RTW: Exchange in Chile

Welcome to the jungle

..said my private indian guide Frank on one sunny friday morning. I took a three-day tour from one of the many agencies in Manaus, paying what seemed a lot at first but what became more reasonable as the tour went on. Before leaving I packed up on meat in a local rodízio, where you have a salad bar and complement it sitting on the table and signaling with this kind of disks (below) to the waiter if you want them to bring you more meat -eat all you can of every kind of meat, garlic bread, cheese, etc -genious!



On the first day we woke up at 5 to catch a bus to the middle of nowhere. Our goal was a small shelter (that is, a roof and nothing else) up Rio Urubú, some 250 kilometers northeast of Manaus, and the journey was done by bus and a rather long boat ride upriver (second pic below), accompanied by some river dolphins. Arriving at 11 in the morning, we had a breakfast of coffee and bananas. Here is also one of the first things I encountered -these dudes scream really loud:





First we took a three-hour canoe trip in the bushes (first pic below). Frank took the canoe straight into what seemed like unpenetratable wall of wood and leaves. There we had a different view of the Amazon already with lots of animals (like a big ass spider I nearly grabbed by accident) in it. The thing about Amazon was that if I was not hiding my camera in a water-tight bag I was too surprised by the animals to take pictures (or the subject was moving too fast and too far), so unfortunately you will not see any discovery channel pics here, just pictures of the two things that could not escape, me and the jungle. Anyway, next we had a lunch of chicken and rice, which was followed by a three-hour piranha fishing trip that did not produce one single fish though "the waters were swarming with piranhas". For dinner we had chicken and rice. The day was sealed with alligator spotting at 8 PM, as it was already so dark you could not see the end of your nose. We found one small alligator right at our feet.. Before "going to hammock" (no beds there) at 9 PM I got ambushed by black ants that were out hunting (a sting causes very high fever), but managed to run faster than them and escape. Going asleep was a little hard, as the crickets, monkies and especially frogs were having a rock concert and some intruders found my hammock every 20 seconds or so. Oh yeah, there were no mosquito nets as "here we have no mosquitos", though I could have sworn I heard several. A sunset from our "base camp" as the second one below.





Then, after waking up at 4 AM, well rested but just waiting for the light, I had time to wonder how I eventually, about 11 PM or so, got used to the idea that I was not alone in my underwear. At 6 AM Frankie woke me up for some coffee and bananas (both of which tasted great here even before the trip), because this was to be the actual jungle day. Here's Mr Jungle Jim (or, as Frank said, Jackie Chan) ready for adventure.



And in we went, for four swetty hours partly on trails but sometimes just by Frank's gut feeling. He was an especially crazy guerrilla as he had served in the Brazilian army as well, so I did not make a fuss about my own army background there.. Here are some shots from the trail (last one a "small" spider web, note Franks head in the bottom-left corner):







Then we got to our hideout in the woods, the "shelter".. I was slowly starting to regret I asked Frank to treat me without the silken gloves. Upon arrival we cooked lunch -chicken and rice.





On the jungle trail I among other things, scared away a wild pig that I'm sure was not even half as scared as me, saw some monkies (yep, genuine jungle monkies!!), about a dozen different birds, a fresh print of a jaguar and so many spiders I am starting to hate them. On our afternoon walk deeper into the woods I saw more monkeys and even a red Macau (a big parrot-looking red bird). I was exhausted and could not wait to get to camp and have a dinner of -you guessed it- chicken and rice.

I was not too sure I wanted to sleep without any real shelter, but at this point Frank revealed to me that the first days' base camp might not be a good place to go back to, as our cook who came with us up to there had gotten sick with malaria. Oops. So much for the no mosquitos -guarantee. There was nothing to be done except double the dosis of malaria pills and spray repellent like a madman. So in the woods we slept. Before going to sleep we had some wonderful talks about women in an each-one-teach-one method (talking about languages, no Brokeback Mountains there..) though he probably got more out of it than me. Anyway, portuguese is rubbing in and now I can communicate, though still quite poorly.

After another night well slept with several different insects and some armadillos that wanted to dig into our provisions of chicken and rice, I insisted that we get back to the base camp as I was genuinely worried about our cook who we had left there alone with malaria. So Frank rushed us through the bush like a crazy, and we arrived in two hours (compared to four going there) to find out that the cook was up and laughing with some friends who came for a visit from the village nearby. Frank just said: "I told you he a strong man". Nuff said. In camp we had a breakfast of coffee and bananas. Here's my breakfast moment with a parrot that could whistle:



Then we had time to kill before we were supposed to be picked up in the afternoon, and suddenly Frank came to me with bad news: there was no more chicken, we would have to catch our lunch! Upon hearing these dreadful news I was virtually running for the canoe even though I was still a bit dazzled by the morning exercise (BTW: I will from now on try to avoid eating chicken and rice forever). This time our trip was more productive, we got a total of five piranhas (I got two and the biggest one), which was hardly enough (though it was really good) for two grown men. Lucky we had rice left..





Getting back into town we had some well deserved beers with Frank (right) and his friend and I was dreaming of McDonald's (seriously). Too bad there is no McD's in Manaus. In Rio there was, and the index showed 6,40 reais (2,32 euros) for the burger and 9,95 (3,61 euros) reais for the meal, by the way.



What did I learn from this trip? I'm actually a city cowboy, no matter how much I spend time outdoors trying to convince myself and others of the opposite. I reached the point where there were just too many insects for me, and I have seen other tropical forest without that effect. Amazon took the cake, by doing that and also otherwise, you can literally feel the life around you there. Notably though, not once did I complain, so I can still go home (or move on if I get the passport sometime this century) with some respect.

posted by Kassu @ 3:49 PM