Jungle experience I

We arrived to the real city jungle. Manaus is a a city with almost 2 million inhabitants located in the middle of the rain forest. Check it out! Due to its location Manaus is full of mosquitoes and humid (no way to dry your towel in less than two days), but also very polluted like every metropolis. Luckily there are also nice people and we found there not one, but two great couchsurfing hosts. We stayed at André's place, who is hard-working and busy guy, but managed to find some time for us. He works for Brazilian Airforce and studies at the same time. Together with him and his friend we went out one night and spent a great time in "Parao do Alemao" (German Basement in Brazilian), listening to live band playing good covers of international rock hits and drinking beer and caipirinha. The next day, André invited us for Easter lunch with his family. It was nice to experience the Brazilian way of celebrating Easter and try some regional dishes like Tacupí soup. Although we were supposed to stay with André only for the first two nights, he let us surf his couch (well, actually it was a nice double bed :) for the whole week.

With André, our favourite Brazilian soldier

Handcraft market in Manaus 

Cute Brazilian eating traditionally made ice-cream

Spotted in Bosque da Ciencia

M. Monteiro - our house for five days

Banana crisps

Our second host Francisco was more our guide. He helped us a lot to buy the tickets for the boat and the necessary hammocks. He has flexible working hours, so he was able to spend lots of time and show us around. We went together to the "Encontro das Aguas" (Meeting of the waters). It's an amazing natural phenomenon where two rivers (Rio Negro and Solimoes) meet each other and don't mix their waters for few kilometres, that creates a very interesting view because the rivers have different colours. This effect is caused by three factors: speed (one river is faster that the other), temperature (one is warmer than the other) and water density.

That's not our picture but you can see here clearly how it works

Fransisco - our semi-host in Manus

 Encontro das Aguas

After that, Francisco introduced us to his funny friend Fabiano who sells hammocks in the local market. Apart from buying good quality and cheap hammocks we were also invited by Fabiano for "merienda" - simple but delicious meal consisting in coffee and home-made bread with butter. Via couchsurfing we met also Pawel - Polish traveller who had just arrived from Tabatinga. He shared with us lots of stories from his 8-month trip through South America. After this meeting, we were reassured that we should take the same boat for our 6-day journey upstream to Leticia-Tabatinga.

Hammock shop

With Fabiano - you can make friends when buying hammocks

The boat (M.Monteiro) was leaving on Saturday, 14 of April which meant that we had 3 "extra" days in Manaus. That's why we decided to take a 2-day jungle trip. We went to the remote area close to lake of Rio Juma where we took part in "ordinary jungle activities" such as canoeing, piranha fishing and cayman spotting. For the first time we realised what it means 'to get dark' - there was no electricity and the light supported by generator was on only until 10. Later it was totally 'black'! Canoeing through rain forest was pretty exciting, especially thanks to our guide Tita who seemed to be lost (or was just playing with us, still don't know).

Typical Amazonian house 

 Jordi with Mickey from Israel - just before both of them fell from their hammocks

 Jumping into Amazonas

Getting ready for canoeing

 Rain forest

One tree is hugging another

 Marimari - rain forest fruit which tastes like a lollipop

There were seven people in our group, but only four caught piranha - we are proud to announce that Jordi was one of them:) Cayman spotting wasn't Karolina's favourite experience. In the night we went by small boat to spot caymans and our crazy guide managed to catch a small creature and we brought it back to our lodge. Unfortunately,on the second day it was raining (not surprising during rainy season) and we couldn't`t enjoy the sunrise. The trekking was fun, but we expected to see far more animal species. We spotted and caught a sloth - it´s probably slowest and happiest animal living in rain forest (slower than Lemur!).

Jordi's piranha

Our guide Tita

A young black cayman which can grow up to 5 metres

 Delicious worms

Jungle boy

Jordi and a sloth - aren't they similar? (surly both are very slooow)

We arrived back to Manaus and on the next day we took the boat to Tabatiga/Leticia but this part of the story we'll share with you later. Right now we're already in Cali (Colombia) and we're in rush to catch a bus to Pasto. We were advised to travel during daytime as there are some armed bandits operating on this road who attack the buses. Hope to write to you soon...

Welcome to the jungle!

