BRAZIL: Into the Wild

Day One: "The Accident"

Ooooiii South America!! First thing I do is meet up with the other kids that will be "surviving the Amazon" with me and we start the looooong 4 hour trek deeper and deeper into the Amazon! After 3 bus/car rides and two separate boat rides we finally arrive at our lodge! By lodge I mean 3 huts…this is where we meet our guide Antonio. Antonio seriously looks like a grown version of Mowgli from the jungle book! My group consisted of 4 guys; Daniel, Andrew, Kevin and Cibi and three other girls Haley #1 Haley #2 ( spelt the same way and same birthdays) and Natasha. First thing we do is eat lunch and then It starts raining so we strip down to our bathing suits and jump on into the Amazon! This is something that SAS advised us to avoid… They also told us to avoid the East side, Can you guess where I might have been? Yep the east side! While swimming it started pouring and the Amazon had never looked so beautiful! We wait around the boats for about an hour cause were suppose to go Piranha fishing but plans change and the poles got jacked from us so instead we went on what felt like a 3 hour boat ride searching for sloths to hold. We found one and Antonio monkey climbs up the tree and starts yanking on the little guy and this is when we hear a women screaming in what sounds like Dutch/English "NOOO IT TOOK HIM SO LONG TO GET UP THERE STOP!!"  (if your not laughing out loud then you just simply had to be there for this or I can act it out for you all in May) so end of story we didn't get to hold the sloth BUT  I did at some point during this process almost knock Daniel out of the rickety boat! Now if this next part doesn't get you laughing then you clearly cannot imagine my awkward/clumsiness! So after hours of boating up and down rivers in search of any animals we finally get back to the lodge and I start heading up these weirdly made steps and BAM BOOM BOOM! Oooooooooh ahhhhh!  My wet body that is only wearing a bikini and Vibram five finger shoes flails in the air and hits the steps/muddy earth! Luckily my chin broke my fall. But, im still recovering from a few bruises. One that is about 7 inches long and 4 inches wide as black as could be on my thigh. Oh and of course everyone else from the group was behind me to witness this beauty and her finest!

We pass the next few hours eating dinner and messing around in the jungle until its about time to go Crocodile hunting! But just before were about to take off Haley #1 thinks it's a grand idea to take one shot. Well that one shot turned into a bottle… that resulted in drunk crocodile hunting! Ma and pa, I swear I make good decisions.. most of the time! Well as one could guess Crocodile hunting takes longer than just snapping your fingers and having a crocodile in your lap! But after many disappointing trial and errors we finally get a baby croc!! Only we hadn't know Antonio caught one until he tossed something towards Daniel and said "can you hold this for me!?" He was quite surprised when a scale-ly animal was thrusted into his hands!! After the croc got passed around the boat and had a photo shoot with everyone Antonio managed to put him to sleep by rubbing his belly! So the lesson I learned is that if I ever get myself into a situation involving a crocodile I should attempt to rub his belly!

Day Two:  "Selvage Crianca"

            Yayyyy…lets wake up at 7 am after going to bed at 2 pm to go on a 3 hour hike through the jungle! While trekking through the Amazon I was eaten alive by malaria invested bugs, dodged falling Brazil nuts, successfully jungle jane swung from more vines, and of course slipped down a hill in the mud and yet again almost managed to take my friend Daniel out in the process! After circling the jungle for an hour attempting to find our way back to our huts we finally found our way. After lunch Antonio gave me a tattoo that says "Selvage Crianca" meaning wild child in Portuguese! Don't worry its on the inside of my feet so its easily coverable! I absolutely love it!!! After cleaning up our huts and packing a few things for our night out in the jungle we got into the boat for yet another hour long ride. I honestly don't even think Antonio knows where hes going I think his train of thought goes a little like this " oh yeah that looks like a nice place to hang our hammocks, lets go there…" So we pull over and hike into the jungle (only a few minutes to insure we can actually find our way our this time) and run into a "shelter" that we alter a tad and hang our hammocks up for the night. The jungle is so dense that we can even wander more than about 20 yards from our fort. Next, Haley #1, Daniel and I head down to the river to help Antonio make dinner. He starts washing his hand in the river (if you weren't aware the Amazon is filthy, Its as dark as coffee..) so Haley offers him some hand sanitizer. "HAHAHA," he chuckles and dunks our uncooked chicken into the river to start preparing it! We were in shock! I mean I knew I wouldn't be hunting or anything that crazy, but I didn't think we'd wash whatever we'd be eating in the parasite infested water! Then he takes his rusted machete to cut it open and rip its insides out… As we all sit there in shock! Oh and I forgot to mention Daniels a die hard Vegetarian! I found it heavy watching this and I love meat, & he was watching it in HD through his camera lens! Haley and I figured since we were going al barbaric we needed to be wearing tribal war paint! After all the prepping was finished we got the privilege of running up the hill chanting to present dinner to the rest of the group! It only took about 3 hours for our chicken to cook over an open flame fire, getting rid of all those parasites. Hopefully. Well, Im not sure if it was the parasites that gave it extra delicious flavor or if we were just starving but that was some damn good chicken! The jungle got real darker faster than we could eat and left us sitting around the campfire chatting. Antonio taught me a little Portuguese and a little bit about there cultures. Did you know that there's over 200 indigenous languages in brazil? Or that every few villages along the river can barely communicate due to language differences? Its crazy! Think about it, that's like not being able to communicate with people in the down next to you! (okay.. that's more or less the case with Dana and Sjc).

Day three: Back to Manaus

The sun brought morning soon enough and I was wakened by the sound of some sort of loud wild animal! Was is a boar, panther, or wild pack of jungle monkeys?? I couldn't tell ya! We fold up our hammock and head back to the boat. I get the privilege of holding the machete. As im walking down a slope I begin to say "Who in the world would let me hold a knife…" BAM im on the ground watching the machete spin through the air and stick into the mud beside me! I mean what type of day would it be if I wasn't in the mud on my ass? An abnormal one! Once we get back to the lodge we finally go piranha fishing and Im the first of the group to catch one! Lets remember that fishing poles in the amazon consist of a stick, string, and chicken fat so this is very impressive! As I feel a tug on my stick I start swinging my pole around and yelling. Im not really sure what do to with this man eating fish on the end of my stick so I just flail it around a little until I accidently slap Natasha (another vegetarian) in the face with it…oops! On the way back to Manaus we get some tribal face paint while rocking our hand made Amazon princess crowns. Imagine 8 stinky kids boarding the MV explorer covered in dirt, chicken juices, tribal paint and crowns! That night Antonio met us and took us to a local place to eat then to where the locals go out to dance. Instead of going to a club like every other SAS student we ended up at somewhere that resembled a street festive! There was a live band and the streets were filled with crowds of Brazilian people! & we danced the night away!

Day four: Ghana Bound!

            We spent our last day in Brazil exploring and shopping around in Manaus and eating Acai!!! I can even begin to explain how good the Acai bowls are in Brazil! I bought an Brazilian jersey tank, a bitchin tribal maxi skirt, Cole/Nat a secret present and some other goodies before heading back to the ship to sail away to west Africa! Its going to be a very long 9 days at sea, its already been two days and im dying to see some land!

P.s.  Mom & Dad now that you've pulled out all of your hair, I should tell you that my "Selvage Crianca" tat is only temporary :) GOT YA!!!  Its juice from a brazilian fruit that stains your skin for about a month or less! Psssh like id really let a random local tattoo me with a rusty nail…