The Amazon!

First off sorry it has taken me so long to write. As you can imagine the internet situation was not abundant in Manaus, considering it is a town smack dab in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest.

However, I survived and live to tell many stories of the Amazon. Going into this section of my trip had me feeling both extremely excited and anxious. I remember studying the rainforest when I was in 3rd grade; but other than class reports that we did on an Amazonian animal, I didn't remember much. This allowed my mind to run wild with the idea that I will be sleeping right next to a jaguar and that I better count my lucky stars that he doesn't get hungry in the middle of the night. Well to put your mind at rest we saw no jaguars, although we wanted to see one on land when we were safely in the boat so that there was no chance of attack.

For our 6 days and 5 nights in the jungle we went with Iguana Tours, who planned for us to go camping in the jungle. They picked us up from our lovely Pepto-bismal pink hostel and handed our lives over to Conrado, our jungle guide. He put us into a cab to get to the port, then from there we boarded a boat to cross the rivers, Rio Negro and Rio Slmoes. This was the most interest part of going into the jungle because the 2 rivers are different colors and have a different viscosity from eachother. This causes them to flow side by side for a while before they mix. When the two rivers mix it has a swirling look to them, it was really cool to see. While we were stopped at the meeting of the rivers there was a little canoe that pulled along side of us with a couple in it who wanted to show us their pet sloth and boa constrictor. I have to admit that it was one of the strangest things that I have seen, a snake and sloth sitting on peoples laps getting paddled through the river trying to earn some money. But hey, who am I to say what is normal or not, and I get to say that I have seen those animals in the rainforest. I guess we all win a little (well maybe not the sloth and snake.) After we got out of the boat we got in a van to drive to the next river, where we got in another boat and finally arrived at the Juma Lodge.

We spent our first night in the lodge, which was 5 star in my book for the jungle. We had our own toilet and shower! I was so excited. Then the next day it was off to cook by fire, hang our own hammocks and mosquito nets and camp in the rainforest. I have to say that camping in the jungle is the only way to do it, if anyone is contemplating visiting the Amazon soon. While camping we took canoe rides through the flooded forests, midnight canoe ride (looking for jaguars who came to the rivers banks for water) piranha fished, did a lot of hiking through the jungle, caught and put to sleep caymans, watched our crazy tour guide chase down an armadillo, and the most interesting thing was when we paddled through the craziest rainstorm I have ever been in on our way back to the lodge (which is saying something for a girl from Seattle, I have never been so wet in my life.)

The jungle was an amazing experience that I could probably write a book on! The best part was being able to see all the animals that I have heard so much about but never have seen...until now.
Some of the animals I saw were:
-Cayman
-Macaws
-King Fishers
- Cranes
-Hawks
-Vultures
-Wood peckers
- Grey and Pink Dolphins
-Armadillo
-Frogs
-Piranhas
-Sloth
- Boa Constrictor
- Cappuchin Monkey
- "Old Man" Monkey
-Spiders

I will post some pictures when I get access to a computer that has a USB connection.