Mar 2009

In the early morning we went to the airport. First we had to take a normal bus to Santarem, but from there we felt a bit rebalious and took a motor-taxi to the airport, with backpacks... That was - off course - exciting. However, we arrived way more early at the airport as expected and we had to wait untill 15 o'clock, it was 11... Reading, music, lunch, more reading and music...

We flew over the Amazone! The view was a beauty. An hour later we arrived in Manaus, I bought my ticket to Campo Grande for the 1st of april, and we went to the hostel. Funny enough we met some people again we met earlier in Pipa and Jeri. We thought it would be nice to eat nice for once again, so we went to a BBQ restaunt, paid 5 times more than we usualy do, but we could eat the nicest food, brocolli, appel salads and the best meat from the BBQ. Tomorrow I'm leaving for a 3 day hike in the forest.

We had one more full day in Alter do Cão. We searched for something to do and found a guy that could take us to a flooded forest. So we went there and saw amazing stuff.. Complete palmtrees under water, weird water bugs, parrots and monkeys! Before we headed back we had lunch in a really nice family restaurant. And in the afternoon we went on a unorganized hike up a hill to see an overview of the area. Took some time on top to enjoy te view and went back. The evening was there to relax, the lsat couple of days were intensive but really nice.

At 11 we took a canoe to a little town at the riverside of the national park ´Flona do Tapajós´. A big family celebrate life here in humble clay houses. We met the family and toured trough the village and factory. In town there were a lot of latex-trees. They collected the latex and made all kinds of products with it. Slippers (flip-flops), bags, balls and more. Many people worked in the latex business, however the whole family couldn´t depend on it totally. So they held chickens for meat or the men went into the forest to kill a Armadillo/up the river to fish for fish. Other food was basic, rice, beans and banana´s from the forest.

The night was more spectacular as we went for crokodile hunting! We sat in a canoe, with flashlights and searched for two bright eyes on a background of the dark forest. After a minute or 30 we didn´t find any so on of the guides went into the water to catch one himself and 10 minutes later he came back with a baby crok. Amazing!

We slept in hammocks hearing all the sounds from the rainforest. Bugs, birds, monkeys and probably many more animals were cracking, tsirping, singing and screaming.

In the morning we went for a 5 hour hike into the jungle to see the old big trees of about 1200 years old. On the way the guide showed us how to make a roof with varaan-leafs, how to make a backpack with the same leafs and the wonderfull fruits and medicine of the forest. Afer more then 2 hours we were in the area were we encountered the big trees. Amazingly big and tall. You´d need 26 people holding hands to surround the tree. Imagine yourself standing 1200 years at the same place, weird ain´t it...

We had dinner (rice and beans) and went back to Alter do Chão. We saw a beautiful sunset and in Alter do Chão we celebrated that we were back to civelization with some beers.

In the morning we packed, went to the airport by bus, and flew to Santarem. All my landings so far were soft, however, this pilot was a newby and landed the plane with a harch smack on the ground. We bounched and amost had to make a take-off again as the engines were throttled to full power after the smack. But we stayed on the ground and everybody was relieved nothing happend.

We took the bus to Alter do Chão and searched for a hostel. As we dropped our stuff and went into town we met Marnix (Zierikzee) and Chistos (England), we eat a pizza and decided we´d go into the rainforest with the four of us the next day.

Totay was no special day. We were stuck in Belem for another day as we could only buy a ticket to Santarem leaving on tuesday. So we had time to explore the city, do laundry and buy some stuff for the Amazone. Flashlight, poncho, new sunglasses (my 4th allready this trip), anti-musquito spray enz. In the hostel we met three aussie guys and watched ´Lier, Lier´ and played poker, I won 40 reais!