Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2009
Manaus Day 2
After a good but hot nights sleep we headed off for a trek through the jungle, the heat was incredible, you just had to step outside and you were covered with a sheen of sweat, as a result there as no point taking a shower - also the showers were full of mosquitoes so it was more trouble than it was worth!
The size of Amazonia is mind boggling I was only restricted to one small part and we travelled on Tributaries which were wider than any rivers in England and yet for here they were tiny. And everywhere we went there were dolphins cresting the water's surface.
During the trek, Rubens showed us what the native plants could be used for, he was stripping bark and eating eaves and insects and all sorts!!
We found loads of tarantulas which was great and as we were travelling in the boat huge dragonflies were dancing around our heads.
At a confluence of 3 tributaries dolphins amassed due to the depth of the water, we say numerous pink and grey dolphins surfacing for air, it was incredible - I wanted to jump in but Rubens
wouldn't let me because of the piranhas. During the evening we were out in the boat again, by this time my ass was in agony in total I spent around 20 hours sitting on a plank of wood in the Amazon and it killed me more than the mossies.
On the way back Rubens smelt a Sloth and climbed around 20 metres up a tree to investigate, about 20 mins later he came down with a 3 toed sloth, it was the weirdest creature I have ever seen - it looked alien but extremely cute. I felt sorry for it as it would take about a full day for it to climb back up to the top of the tree but did get some great pics:-). It chewed a leaf that made it stoned all the time, a bit like the Koala bear. On the way back we were late and dusk had fell, which meant that it was time for another of the Amazon's inhabitants to come out an join us, during our journey back to the lodge thousands of fruit bats were swooping round our heads.
At night they went spear fishing but I didn't really
My hand swamped by ants
The ants smell put off the mossies and so you never got bit - you were supposed to run them over your armswant to do that so I chilled out in the lodge, after dark you cant go outside for long as you are attacked by swarms of flying insects and mossies, it has to be seen to believed.
The next day in the morning we went to visit a native family, it was like a scene from looneys house in the Texas chainsaw massacre, there was stuffed animals everywhere and they had quite a few live ones too (probably for the benefit of the tourists) they had a couple of tiger herons tied up in the kitchen, huge tortoises in the back, a monkey, an anaconda and a parrot - it was like a small zoo. All the time we were there there was a women gutting fish and caiman with a fag sticking out of her mouth, I wouldn't mess with her!!
In the afternoon everybody else in the group had left which meant that there was just me and Rubens (or Tarzan as he also liked to be called) going off to sleep in the jungle. The previous night 2 Brazilian tourists had cut short their trip to the jungle as they couldn't cope with the mossies,
it did not bode well!!
On the way to the camp we had to go through what seemed than impenetrable bush with the boat, the water level had dropped as it was summer and we had to hack through the vegetation with the machete and pull the boat through using the trees as leverage - it was real adventure stuff this and at the end we were filthy and soaked with sweat - and there was no showers in the jungle!! At one point I was using the paddle and noticed that there was a huge crack running nearly the whole length of its length, realising this was the only one we had I couldn't help but quip that if it breaks we would be up shit creek without a paddle - my, I had a good old chuckle over that one I can tell you.
We set up camp using hammocks and mosquito nets, would we ever make it through the night alive..........
Advertisement
Tot: 0.148s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 13; qc: 56; dbt: 0.1s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Sylvia
non-member comment
Reply to David's Travelblog
David I am amazed at your latest venture. I think I will put your name forward to go into the Jungle "I'M A CELEBRITY GET ME OUT OF HERE" I think you could walk it and be crowned King of the Jungle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Take care. Love Sylvia