Semester at Sea! Spring 2011

Day 13
This morning 730 came quit fast! I had a semester at sea trip planned to go swimming with Dolphins. I was so excited because I had never been before! The group met at 9 o clock to get ready to leave. When our tour guide got there he took us to a boat that we were taking to the dolphins. We saw a lot of neat things along the way. Villages with homes that were built on Stilts, that won’t be there anymore pretty soon, a bridge that has been being built for over two years to bring more wealthy people into Manaus, and factories lining the water.  An interesting fact about Manaus is that the world cup is coming here in 2014 and the Olympics will be held here a few years later! After about an hour on the boat we were all getting antsy to get off, two hours into the ride we were all going nuts, we asked the tour guide how much longer and he said 45 minutes! So that boat ride wasn’t too fun, these dolphins better be worth it. When we got there we were told that we were going to be swimming in the Black River, and when you were in the water you can’t see what’s in the water because it is so dark. At this point I was freaked out. What we ended up doing was swimming in the river and they would get the dolphins over by feeding them fish and all we got to do was pet them because they were wild dolphins. I thought that we were actually going to be able to hang on to them and swim with them, so that was a bit of a disappointment, but they were the pink dolphins and I have never seen them before, that was cool. We got a souvenir at the end of a necklace made from the fins of a fish that we had ate. After swimming we piled back into the boat and went to a little village. At this village our tour guide told us that Extreme Home Makeover had been there before and re did some of the homes in the village. When we toured the home I don’t know if I really believe that it was the United States Extreme Home Makeover, because their houses don’t look like that. They cooked a Brazilian lunch for us; it was good and nice to try different cultures food. While we were eating a little girl came over and played with us and her toy snake that could keep her entertained for hours. After lunch we walked around the village some more and got a tour of a hut that was available for rent for vacationers. We met a guy that used a certain tree to make a rubber ball, these rubber balls can get up to 100 lbs! This trip wasn’t as good as I thought it was going to be but I had a good time. At night is where the story begins. Alicia’s mom so kindly booked us a hotel for the night so that we were able to get off the ship for a night and so that we were able to have wifi. When we got ready, three other girls and I went outside to catch a cab. When we told the cab driver where to go (even though none of them spoke English) and he didn’t know where we were talking about, that should have been our first hint. After they asked around they knew where abouts to go. So we pull up to this really creepy place and our cab driver tells us that it’s the right spot. So we go in and the guy at the door points upstairs. So we go upstairs to the 7th floor where it says our room is. And as soon as we got off the elevator there was a sign on the ‘office’ door that said “I am in room 719” We found this pretty odd but we ventured off to find room 719, when we found it, we knocked and this guy opened the door (it was his room). We told him we had a room for the night and he asked us to follow him to his ‘office’. He brought us down to the 5th floor and showed us our room. We walk in, it was sooo hot in there, the sheets were gross, the hallways of this place were dark and we knew that we could NOT stay there. This ended up being a hostile not a hotel. We said thank you and as soon as he left, we left immediately. As we were closing this hostile door, the handle fell off and we ran, leaving the key in the room. We ended up finding a hotel, where someone spoke English and gave us a deal on the room. We had free wifi and finally felt safe. It ended up being a good night! Even though the bed was as hard as a rock and three of us had to sleep in a bed.

Day 14
Nothing was planned for today. I am currently sitting in a lounge, waiting for dinner to be ready, I am so hungry, but I am sure that dinner will consist of pasta and potatoes because that’s all it ever is. So my new favorite meal is peanut butter and jelly. Today I went shopping down town. Downtown I saw the Opera house, which is the ‘thing to do’ in Manaus, it was really nice, but it took about 10 minutes to see, so that didn’t last long. I went into a few shops but none of them were anything special. There aren’t really any touristy stores around here which I am looking for. There were a lot of nice shopping places for clothes, but I want souvenirs. I bought a few postcards and a magnet and that was it. Brian really wants a flag from Brazil, Ghana, and South Africa, so I spent the majority of the day looking EVERYWHERE for a flag, absolutely no where had them. So I checked one last shop right on the port, and of course there was a flag! I was so happy. Even though I walked around all day looking for one, there was one right off the ship. The rest of the night I plan on relaxing, maybe catching up on some work and of course, writing post cards. I am running out of things to do in Manaus. Luckily we are here for less than 2 days!