Day 1
Our ship was docked in SalvadorWe went to a market and did some shopping. We got stuck inside the market because of rain, so we ate at a restaurant inside the market. While we ate, there was a capoeira show, which is Brazilian dance fighting. I took some pictures of them and of of the capoeira masters, Jonaten, came up to our table trying to ask for some donations and trying to sell shirts of his school. He then offered to give us lessons, so we scheduled lessons with him later in the day.
We then went to the upper part of the city and it reminded me so much of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico. Travel down the streets, we came across people filming a commercial/ music video for the World Cup. So my cousin, a bunch of other Semester at Sea students, and I all jumped into the video and learned the dance. It was amazing! I am going to bring that dance back to the states. We did multiple shots and in one of the shots I am holding an Argentinian flag and I accidentally held it upside down! Apparently the person singing the song is a really famous singer in Brazil and we got a picture with him.
At night we got our capoeira lessons. Jonaten held our lessons in a night club that was going to throw a party later, so we were a little skeptical at first. The lessons ended up being allot of fun and I learned how to do some cool capoeira moves. After our lessons, Jonaten walked us around town and made sure we walked into safe areas. He really watched after us. We told him we were hungry so he pointed out a restaurant that said we could trust. We hung out there for a long time because they had some live music. Later, Jonaten and his friends met up with us to hang out and we all had a very good time. When we were all tired and ready to go home, Jonaten walked us through the safe areas again and got us a taxi that was one of his friends and that we could trust. I am really glad that we had him around because I later found out that many people on our trip got mugged in the area, but Jonaten made sure that we were safe.
Day 2
We went off to the Amazon for our Riverboat Adventure. We stayed in the riverboat overnight and got to sleep in hamocks outside. It was really interesting. We got to see the famous meeting of the waters where 2 different rivers with different colors and densities met up. It was a really cool phenomenon because the colors never really mixed, they just swirled around each other. We also saw some fresh water dolphins off in the distance. We then went into this area that had this giant lilly pads. We could also see monkeys scrambling around in the trees. There was this weird noise coming from the distance that sounded like intense wind, our guide told us that the noise was coming from howler monkeys.
At night we went on a search for alligators, or as the Brazilians called it, the cayman. We had to go at night because it was actually easier to find them at night, when you flash a light into their eyes their eyes would glow. Our guide attempted to catch some with his bare hands and failed a couple of times, but after a while he caught one! These alligators were not that big, they looked like baby alligators. We all got to hold them. The canoe next to us dropped their alligator in the boat, we could here screaming coming from their direction it was hilarious. Nothing bad happened, just allot of people got scared.
Day 3
We did a jungle walk through the rainforest. We got to see some pretty cool things. We even saw some bones of an anteater that a jaguar ate! We learned some survival skills, including what material burns slowly and where you can find it in the jungle. Apparently fire is the most important thing to have for survival because it can sanitize food and water. We then got to see a Amazon village and they surprisingly had more "high tech" things than I thought they would. Some even had flat-screen tvs! We got t hang out with the villagers and even played soccer with them, needless to say they destroyed us in soccer.
When it started getting dark we took a boat through the wetlands. It started raining so we took shelter in this house boat. Outside the boat we could see pink dolphins, which are the oddest looking dolphins I have ever seen! They looked like a cross between a hippo and a dolphin. After the rain stopped we continued going around and got to see the sunset. We then pulled into a beach and had a beach barbeque. It ended up being allot of fun!
Day 4
We did another jungle walk and learned some more survival skills. We learned how to tell the difference between edible and non edible fruit. We learned how to find some grubs that you could eat, and we learned how to locate water vines and how to cut them so you could drink water out of them. We also got to see some army ants, the biggest ants in the world! They were huge! We then went piranha fishing. Our boat ended up catching 8 piranhas, unfortunately I caught none. My cousin caught two of them though. When she caught one, she lifted it too fast and it smacked one of the girls on our boat in the back. The piranha fell to the bottom of the boat and people scrabbled and fell out of their seats because they were scared it would bite them. It was a funny sight. We then got to eat the piranha that we caught, it din't taste that bad.
We then headed back to the city that is on the Amazon, called Manaus. We met up with all of the other riverboats with Semester at Sea students and watched a Amazonian dance show and relaxed by a pool. We then proceeded to the airport because we all had red eye flights (that means an overnight flight for people that don't know).
This flight was the worst flight experience of my life. Everyone on our trip, except for 4 lucky people, got sick. I won't go into details, but it was not a pretty sight. I was up all night and completely exhausted from my illness. It was not fun at all.
Day 5
Because I got so sick, along with most people on our trip, I did not spend the last day walking around port. Instead, I went to the doctor to get some medication and I ended up being put in isolation so I wouldn't get other people sick on the ship. It was not a fun experience, but I feel so much better now. The doctor thinks we all got food poisoning from the Amazon. It isn't just a coincidence that most people in our trip got sick.
Brazil has been an amazing country. Even though this is my second time in Brazil, there are still surprises stored in every corner. Besides that last day of being sick, I had an overall good time in Brazil. I can't wait to watch that Brazilian World Cup Commercial.
I will be home in a couple of days. It is sad that the trip is coming to an end, but at the same time I cannot wait to see everyone again. I have been doing allot of thinking on this trip about the people I have met and the amazing experiences I have had, and it is just so much to process. I can't believe I accomplished doing so much in a span of 4 months. I will probably write another blog entry, but this is my last about an international port.
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