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Published: December 6th 2009
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I knew that someway somehow I would get the full Amazonian experience, but I had never planned or imagined the adventure that was to come…
PART 1 - THE CITY
So after having to change buses twice on my overnight “direct” bus from Boa Vista, I finally arrived in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon; the ancient port city of Manaus, founded about 350 years ago, with its 2 million people scattered randomly in an ill-designed sprawl.
Carlos my couch surfing host wasn’t there, which worried me a little but not much. I called him and luckily he was just around the corner. It was a cool 34 degrees in Manaus, which was unusually cold for there, and I suppose an improvement to the 38 in Boa Vista. In the heat of mid morning we made the “short” 3 km hike to Carlos’ apartment, which he shared with 3 other ecology grad students (all doing their masters). We had tried or rather hoped to catch a bus, but being a little new to the city Carlos had gotten confused on where to catch the bus, so we just ended up walking the whole way sort of by accident.
lol. However, after having done 140 k at roraima, and all my recent jogging, this really was nothing. Carlos had offered to carry my bag, but I declined. I liked the training and actually I was becoming really impressed with how much stronger my back muscles had gotten. Carrying 40 lbs for 3 km was a joke now. It didn’t even cost me even an ounce of discomfort (other than the heat), and absolutely no soreness. Amazing!
Carlos had a nice flat with a pool outside, but no air conditioning (which was typical), and little ventilation, causing it to feel like 40 degrees inside, most of the time.
It was amazing because just an hour or so after I arrived a bunch of Carlos’ friends invited us to go to the beach with them, so my sight seeing already began!
We took a small 2 dollar ferry across to a neighbouring island, where one of the nicer beaches were located. There were trees growing out of the water, and pick nick tables next to the shore, and the water was really warm and inviting. I watched the sun setting, and felt really good to have found another wonderful
place with wonderful people yet again.
That night we decided to go bowling after having dinner in the food court of the mall, which apparently in Brazil is a fancy thing to do (eating in the foodcourt- seriously, its all nice, and tasty, and all the young people and even older people do it to). The food was great, and I sucked at Bowling but I had a lot of fun.
Over the next few days I got to know Carlos, and with each passing day I enjoyed our friendship more and more. Carlos was not only dependable and trust worthy, but also just really fun to be around. He was relaxed and good-natured, full of interesting information, and always offering it up in accordance with his genuinely open, helpful, and thoughtful spirit. Carlos also spoke perfect English, being an English teacher on the side, which was remarkable since the longest he had ever spent in an English speaking country was four days; he had learned his American English studying entirely in Sao Paulo. He was an exceptional generous host who gave me the keys to his place the second day I was there, and made me feel
completely at home, and even part of his flat mate family. I suppose neither of us suspected just how long I would end up staying there between my trips from and back to Manaus, yet to come. -But I suppose that was Carlos’s fault, being so inviting, accepting, easygoing, and such great company. One thing was for sure, I would really come to value and enjoy our growing friendship in the weeks to come.
The following days were filled with fun activities that would soon become our traditions. Like tasty family breakfast of ham and cheese melts with strong coffee, going to the movies with his flatmates, and the flatmates next door (one big family of wonderful people, and all grad students from IMPA, that were just so remarkably good-natured and helpful with one another), and let us not forget the most incredibly dangerously delicious ACAI with castanha nuts and leche condensado from Amazonas shopping (to die for!!!!).
IMPA by the way stands for Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazonia, and is Brazil’s largest research centre in the Amazon. Carlos took me there several times, and I got the grad tour (that included Manatees). Through a strange set of
events I even ended up with a job offer, I think my third day in Manaus!! You see, one of Carlos’s roommates (Anderson) wanted to take me into the reserve camping. He was going in anyways to do some research and it would just be awesome for me to go and get to know the jungle, so why not! However, I needed to get special permission, so Carlos and I spent two days getting to know all the people up top, who really wanted to get me, but long story short couldn’t on such short notice. Nevertheless, when they found out about my experience in toxicology, etc., they got very excited. The next day I was meeting with the director of the institute, Dr. Val, who was shaking my hand, telling me about their newest project, for which they just received 9 million dollar grant, and offering me a position as a postdoc with tons of freedom on developing my own project and opportunity to be on staff as a scientist in as little as one year. Wow… my head was spinning… We exchanged info and I told him I would still be travelling for another year and so could
not make a decision until then, but that we could remain in touch.
Anyways, after the next weekend Carlos got called to the reserve to do some field research for 2 weeks, and I thought it might be the last time we saw each other so I sadly said goodbye, with the secret sneaky hope of finding a way to stick around and see my friend once more (if fate allowed).
Carlos left Monday morning for the reserve and I spent the day swimming and getting my things together and tying up some loose ends on the internet. You probably don’t remember, but I had met a nice meteriologist lady, Cida on my airplane ride from Campo Grande to Recife almost 3 or 4 months prior. Anyways she lived in Manaus and had invited me to stay with her several months ago, and since that time we had stayed in contact. So luckily I had a place to stay and Cida was so generous and to come pick me up all the way across the other side of town from Carlos’place in the afternoon. We went back to her area where she lived, the ritzy Ponta Negra and
had dinner on the beach. I tried some Amazonian specialty- I forget what’s its called but its made out of poisonous leaves that you have to cook for 48 hours or they kill- and its made purely out of that- really tasty and interesting though. Afterwards we walked around a bit, laughed at the Michael Jackson impressionist on the street, and went home.
Cida offered to take me to this special waterfall out of the city on the weekend, and I wanted to go but was planning to go on a four day tour of the amazon, so I decided to go beforehand in order to make it back for the weekend. So that’s why I left the following morning, just having spent one night there. Incredibly, she was kind of enough to drop me at the port the following morning, where another Carlos was waiting. I had managed to negotiate the best price (confirmed by the other tourists) available, and so I paid him (as little as 40 % of what others paid).
I honestly can say I had no idea of what was to come, nor how wonderful it would be…
Bora!!
(means let´s go)
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Willian Yudi
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Hey
Good to know that u r still alived! kisses