel, so we agreed to meet for dinner at 8:30 PM. Here we were 4 hours ahead of Chicago time.
We continued along the path and took the elevator up to get another view of the falls before stopping for lunch at a nearby sandwich place. Sara and I both had carbonated mineral waters and hot chicken sandwiches. We also shared an order of fries. Sara paid the bill which came to R$12 before we moved to our next stop.
Our next stop happened to be a bird park very close to our hotel. There we saw toucans, egrets, parrots, macaws, what we thought was an ostrich, flamingoes and turtles. Sara was worried about a turtle that seemed to be under water drowning.
We decided to stop back at the hotel to pick up some more film before crossing into Argentina for another view of the falls. I ran in to get the film.
After we crossed the bridge into Argentina, our first stop was a spot on the bank of the river. Here a boat service took us to what was left of bridge that used to go all the way from the bank to a point overlooking the Devil's Throat. We wore life jackets, but it was pretty scary to think that we were in a fairly small boat with quite a few others so close to the falls. The bridge used to go all the way to the bank, but it kept falling apart. I don't think this kind of thing would have gone over well in the States. From where the boat dropped us off, it was a short walk to the overlook. The views here were amazing.
After we got back to the river bank, we checked the nearby expensive souvenir shop. Inside I noticed a woman wearing a Motorola half-marathon T-shirt. I work at Motorola. I struck up a conversation. Her name was Jennifer, and she works for Motorola in Libertyville, Illinois. She was visiting another female Motorolan friend who was there with her and would be in Brazil for 1 and 1/2 years.
Sara and I then took the upper walk by the falls with Tina. The views here were great as well. I took a lot of pictures including some of butterflies and a huge spider. Tina didn't join us for the lower walk where I got soaked again standing by the falls. We saw the Motorolan women again before we left by some more of those weasley raccoons.
Crossing back into Brazil, we stopped at a very expensive souvenir shop where they also sold chocolate, but we only bought postcards. Sara bought 5, and I bought 10 (5 for R$1). I ended up using wet money to pay.
After we were dropped off at the hotel and I put some things away in our room, Sara and I went shopping at some stalls across the street. We only bought from non-pushy salespeople. We each bought a colorful beach towel (R$10 or $10 each). I bought 2 more quartz birds (R$10 each). Sara bought 6 agate coasters and a holder for them for $R25.
Dinner with Marvin and Karen was fun. Our conversation included our jobs, marriage, Marvin's books, my thesis and the strength of the letter K in names of people. We tried the buffet this time which cost us R$38. We continued our conversation in the lobby until around 11:00 PM when Sara and I went back to our room and packed.
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Foz do Iguassu -> Amazonas
I showered after a very early wake-up call at 4:30 AM got me out of bed. We checked out at 5:00 AM. We were accidentally charged for a mineral water out of the room refrigerator, so they gave us one from the restaurant. Tina and our driver picked us up around 5:15 or 5:30 AM. Sara paid the departure tax. We had to check our bags since only 1 carry-on was allowed.
We walked onto the runway to board the 737 for our flight (#161) to Sao Paulo in beautiful twilight. Our seats were 5K and L -- I sat by the window this time. We had trouble with the snack that was served.
At the Sao Paulo airport, I was quite cold in my beige long-sleeved shirt and blue shorts. We had great seats (9J and L) on the DC10 for the Sao Paulo to Manaus flight (#200). I'm not sure how we ended up in first class, but they were the best seats I've ever had on an airplane. Sara generously let me have the window after having it briefly. We both ended up napping for most of the flight to Manaus, taking a break to eat a wonderful lunch.
My dreams included being wild, being hard to hurt yet being hurt, not being able to get out of a woman's bathroom, not being able to stop a small boy from another place from transporting himself and his belongings which included a white teddy bear in a box. A flight attendant woke me during that last disturbing one. Taking mefloquine to prevent contracting malaria always seems to give me bizarre dreams.
Manaus was two hours behind Rio and two hours ahead of Chicago time. We were picked up by people from the Ariau Jungle Lodge. Our traveling companions included a Russian couple (who were also at Iguacu), a Brazilian couple, three guys from the United Arab Emirates and Alan, a Lucent employee from Florida.
We were driven to the dock at the Hotel Tropical from which a boat took us and an Asian group to the Ariau Jungle Lodge. During the trip on the Rio Negro Sara and I drank beer, used our binoculars and took pictures. We learned from the Arabs that they paid $1000 each for their box seats for the parade at the Sambadrome in Rio.
When we reached the hotel 35 miles northwest of Manaus, we saw monkeys everywhere -- spider monkeys, woolly monkeys and squirrel monkeys. There were also large tropical birds in a huge cage as well as flying free around us. The hotel was a group of towers elevated to the level of the tree tops and connected by catwalks. There was a welcome drink. Our room was #420. We had to walk down a catwalk and up some stairs to reach it. The view outside our room was wonderful. The rooms were arranged in a circle in a tower leaving the center as a common area.
Before sunset, Sara and I explored the hotel. We climbed the highest tower for an excellent view of the sun setting. It made for some great pictures. Our buffet dinner was at 6:30 at our guide's table. Our guide was named Edvan. We spoke with Alan for a while. Throughout dinner monkeys would cling to the grating of the dining area hoping we'd give them some of our scraps. It was quite a sight. After such an early start, we ended up turning in by 9:30 PM.
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Amazonas
I dreamt of a corner of my friend Marta's house was cracking off. Bruce Willis was in the dream too. I got up at 6:30 AM and showered in cold water. Breakfast was at 7:00 AM. Then, Edvan and the driver of our boat took us on the river to visit an Indian village. Altogether there were ten of us on the boat. It seemed that only the chief, his children and maybe his wife were there. They lived in a large dwelling made of materials from the jungle. There was a small hut that was about the size of a tool shed that was built to house poultry while protecting them from snakes.
Edvan told us about their lives and the jungle and about how anacondas smell strongly of fish. If we ever smelled fish strongly in the jungle, we were supposed to run away. The chief used a machete to cut open a large nut for us to sample. There were markings high on the trees indicating just how high the water level would rise later in the year. Edvan told us that the Amazon only had two seasons -- dry and rainy.
Sara was always hoping to see toucans in the wild. Alan's camera got wet in the boat on our way back to Ariau.
We met a slot machine maker from Nevada during lunch at noon.
At 2:30 PM 21 of us gathered together for a jungle walk. We first went on a long canoe ride to where we would actually walk. We were able to see a tree with strange nests which seem to hang from the branches. Edvan told us that those were the nests of birds highly valued for their ability to mimic other birds. The walk was hot and humid. We wore long pants, but we had amazingly enough forgotten to put on mosquito repellent. Fortunately, an Asian woman let us use hers.
In the jungle it was dramatically dimmer. You could see slivers of sunshine streaming through the tall trees. The path we took gave us views of a variety of trees. Edvan would often stop to point out their medicinal value. There was one that would give you water to drink if you cut it. He didn't demonstrate so as to preserve it for the long term benefit of others. |
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