Manaus - Jungle

This will be a long post because I'd like to remember some of yesterday for myself. It was a great experience. Pictures of the jungle expedition are in my Manaus album.

After a night in our hostel in Manaus we headed out to Presidente Figueiredo. A small town 100KM north of Manaus. We had met two American girls who told us that they had a great guide their who took them into the jungle there. Unfortunately Clive and Sean had taken the instructions on how to get there so they were a little incomplete. After several bus rides, some broken Portuguese and a good amount of walking we made it to a guest house in the town and asked them to call the guide 'Johnny.' He came by the pousada and we laid out the next day with him - trekking and swimming in the jungle. The rest of the evening we spent eating ice cream and visitng one of the local bars. Presidente Figueiredo is a small town, only 27 years old, and just starting to develop as a tourist location. There are bars and pousadas, but as far as we could tell, not many gringos at all.

In the morning we were up at the crack of dawn (around 8am for us)and we ate breakfast at the pousada. The owner of the pousada wouldn't rest until we had tried at least one variety of every fruit in the Amazon, or at least it seemed that way. I wish I could remember some of the names, they were all tasty and all bizarre shapes and sizes. After breakfast Johnny arrived and we headed out in his 'jeep', a battered old fiat hatchback. He took us to the edge of a jungle and we trekked in through the secondary and then into the primary jungle. His English was great and he was continually pointing out trees, plants and animals. At one point we stopped at a tree called the indian telephone where indians would beat out a rhythm to send different long distance messages (continual beats = help I have no idea where I am :)

After trekking through the jungle for a while we arrived at a cave with a waterfall outside, and a *huge* line of red ants that seemed to go on forever through the jungle. We spent some time wandering around the cave and then walked along the river down to another waterfall. You can see it in the pictures, but it was an amazing place, and there we swam and relaxed, trying to stay under the pounding waterfall for more than a few seconds. After that we walked back through the jungle to our car, meeting the *largest* tarantula I have ever seen along the way. Johnny poked a leaf into the hole to get the tarantula to come out and I was leaning in to see it. When it scuttled out I regretted leaning in so close and jumped back a few feet. I'm not sure that the pictures do it justice at all. It was large and extremely scary looking.

We had a short lunch and then drove to another area and had to leg it across a property because apparently the owner does not like tourists there. We forded a river (definitely fording, we made a line so as not to get washed away) and walked along a jungle path to some rocks overlooking a waterfall. At the rocks we had to make a decision, to jump or not to jump. The rocks were 10 meters high and I have never jumped from somewhere that high before. I had to spend a few minutes psyching myself up before I was able to do it, and even then there were a few false starts. Sean jumped first and accidentally put his arms out when he hit the water, giving him some spectacular red welts all along his arms. I jumped second and I don't remember much of the drop because I had my eyes closed all of the time. I do remember when I hit the water feet first though because it drove all the air out of my lungs and I flailed around in the water for a while before realizing which way was up. The jump was a huge adrenalin rush and something I will remember for a long time.

After that excitement we went to another area and just floated down the river on our backs watching the jungle go by. Very relaxing and a great way to end the day. Although our day wasn't over yet unfortunately because we had to make it back to the hostel in Manaus, which we did, but they had given our room away. Sean and I spent a hot sleepless mosquito ridden night on the rooftop on mattresses. This morning we awoke at around 6am to discover that the hostel has apparently filled with Irish people. I'd socialize more, but I'm waiting for my room now and I badly need an air-conditioned nap. After that glorious nap I'm going to go buy my hammock and organize my boat ride to Tabatinga.