This morning I got up for a little 5.5 mile run before the ship ties up in Manaus. We are headed off on this seven hour jungle tour today.
However before I start in to that I need to talk about this other thing which is that everything here is in Portuguese. So of course everything has huge tongue twister name. No 5-10 letter names! Everything has to have 25-50 letters and is totally unpronounceable. There is almost zero English. What the heck is wrong with these people any way?
There was a Dutch night aboard, and everyone had to wear these little Dutch hats. The men had these little black baseball type caps and the women these white hats with little wings on them. I am sure you have seen pictures. Normally I wear this black Nike running cap which is a baseball type of thing to keep the sun from burning me up. Just to keep it light I have taken to asking if it makes me look Dutch. (wooden shoes, wooden head, wooden listen).
Manaus is on the Negro River which is totally black compared to the Amazon which is brown. At Manaus the two rivers meet and become one. However they flow side by side for miles with this huge strip. The Negro river is black because of the decaying vegetation in the water, where as the Amazon has a lot of clay in it.
Ok back to the jungle tour. Again we get on the river boat and head off. After an hour boat ride we get to this little village where we walk though the jungle to this place where there are these huge lily pads. These lily pads are at least 3-4 feet across. It was pretty impressive. The rest of the jungle is pretty interesting. However it is kind of prepared for the tourists. So, no slogging though waist deep water and slashing down vines with a machete. Lots of interesting trees and stuff but it isn’t like the movies. Later we go on this canoe ride in the Amazon which was in fact pretty authentic.
It’s a hard life but some one has to do it.
Terry
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