Trevor's South America Trip: Welcome to the jungle

Day 21 - 19 de junho: Manaus and the Jungle

About 2 minutes before my alarm was set to go off, I got a knock on my door - my 6am wakeup call to get ready for the jungle! I got into my hiking boots, jungle pants and the Jaguar tours t-shirt that i'm borrowing from Jeffson. With a little time left for packing my bag and swigging back some coffee, I was off. Here's another Brazil trend btw - everyone drinks sweet coffee. Even the black coffee is sweetened. They actually brew the coffee with sugar if you can believe it! I better not get used to it as my house back home brews coffee strong enough to melt a spoon and I drink it black. Anyway, today was my first day on the job and because Jeffson was busy, I would be the only english guide on the hike. The two other, experienced staff members spoke very few english words - this was the second reason why i'm here; over the course of the trip, i am to give them english lessons. That's pretty difficult when the language is foreign to both sides. However, i'm convinced that by the end of the trip, i'll have a good group of Brazilians going around saying "aboot" and "eh?", lol. Anyway, i jumped in the car with these two guys and we made out way to the port. On the way, we were able to make basic conversation in portuguese but nothing too serious yet. The whole drive over, I was so excited and anxious to see what this part of the Amazon would be like and how the tour would turn out. The success of the tour would be riding on my comprehension of pages of notes from yesterday's jungle training session. So in the back of my mind I was hoping that I could pull this off. We made it to port; a collection of rickety docks around the bay - they weren't joined together so the dock staff would ferry people to their respective docks. There was a cafe on the main dock where the guys bought me coffee and cheese bread for cafe da manhã. I ate it on the little dock ferry as we were taken to our dock. By the way, i can only make the assumption that this whole marina runs on a set system - because it really seems like we just jumped in some random guy's boat and took off with one extra stranger. I'll trust that they know what they're doing. We got to our boat after a variety of balancing acts on rotting dock and acrobatics over the string of boats tied together. I think I officially say that my klutz curse has been lifted - if it hadn't i would have fallen into the water for sure! After loading the last of the supplies into the boat, we were off! There was no steady acceleration in this boat like my dad would do - there were two speeds: slow and mach 5! I'm glad I was wearing sunglasses... and holding on. We quickly made it over to a random patch of jungle with a little hut at the end of a pathway. I wondered if this could be where we were picking up people. I was introduced to an old guy who looked like he owned this little house and a younger guy, hard at work making a fishing net. His skill was really impressive! The two guides chatted for a few minutes, then we headed back to the boat. Whether they came to ask about the weather, jungle conditions or just catch up with old friends is still unknown to me. We then made a beeline straight to a resort on the water. This is where we would pick the people up. We arrived at the lobby and met the family of 5 - an Indian family from Houston, Texas. I introduced myself as their english-speaking guide for the day and told them about the program I was involved in. They were really impressed and wanted to know how I ever got involved in this. A little bit of internet research was all it took for this one! Anyway, before we went on our way, one of the guides wanted to say some things to the family... and asked me to translate! Me? Translate? Just a couple days ago, may family would speak and all I could muster was a blank look on my face. But he spoke, I listened closely and was actually able to. I heard more and more of the words I have been learning this week and put together the appropriate sentences: "welcome to jaguar tours" "we will be hiking into the jungle" "make sure to be quiet so that we can see the wildlife". Granted, i still don't understand half of what they say, especially when they speak fast. I've noticed that the brain has a real tendency to direct a lot of its efforts towards gathering information on the peripheral. So it's actually a lot harder to understand speech in another language when there's a lot of background noise - your brain doesn't want to focus on just a single sound, it seems to be trained to try and pick up everything. Anyway, after introductions we carried on down to the boats; not motorboats this time, but canoes. When we were all loaded in, the surface of the water wasn't more than 2 or 3 inches away from flowing over on the sides (apparently no cause for alarm as long as everyone stays in the middle). They rowed us across the bay and eventually, into the jungle. Since we're about at the time when the rainy season ends and the dry season begins, much of the land is flooded. Over the course of the rainy season, the water can rise 40ft in some places. What we were rowing by were