Amazônia!!!

I just spent the last amazing 9 days in the Amazon!!!! It was literally the best trip of my life!!! It started off I had to sleep over at a person from Rotary's house, and also my friends house (because my family left for vacation). When I got there they gave me rootbeer from Milwaukee!!! I had not heard the sentence "do you want a rootbeer" in 8 months!!! I was so happy! Then I ended up only getting 1 hour of sleep cause we watched movies all night! but that's ok I was too excited to sleep!! My flight was early in the morning. When I got there I met some people from my district, but apparently they had different flights. So, I flew to Brasilia and met up with like 20 exchange students! When we got to Manaus we all went to subway, then went to the hotel to take a nice shower! That night we just talked about the trip, and the rules and stuff. They next day we toured the city of Manaus there wasn't much to see but it was a very pretty city! We then drove to Presidente Figueiredo. That night we went night trekking in the rainforest. We had to use flashlights in order to see! It was so muddy and wet! water was up to my knees! because we went swimming in a waterfall. We also went into a cave, and saw a TON of bats!! The next day was the start of the boat trip. We stayed 7 days on a boat in the Amazon. There were 4 boats. 3 sleeping boats and 1 eating boat. We all got into our assigned boats, and started our journey. The first day was nice we just relaxed and got used to the boat. That night we slept in Hammocks which would be our bed for the next 7 days. It actually was fairly comfy you find some interesting ways to lay after a couple hours hahaha. The next day we visited an Indian tribe. It was sooo cool with the little indian kids, and their clothes. It was interesting to see how they lived.

It's hard to separate which days we did what. hahaha. A lot of the time we took these motorized canoes a lot to see the area. We also went to this spot where two rivers met and they were both different colors! One was blue, and the other brown! It was so neat! We also went searching for alligators! The first group found one so I got a picture of it! But, my group didn't so I didn't get to hold one. But, it was ok! Everyone in the boat was just tired, and hungry, and we just wanted to go home we didn't even care if we found out lol.

The next day we went to a Casa da Farinha. Where we learned how to make tapioca. Which is this Brazilian food, and I have no idea how to explain but it is good! We then saw an Açai tree. And all of the guys on the trip wanted to climb the tree to get the açai, only one person made it though. Then I bought a knife!!!!! An amazon hunting knife with a piranha on it!! and right before we were leaving they found an anaconda!!!! I held it too!!!! It felt so weird! It was all muscle, and slimy; also when I was holding it, it started moving and it felt sooooo strange! When we got back we went swimming in the Rio de Negro. They said they was a slight possibility of getting sick but no one cared hahaha. We also went tubing on the river!!

In the morning we went fishing for Piranhas. I didn't catch any but people in my boat caught a lot. The piranhas teeth are huge!! We caught a red belly piranha, which was apparently really dangerous so we had to be careful when taking pictures. That afternoon we went to another indian tribe, but this one was more modern. They were so nice an welcoming. They made us a sign, and showed us their school. We also had a soccer game against them; which we obviously lost, but it was still tons of fun!!! I ended up being the "soccer mom", because I was watching peoples stuff while they played, and I took pictures with this huge camera for my friend. It was hilarious my friends still make fun of me for it. That night we had a party at the village because it was 3 peoples birthdays during the trip. It was soooo much fun!!!!

The next morning we went swimming with pink dolphins!!!!!!!!! It was an amazing experience!!!! How often do you get to swim with dolphins, and pink ones at that!!!!! They were beautiful! Then they had these HUGE fish inside the water that they were keeping, and we got to fish for them. I did it with my friend cause we knew we wouldn't be strong enough to do it alone. And the fish was soooo strong, and big!!!! It was amazing. Then in the afternoon we went searching for sloths, and we found one with a baby!!!!!! AHHHHHHHH I was SOOOOOO excited. I was so excited I almost started crying!! I have wanted to see a sloth for such a long time!!!! I even got to hold it!!! Its nails are sooo huge! but they are such friendly creatures! The people got them by just climbing the tree and getting them. They put them in the water then the other guy got the sloths from the water because they can't swim. Then we held them! ooooo but while they were passing the baby sloth to the other boat, and kid almost dropped it in between the boats in the water. Benny, benny, benny everyone was kind of mad, but we got over it cause you can't stay mad a benny for long lol. awww but the poor thing started crying, so we put it make on its mother. The sloths faces are sooooo funny, they just have this I don't give a crap face on all the time. They are sooo slow too hahah. awwwww sloths <3 <3 I love them!!!

The next day we went to the beach!!! It was sooo much fun! we played beach volleyball, which was north america against Europe, and it was just soooo funny!! Everyone throwing smack at each other. One European was like you are going to loss you columbian people! hahaha it was a fun time, but I got a little sunburnt. We didn't do much the rest of the day. We did make bracelets out of açai, which was a lot of fun!!!

The next day we went hiking in the forest with this jungle guy. Like literally he wasn't wearing shoes, and we had dry skin on his hand, and we just cut it off with his knife!! But the hiking was cool, but it sucked we were getting eating by bugs. We kept eating plants in the forest too. OOO we also saw the tree where gum comes from!! I tried it too. It was pretty good I thought. We then climbed a tree, it wasn't too high up but it was still fun! Afterwards we went to the house of the guy that showed us around in the forest. He made this jam from a fruit called cupuaçu. It was sooo good! I bought one to bring home to my family. That night was the night where we got to sleep in the forest. It was a ton of fun!!! We made a fire, and slept in our hammocks. I had a ton of fun! But, this was also our last night in the Amazon!

The next day in the morning we planted a tree, and headed back to Manaus. It was such a sad day!! I had made the best friends in these nine days! 2 from Denmark, one from new mexico, one from Mexico, and the other from Japan. I have not laughed this hard in these 9 days in my entire laugh!! I think I got a 6 pack after this trip! We were all so close and had an amazing time together! I don't even laugh this much with my friends back home! It is sad to think that this will probably be the last time we will even be in the same room together ever! Sure maybe we will see each other again, but not everyone together. :( My friend Tessa, Sara, Suemy, and I wanted to meet in Cancun sometime. We don't know when but sometime for spring break we will all go there since Suemy lives near Cancun. We all had little nicknames for each other too. I was confused, Tessa was elf, Sara was compulsive lair, and Suemy was hyperventalator. I will miss everybody soooo much!!! I cried as soon as a got home and realized that I won't be able to see them again for a couple years!!! My flight home I had four of my friends with my and we sat together on the plane. We laughed soooo hard, I thought they were going to kick us off, because it was night and people wanted to sleep and stuff, but we didn't care it was the last time we would be together we had to make the best of it. It was the best flight I had ever had!!! It was Suemy, Mikkel, Hide, and me. I will never forget that flight :(

By the way incase you were wondering the food on the boat was amazing!!! It was sooooo good!!! We ate a lot of fish, and pineapple in the Amazon is amazing!!!! It is soooo sweet!!!!

Well, that was my Amazon trip. A lot of these events didn't happen on the same day. Everything is mixed up in my head since we didn't look at what time it was for 9 days, and we had no wifi for nine days!! <3 I miss the Amazon trip soooo much!!!! It was one of the greatest things I had even done, and I will never forget it! I was sooo lucky I was able to experience it with amazing people too!!! Well back to reality I guess, it will be hard but life goes on. Also, only 2 more months in Brazil......... It has gone by sooo fast, and these last months will go by even faster. I will be home before you know it! Bitter sweet feeling...........

Well love you guys!!! Hope you liked my extremely long blog!!! :)


Hus
Kniv
Hej
(Danish)!!! :)