Three Days into the Jungle

We woke early to see the sunrise, heading out to an open area where we had a great view of the jungle. It was overcast, so we couldn’t see the sunrise, but there were lots of grey and pink river dolphins feeding around us. The pink river dolphins are a vibrant pink and grow up to 3 metres long. Seeing them however, I could think of nothing but musk lifesavers, my first yearning for something from home.

Afterwards we went to an Indian village which is very modernised, having electricity, provided free by a huge hotel upstream, and a road to Manaus. The people sustain themselves by fishing, hunting and processing manioc, a Brasilian potato, into forofa, a flour that is put on nearly all foods over here.

Some of the guys were a bit disappointed that the village wasn’t more “authentic”, but I don’t think there would be many people living traditional ways here anymore, and they generally don’t allow visitors since they don’t have resistance to our colds and flus. There is a school in the village that teaches kids up to year 3, but after that they go to Manaus for schooling. The city provides accommodation for the kids, since traveling 2 or 3 hours each way would be too much for them - unfortunately many kids just stop school in year 3. It will be interesting to see the effects of the $100 Laptop Project in areas like this.

It started to rain on the way back to the lodge, so I got to break out the “Emergency Ponco” that had been on my desk at work for the last few years. It turned out to just be a yellow plastic bag with some holes for my arms and head, but it kept me dry.

At night we stayed with a local man, Jose, in his house. It was a very simple house and we had our earliest night yet, going to sleep a little after 8pm.