Amazon Adventure - Day 1

Day 1 -

I got up at 4 in the morning to get ready and meet up with everyone else in the Union. I had packed my stuff the night before since I had to get up so early, so I got up, brushed my teeth and washed my face and got dressed and so on and went down to the Union. The workers had set up little pastries with orange juice, coffee, or water, and it was actually really nice because I was wondering if they were going to feed us breakfast or not. Then we all got into groups of 30 people because thats how many these riverboats can hold and then we headed to the buses to take us to the airport. It started sprinkling as I was walking and I heard later that it actually had rained a lot while I was gone, so that was interesting because it didn't rain AT ALL in the rainforest, kind of funny actually haha. But anywho... so we get to the airport and have to wait around alot, which typically happens in the airport, get on our flight and head to Brasilia, where we had only 40 min to catch our next plane. We were almost running through the airport, but we made it, and then we took that flight from Brasilia to Manaus where the rainforest is. We then get on another bus and meet our tour guides for the next 3 days. There names are Eddy and Enny (I know freakin' tell me about it, i just shouted out whatever and they answered lol). They were HELLA cool guys and as we got to know them better they were just awesome people. Anyways, so then we head down to the dock and get on this riverboat, OMG when I saw the thing I was like OMG what did I get myself into... Can I go home now?? Haha that's what went through my mind, but it wasn't AS horrible as I thought it was going to turn out to be, only certain aspects of it were. So I'll tell you about the boat. It's 2 floors with like a tiny wooden staircase separating the upstairs and downstairs. The downstairs held the engine, the drivers seat, the kitchen and the bathrooms/showers, and then like a wide open area where we ate all of our meals. The upstairs is just a huge open space where at one end were a whole bunch of plastic chairs to sit on and look out and then the other space is where the hammocks were hung. OMG we had 30 hammocks in such a tight area, people were practically sleeping on top of eachother (not even close to kidding). So we went upstairs and just like picked a hammock and put ur stuff in it. Then we headed down to what they call the meeting of the rivers. Where the Rio Negro meets the Amazon river. And it's wild because the rio negro is obviously black and the amazon river is brown and you can literally see like a line drawn between the 2 rivers and they're different colors, I got pics of it. It's pretty cool. And while we were docked there taking pictures and looking around; we saw blue and pink dolphins. We just saw their fins keep popping up, but none the less it was still pretty insane. Then we cruised on down the river to like this little floating shop thingy, and walked in the rainforest on planks and stuff to get where the lily pads grow. They were INSANELY big and it was fun because we saw monkeys on our walk and birds and butterflies and stuff, the monkeys were awesome to see but i didn't get any pics of them because they were WAY too high and were moving too fast, but it was still cool. Then as we were looking at the lily pads an alligator climbs up on one, almost like a photo shoot it was awesome. Then we walked back and got into these little motor canoes and went out Piranha fishing. OMG OMG OMG i CAUGHT ONE!!!!! NO JOKE!!! I was sooooo proud of myself. It's my first time fishing EVER in my life and i literally stick my bamboo stick (fishing pole haha, it was makeshift) in the water and like 30 sec later pulled it out with a pirhanna at the end. It was SICK!!! So I got lots of pics with me and my friend, and then Enny took it off of the line for me and we left him go back to his family. We said he needed to go see the doctor though after being hooked on the line, it was funny and cute, I thought. Then our guides caught baby alligators with their hands (I thought we did it, but I guess it was them, I was wrong but anyways) so we had to wait until it was dark so that when he shines the flashlight you can see their eyes glowing and know where they are. So he sees one and lays down on the front of the canoe and sticks his arm in the water and then falls in. I was like omg I thought we had run over him with the boat lol. Then he sticks his arm back in the boat and is strugging to get back in the canoe because the he has the baby alligator in his hand. After looking at all the other groups' alligators ours was the biggest HEHEHE. So everyone took pics and it was super fun. Thats probably one of my fav things about the trip, catching my own pirhanna and holding the alligator. Then we headed back to the riverboat to find a place to dock and sleep for the night. Ok so those hammocks weren't UNcomfortable, but then again they weren't comfortable either, if that makes any sense at all, lol. Like my back would get really achy, but your in a hammock so you can't just roll over. And a girl had her head on my feet the entire night haha. Told you, close quarters, I couldn't even get out of bed without bumping like 10 people around me.