actually the tops of trees that were growing in an area of lower elevation. It was really cool! We reached dry land, all got out and started the hike up into the jungle. The family though it was really neat! I wasn't suppose to say that this was my first time into the jungle in Manaus, so I had to act like this was all natural. Good thing I had done a jungle tour in Peru - I was able to apply that knowledge to this tour and seem a lot more professional. The first lesson I talked about was orientation - how to use the sun to get yourself in the right direction. It was a pretty easy lesson. Next, the guys demonstrated a couple animal traps - I had to explain how people would track the daily route of an animal and how everything had to be automatic so the animal won't smell you. We carried on the hike after a few demonstrations. The family would ask me a lot of questions about the demonstrations and the jungle in general - with the training i received and my other jungle knowledge, I was able to answer most things. When I couldn't, I had to think up the right sentence and ask one of the guides. With a bit of effort, I was able to answer every question that I came across. As we walked, the trails seemed to become less and less like trails. Eventually, it turned into bushwhacking - the guide in front would cut down the protruding palms and occasionally leave marks on the trees incase we got lost (i assume). I couldn't imagine either of them getting lost though - they seemed so in their element. We eventually made it to a big clearing that they obviously use for most of the tours. We left our packs near a fire pit, then were escorted along a thin trail to a stream. The next survival lesson: finding water. The most important point was that if the water is clear, and more importantly, moving, it is safe to drink. They had containers to pour water over our heads and eventually, to drink! Yup, i drank from an amazon stream and didn't die. It tasted amazing - kind of reminded me of the water from Gold River, British Columbia. We then went back to the clearing and demonstrated the last lesson they would touch on today - fire starting. The first method was with a stick and string, you could spin the butt end against a log and have enough friction to eventually get fire. It is a long and tedious process, however if you're a hunter with gunpowder, the process only takes a few seconds. Another method shown was the steel wool circuit technique (make a circuit with steel wool and batteries and the wool will catch fire). Steel wool was also lit on fire using a rock as flint and gunpowder was lit with a magnifying glass. The ingenuity is impressive. With our campfire blazing, the guys started cooking a variety of meats on it - yup, we had campfire bbq and it was delicious! After the feast, we made our way back to the boats to head back. Overall, the family had a really great time and now, i feel like i can handle anything. When we said goodbye to the family at the lodge, one of the guides tried to tell me that rain was coming - it took me a while to remember what the portuguese word for rain was - i got it after a bit of thought, but on the boat ride back, my whole definition of the word was redefined. The storm blew in a flash and the rain was so heavy, there were almost no spaces between the drops - like someone dropped a massive bucket of water on us. I lent the driver my sunglasses so that he could drive and see - without it, there was no way to look forward in this. Amazon storms are intense, but short so by the time we were back to the marina, it had mostly stopped. I knew now why they laughed when I put on a jacket - they knew that nothing would help in such a rain. I was soaked from top to bottom, but in this climate, it is a refreshing change. We made it back to Jeffson's house after stopping for a quick snack. At the time though, nobody was home. All the doors were locked and although the windows were open, every window was barred. The guys obviously wanted to watch the soccer game (Brazil vs Mexico) so they took the pool net, stuck it through bars of the window to the tv room, picked up the remote, and turned on the game, watching through the window from outside. Clever guys. My host mom was the first to come back and was impressed by the ingenuity of these guys (btw, they're good friends of the family, so this wasn't creepy or anything). I tried to watch the game, but by half time, i needed to rest. It was a busy day. It seems pretty common here to have a siesta of sorts during mid afternoon. In the evening, I went grocery shopping with my family where I nailed the ordering of the bread on the first try this time around! We returned, had our usual cafe da tarde. Jeffson had to leave for a little bit after so in the meantime, I gave an english lesson to the host mom. She knows the least english out of the family but did very well. I finished off the day with another sighting of my roommate, Lucian the locust. He never did pay any rent, so tonight, i told him to pack his bags and go - it was a short fairwell, lol. Holy crud, that was a long post - no wonder my fingers are cramping up. Time for bed, I go to the jungle again tomorrow morning!