Saturday, August 9, 2008

A Day in Paradise

I woke up on Wednesday morning in a light sweat, to new bird calls and to the sound of a buzzing fan. Breakfast is at 7:30 every morning in a beautiful hut by which gorgeous parrots like to laze and communicate. At breakfast I ate the freshest fruit I've ever had in my life: a really deep yellow, sweet and juicy pineapple and thick red watermelon. All bread was freshly baked, with home churned butter and home-made jam, all served with freshly squeezed passion fruit juice. After breakfast my trekking group, made up of six girls and the guide, went back to our cabins to get ready for the full day jungle hike. We wore tank tops, jeans tucked into long socks, sneakers, and caps.


Joanna and Joseph led us into the jungle once again. The Amazon Rainforest during the day looks very much like it does on the Discovery Channel, only being there feels like being in a completely different universe. It never occurred to me that the things I see on National Geographic and on the Discovery Channel, in all those beautiful photos, is truly real. There in the Amazon Rainforest, walking past medicinal and poisonous plants, careful not to step on armies of leaf-cutting ants, and trying to avoid snakes, I finally realized how incredible it feels to discover nature. I knew it was moving all around me; there were thousands of snakes I couldn't see and wildlife I would never discover, which could recognize my scent from afar.


We stopped many times along our trek so that our guides can explain the functions of various plants. We found trees which when cut a certain way, release about ten liters of fresh drinking water, and a tree whose bark is used in anti - malarial medicine. We also came across many unique flowers, one with long tubular yellow petals and another with blue buds that looked like blueberries. We even did a little bit of bush-whacking! At one point we ventured off the trail into an unexplored part of the jungle, where we spotted an anteater really high up in a tree. A while later, after having hiked for a while longer through the miraculous jungle, Natasha noticed a snake ready to strike right next to Yolanda’s ankle. She called out to the guides, and Joseph came over to get the snake out of the way; he picked it up and explained that this is one of the most poisonous snakes in the Amazon Rainforest. One bite from it can shut down a human’s nervous system. I have an overwhelming fear of snakes, but somehow looking at it coiling from Joseph’s hand I overcame my fear and took very close photos of it. I couldn’t believe how well camouflaged it was! Had Natasha not spotted it moving, it may have struck Yolanda’s ankle. Joanna told us later that our group is incredibly lucky for having seen the wildlife that we did; anteaters are particularly difficult to spot.


We hiked for three hours before coming to a cleared bit of land in the jungle where the eco-lodge built its “rest area”. Here we waited for the other trekking group to come and have lunch with us. We were so hot by this point that we got down to our underclothing and washed ourselves in the stream. The water in this stream is also safe for drinking. Joanna doesn’t even bring bottled water when she hikes, because she just drinks directly from the fresh water sources in the jungle. When the other group arrived, we relaxed and dined on barbequed meets and fresh fruit. Upon finishing lunch, our guides informed us that we had two options. We could either take the long and more arduous route back to our eco-lodge, or take a shorter, less intensive route back. I opted to take the longer route. This time we were led by Evo, a young Dutch reptilian expert.


After having only hiked a few meters back through the Rainforest, Evo spotted a bullet ant making its way up a tree. A bullet ant is large and extremely poisonous; one bite and the infected area will become paralyzed for twenty-four hours, and the pain will feel much like that caused by a bullet. Evo had just been bitten by one recently and described how he could not move his arm for an entire day. Amidst intense bush-whacking we began to hear thunder. My heart pounded in anticipation of rain. One of the experiences I had been looking forward to most is rain the Rainforest. The wind came first. Millions of leaves up ahead rustled, making a loud chattering noise. Then the rain came down. Hard. Suddenly the rain forest came even more alive with sound. We hiked through the applause of jungle rain for a half hour more before coming out near a lake. The lake glistened and sparkled with raindrops; wet, sweaty, and hot we said nothing before running towards the water. We stripped down to our bras, underwear, and boxers once again and ran into the lake. Swimming in the lake was like taking a warm bath, only we were surrounded by rainforest. We spent about forty five minutes in the water just relaxing and having races from one side of the lake to the other. The rain stopped and a light fog formed over the top of the lake. I felt like I was in a movie, and at that moment I really missed Nick. The scene was incredibly romantic, but it was missing the protagonist couple. Instead we frolicked in the lake and I had the time of my life in a paradise I don’t think I will ever be able to accurately describe.



Friday, August 8, 2008

Welcome to the Jungle!

I wrote this entry on Wednesday, the day after I arrived in Manaus:



Yesterday I finally discovered Brasil. I was on Flight JJ304 from Salvador to Manaus, sitting next to a jovial middle-aged Brasilian man who has been living in New Hampshire for the past seventeen years. I was fortunate enough to have the window seat, and never did it matter more to me than it did on this particular flight. We took off from Salvador and for two hours, Cesar, the jovial Brasilian man, regaled me with tales of his travels and deeply personal experiences. He had come to Brasil for about a month to visit his children from his first marriage, and to research the potential for an import/export company that he was hoping to initiate for the exchange of novelty products between Brasil and the United States. He told me about why he immigrated to the United States (to escape political corruption and economic instability in Brasil), how he gained his citizenship (marrying an American woman whom he had fallen in love with), why he wouldn’t want to live in Brasil again (political corruption), and about his first and second marriages. I told him about the project I’d been working on in Salvador, and was refreshed to hear that he thought our project is a great one. I haven’t been feeling that great about it, so to hear such encouraging things from this random Brazilian man was quite heartening.


