As the title suggests, last night was pretty crazy - a really cool experience! I accompanied Jeffson and Marcel on a late night fishing session. We had two canoes, so I jumped into Jeffson's (although "jumped" isn't quite accurate, more like wobbled) and we set out. The first thing I noticed were how many stars were overhead! Out of the city, you could see every constellation and more. Not that my camera could take decent pictures in the night to begin with, but I opted to leave all my belongings back in the room as soon as I looked at the canoe. As are most of the canoes here in Manaus, this canoe was made so that the further it sunk into the water, the more it leaked through the sides. The two of us together on this canoe made it decently leaky, so I went out with them wearing only my swim trunks and flip flops. It would be my job to bail out the water in between fishing spots. Now, this wasn't like ordinary fishing back home - no rod, no reel, just a flashlight and a spear! Yup, spear fishing. We floated into the shallows, shone the light to the bottom and scanned the depths for fish. When Jeffson would find one, he'd line up the spear and throw it. The fact that I was on the boat made it more of a challenge for him though, every movement I would make made a noise in the water that would scare the fish away. At first, there was no reason for me to move - I was simply taking in the atmosphere. Only an once of twilight remained in the horizon - just enough to make every shape a black silhouette. Along with that, the sky was constantly flickering with lightning flashes, although only a few clouds were in the sky and there was no thunder to accompany it. It made for kind of an eerie atmosphere. The dominant noises from the jungle were the thousands of crickets chirping and frogs croaking (im assuming it was these animals making the noises). The croaking sounds may have also been caymans - probably more geographically accurate, but I never saw one while i was out. Anyway, as we were out, more and more things gave me motive to move in my seat. The boat would sneak through the shoreline, brushing against bushes and branches as we moved, and I thought nothing of it, until one time after moving along the bushes with the lights out, we turned on the light to find a huge spider (about a 3inch stance) sitting on the boat with us. Jeffson said it must have rubbed off the bushes. This got me a bit paranoid - i'm perfectly fine with spiders when I can see them, but it's a little bit unsettling when you can't see a thing. Then of course, he rowed under a tree and I got a few branches in my hair and every time, i'd wobble the boat when i'd brush my hair with my hands for insects. I had a smaller one right beside my foot at one point, then was told to turn off the flashlight - the next time i turned it on, it was gone. Who still wants to go to the jungle? Haha, after a little bit, I got over the whole insect things and was more just rocking the boat because my butt was getting sore from sitting. We went out for a couple hours and caught only a handful of small fish, and I had been up since 5am which was really getting to me - but finally at the end, I was given a chance to try with the spear. I was close with few fish, but really need to practice the technique if I'm going to land the catch. We got back and found that Marcel had caught a whole boat full of fish (jeff said that he was the best fisherman of the team). We unloaded the haul, then the long awaited time was here! The time to sleep!!!
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Morning - I figured I'd be going out hiking early in the morning, but as it turned out, I slept in. I really didn't mind though - i needed the sleep and I have been told that we would be hiking that trail again on a later date. I got out of my hammock and came to the kitchen for breakfast. It was just like at home, except we forgot margarine on this trip, so I ate my bread plain - it was still good anyway. The remaining family that didn't go on the hike (just Jeffson and Marcel went) were all only Portuguese speakers, so it was a much more real language emersion. It was hard to understand anything before coffee, but I got better into the morning. Later on, i joined the guys in taking some plants to shore to plant. They had a variety of different ones in a big plastic container to plant, and this along with the three of us had to fit on (and not sink) the rickety canoe from last night. It was really close, and water was definitely coming in steadily, so it was a good thing the shore was close. This house was on stilts and after the dry season, the water recedes enough that you can walk to it, but not now. We planted a variety of things (most of which I don't know the english word for). I'm going to post all the plant pictures on a separate post once I figure out what they all are. I recognized the name of one though - limão which means lemon. I guess sometimes life doesn't always give you lemons, so you have to grow your own, lol. I asked how long it takes for a little seedling like this to be able to grow fruit (in portuguese) and he said four years. Quite a while to wait, but I bet the lemonade will be worth it. I was shown a big area where they grow the roots for making their flour and got the real name of the death palm from yesterday (i'll write it in the plant post). It actually grows little fruits which I tried - a little dry and tasteless but from such an evil looking plant, I'm not surprised. Rowing back to the house in the canoe, I realized that if this leaky little thing had a sail, it would be exactly like the sinking boat captain Jack Sparrow rode on in the first movie, and I could imagine myself making the same entrance in this. Not long after we returned, the sky opened up. It was a downpour so hard, that we had to close the windows. It made me even more glad that I wasn't hiking. For lunch, we had a variety of fried fish from last night's catch. They fry the whole fish, so it's not an easy eat. With a spoon, I had to filet this fish - after a while, I just used my hands. It didn't matter, it was tasty. A few hours later, the guys arrived back, soaked! Jeffson also needed a bit of first aid because he fell and got a death palm thorn lodged deep into his skin. It's caused him a decent bit of pain and he can't move his arm well. He'll have to go to the hospital tomorrow to get it out. Even more rightfully named the death palm now! They had a pretty amazing story though - they shot a bird on their way (good for eating) and when they picked it up, there was another animal on the ground. Apparently a jaguar had just killed this large, rodent-like animal and dropped it when it heard the gunshot. so the guys returned with two animals for a future dinner! The afternoon and evening were lazy - i hung out with the family, trying to understand their conversations. This time, I was able to understand the general themes of the conversation and some full sentences, but Im still missing a lot of words. Understandable though since I haven't been here 3 weeks yet. This evening, i taught Jeffson some more rules of english - which are really complicated and often more like tendencies than rules. The uses of the word "have" are brutal, but I think he got it. But anyway, it is about time I go to bed (hammock) now.
Meat from the hunt
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