We´re in the middle of Amazonian forest, but before we tell you more about it we owe you a story from the seaside part of our trip - Natal. It took us 14 hours to get there from Aracaju and luckily the bus was really comfortable (even more than buses operating between Poland and Germany). We were hosted by Goias football team biggest fan, Daniel. Although there was already another couple from Argentina surfing his couch, he welcomed us in his home and brought an extra bed because of us. Daniel was very helpful also after we left his place and took us to very small town called Pipa which becomes very busy during holiday season. For the next days we moved to Ponta Negra - the most beautiful and very touristic part of Natal. This way we lived close to Xavi Abad - Jordi´s friend from Roses. We had a chance to meet his ´Brazilian family´ headed by Tia (Sogra). We spent three relaxing days, mostly on the beach. We also visited Parc das Dunas but unfortunately we couldn´t find dunes there...

 With Daniel - because Goias is the best team in the world...

 In the background: Morro de Careca - the most famous sight from Ponta Negra

Sunset in Ponta Negra beach

Tapioca - kind of Brazilian pancake

Ponta Negra beach is being destroyed by the sea and probably in few years it won´t exist any more

With Tia and Xavi - thank you for all your kindness

 The city of Natal (in Portuguese means Christmas) was founded on 25th of December and that´s why there is a huge Christmas tree all year round!

Brazilian national shoes

After that we flight to Manaus - almost 2 million city in the middle of the jungle. Tomorrow we´re going to Tabatinga - a border city between Peru, Colombia and Brazil. The boat trip will take 6 and a half days (sleeping in hammocks!). We´ll upload some pictures from the jungle and write more about it next week, because the guy from the Internet point wants us to leave...

Xuxa é Guga!

 

This is how we have been nicknamed in Brazil. Xuxa e Guga! Xuxa for the actress/singer and Guga for tennis player Gustavo Kuerten, both Brazilians. The nicknames were coined by Eduardo's (our host) mum, Dolores. Our similarities are relative. While Jordi could be quite similar to Guga, Karo's similarity to Xuxa is doubtful. However, in a country with a little proportion of the population having blue eyes, it appears to be a reasonable comparison, even more if it comes from a person that has never travelled beyond Brazilian borders.

With Eduardo, our Brazilian host and his mum, Dolores

Banana Republic

 Fresh peanuts sellers - always hanging around busy bars

 Caranguejo

The mix of races here is overwhelming. From people very similar to Africa inhabitants to some close to northern Europeans. The prices are very very high. Don't expect come to Brazil and live for 5 US$ per day unless you enjoy eating sand. To give you an example, a bottle of water (1,5L) in the supermarket (a big one, for local people) is around 1,5 Reais (around 0,85 US$). No way to find it cheaper. A main course (meat or fish with some side dish) in a normal restaurant, nothing luxurious, it appears to be always over 30 Reais. That is around 16 US$. "Cheap food" in the street is 6 Reais (3,30 US$) at least... It is true that Brazil is the 6th biggest economy in the world, but the minimum wage is around 620 Reais (340 US$) per month. That's not much more than the Spanish minimum but the prices are at least equal if not higher. Then you realise the huge inequalities between poor and rich people in developing countries such as Brazil.

 Brazilian nightlife - thank you all guys!

 Jordi´s first Coco Verde

Jordi´s first football match in Brazil (horses weren´t playing)

 Refreshing Cocos available here

Although our host and his family are amazing, tonight we are taking a bus to Natal. We have spent in Aracaju three wonderful days full of sun, sand, laugh and Skol (the best Brazilian beer). We also tried some typical Brazilian cuisine (Acaraje, Caranguejo, Sururu and Caldo de camarãoes) We have also drunk our first Cocos Verdes and national cocktail Caipirinha. We have realised that there is no need to go to a club in order to listen to Brazilian music because the street-life is very loud and you hear Samba, Bosanova and MPB (Musica Popular Brasileira) everywhere.

 With Eduardo

 Acaraje - typical street food

 Accident in a bar where we were supposed to spend Saturday evening... (an inexperienced driver drove the car inside the bar, fortunately there were not many people yet...we arrived 10 minutes later...)

 Wanna try?;)

 The barbecue cheese - we like it!

 Trying to sell...everything.

White Tufted Marmoset met at the university in Aracaju

Those are our first impressions about this incredible country. Probably we will have some more soon, so let's keep in touch ;)