We didn’t even notice the time fly by as we spoke, and when the pilot told us to prepare for landing, we locked our eyes onto the world outside of my window. As the plane descended, I realized we were flying directly over the Black River, which mixed with the Amazon River at a very distinct point where you could even see the line where the brown river becomes blue. Even from thousands of feet high, I could see how the Amazon is the largest river in the world, and I took pictures of its grandeur. We descended further, and as we flew over land I could see the tops of trees belonging to the Amazon Rainforest. When the plane landed, I still felt like I was zooming deeper and deeper into the Amazon and its Rainforest. I still feel like I’m zooming in further and further, only the focus becomes clearer the deeper I go.

Upon arriving at the Manaus Airort, we quickly grabbed our luggage, and boarded the bus meant to transport us directly to our eco-lodge, located two hours away from the Airport. I sat next to Taylor at the very front of the bus, and we talked about our family histories for a while, before I got bored and decided to play the Cube Game on him. The Cube Game is an old Sufi psychological test and fortune telling game meant to reveal the testee’s attitude towards and ways of dealing with the world around him or her. A participant can only play once in a lifetime, because the participant cannot know anything about the contents of the game before playing. I did a really good job interpreting Taylor’s results, and he went to the back of the bus to tell other people about it. I watched the Rainforest fly by my window and listened to music. I even fell asleep, only to awake to find out that our bus has broken down. We stopped at a gas station, and sat outside in the scorching heat for about an hour and a half waiting for another bus. The hour and a half actually turned out to be very refreshing. For the first time, stranded in the middle of nowhere, with a gorgeous view of the rainforest in the distance, I felt like I was truly somewhere new. We walked to a hut across the street where a kind old woman sold beer, water, and trinkets and we bought beer to cool us down while we waited for the new bus to arrive. I didn’t get to relax for very long, though, because a few members from our group sought me out to Cube them. I was booked for a full hour Cubing one person after another. It was a really fun and almost surreal experience to be there in the middle of nowhere, telling fortunes ( and even more surreal to discover I’m good at it ;) )

The new bus was larger, and by the time and hour and a half was up we were ready to get going to our eco-lodge. Our Brazilian driver played an American 80’s music CD that he had made himself for the duration of our trip to the eco-lodge, as he sped wildly on the road. We blasted the music as we flew past the Amazon Rainforest, sunset, and many other cars. It felt like we had our own badass soundtrack, marking the introduction to a thrilling story about adventure, danger, and love.

We arrived at our eco-lodge at about seven p.m. It is called Amazonat, and is essentially an environmentally and ecologically friendly resort in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest. The guides met us and took us to the dining area, a beautiful open hut with a great view of the surrounding forest. He told us we’d be having dinner, and that there is an optional spider trek that would be taking place directly after dinner. We ate an incredibly delicious and fresh meal there, and while most of the group defected and went to bed after dinner, a few girls and I decided we wanted to participate in the spider trek. We went to our cabins, settled in quickly, and then set out into the jungle with our guides. Armed with flashlights and wearing long pants tucked into our socks, we slowly entered the forest. At night the Amazon Rainforest is pitch black, and without flashlights we would not have been able to see anything at all. Yet in the moments I could spare to not be watching the ground for snakes or spiders, I looked up to watch the sky ablaze with the Milky Way and the brightest stars I’ve ever seen. The experience was breathtaking. I didn’t get a chance to see the Rainforest so close during the day, and now I was there for the first time at night, hearing creatures I could not see and imagining what my surroundings really look like. I felt a rush of adrenaline and excitement as we walked through the pitch black Rainforest under the canopy of the glistening sky.

We first came across a couple of capybaras drinking water from a small pond. I found this particularly amusing because Nick and company have been harassing me to try Capybara at restaurants in Bahia, but I could never find it anywhere. No, first I was going to see LIVE capybaras. And of course after seeing them live I don’t think I could ever eat them. They’re adorable! They are giant rodents with cute webbed feet and coarse hair; apparently they take to humans much like dogs. They are the only animals which the eco-lodge keeps as pets. After playing with the capybaras for a while, we went on into the jungle. The guide led us off the trial for about a mile and a half until we finally came across a hole in the ground where Evo, our guide, said the Goliath Bird-eating Spider would be. The Goliath Birdeating spider is the largest spider in the world. It is highly poisonous; when it feels threatened it shoots off hair from its hind, one of which could cause terminal blindness. If it lands anywhere else on your body, the itching and burning sensation is ten times worse than that of poison ivy. The spider itself is larger than my hand. Evo took a long stick and probed it into the hole, causing the Goliath to emerge from its lair. While it ran around its nest for a little while searching for pray, Evo informed us that this particular spider was a female. Female Goliaths are incredibly difficult to mate with. The male Goliath has to be extremely careful when courting the female, for if he does not do it to her liking, she will devour him. My kind of woman! We stood there in awe of her, all the while shuffling our feet so that ants do not swarm our feet.

There is a plethora of ant species in the jungle. The one we came across most frequently is the leaf cutter ant. These ants form trails along which they carry pieces of leaves to their nest. There are worker ants, which are smaller, that carry the leaves to the nest and there are soldier ants which are a bit bigger with larger heads that make sure the worker ants are properly carrying out their function. Neither the soldier ants, nor the worker ants, reproduce. The queen ant is the only ant that reproduces. We had to be very careful not to step on any of the many ant trails that we came across on our way back from the Goliath. As we shone our flashlights on the ground before us we noticed something moving very quickly near the ant trail. Our second guide, Joanna, excitedly informed us that this is a Brazilian Wandering Spider. This happens to be the most venomous spider in the world. Had we not been looking carefully at the ground we may have stepped on it! Joanna skillfully removed it from our path with a long stick and we got out of the jungle and to our cabins without any further life threatening obstructions.


Jen, Kristen, and I went to sleep shortly after getting back from our nighttime jungle excursion. I fell asleep to sounds of crickets, howler monkeys, and sounds I don’t think I could ever identify, with adrenaline still rushing through my veins.