Greetings from Brazil.

 

We arrived Sunday (whatever date that was, when your on the ship you just know whether its an A day or B day) In Manaus, Brazil. A few of us got off to venture to a mall to find me a camera. We spent 20 reals for a taxi there and it ended up being closed. We had to take one back which was hard to find a taxi there and they do not speak any english what so ever so its hard to communicate where you want to go, thank goodness i had a map. When we got back near the port there was a festival type thing going on where they had blocked the streets and had many little stores set up in the middle of the road. It was really interesting. it didnt seem like any of it was for tourists at all. It was all clothes, or soaps, or something you would see at the Larac(at home) or Oh fest(at school). We returend to the ship to grab somel unch and meet up with some more people. After a while we went to a mall when it was finally opened. (There are 3 actual malls in the city of Manaus) The first mall we went into was very expensive. The workers in each store had suites on basically and were very classy. Not to mention the prices were outrageous. We decided to l eave and venture to another mall right down the street from the mall we were currently at. We ended up finding a plaza which was also extremely expensive and very... different. Finally we made it to a pretty good mall. Looked a lot like Crossgates in Albany. I found a camera there. We looked in so many stores and finally i found one that looked a little cheaper than the rest and the guy spoke very minimal amounts of english. One thing about the price tags in Brazil is that they say either 899 Reals or say 10 times 89.90. He began to try to ask me how many times i wanted it? I was extreeeeemely confused. Kristen and i thought it was maybe like a warranty so i said no. then he shook his head and started counting on his fingers, so i just said 1. I have NO idea what i did. I could have bought a dolphin and had no idea. I was so relieved to have my camera that we just looked around some stores. I was going to buy a brazilian bikini, but if you have ever seen those... they cover. NOTHING. I gave up on that one real quick. We returned to the ship for some dinner and then went to a festival that they had for us where they blocked off a street to Samba. They had over 150 insturmentalist playing drums and other things and put on a show, at the end they allowed us to go dance with them which was SO fun. I seriously had a blast. We decided to leave when i got groped by some guys which is really scary here. On the sheet we were given about safety in Manaus, it says that they will touch you and rub you and grab your hair and you have to just keep walking on because if you confront them they will seriously hurt you... pretty scary. So after that i was so mad and found some adults to go back to the ship with because the crime here is really high and i didnt want to go back just with a couple of girls.

 

Monday, Kristen and I did a Semester at sea planned trip to swim with dolphins. We got on this boat that ended up being a 2 1/2 hour boat ride which was REDICULOUS to the Rio Negro (aka black river). We got into the water which was literally black, you could not see your hand in the water at all. They had guides who were feeding the dolphins and we got to just pet them which was really dissapointing because that is not how they described the trip. Needless to say though i got to swim with Pink river dolphins... amazing. I think i was the one who touched them the most. It was really hard to get pictures though because they would come out of the water for like 5 seconds and then go back under so you had to be ready at all times. After that we went to a village for food which was nice and we met this little girl there who had a plastic snake. I latched onto her and she latched onto me. I kept playing with her and everytime she put the snake on me or acted like it bit me i would go ooo owww ands he would die laughing. It was hard because she kept trying to talk to me but i couldnt understand her at all. After lunch we got a tour of the village who supposedly extreme home makeover came to and redid the place which i think was really insane because it didnt look very nice at all. We then learned how they made rubber here which was really cool. Finallyyyyy we hoped back on the boat. we were supposed to be back tot he ship at 4 and didnt end up geting back until 530. We also didnt do all the stuff we were supposed to on our itinerary so i was really dissapointed with that. I did have fun though. After that we went to find out hotel which ended up being a very very sketchy hostel. The cab drivers wouldnt even take us there because they had never heard of it before. It was on this sketchy street inside a random spot along the street and we had to go up to the 7th floor just to find where we were supposed to check in. We eneded up walking around the unlit hallways hearing children screaming and crying and everything. We found the guys apartment and had to like knock on his door and finally we got the key to our room which was hotter in there than it was outside and it smelt, there were bugs. it was awful. We basicaly told him we werent going to stay and went to find a different hotel (thanks mom) and it ended up being heaven to us. the clerk spoke english and our room was air conditioned and we had free wifi inside our room so we didnt have to go anywhere to get it. We all spent the night catching up with our friends and family.

 

Tuesday (today...i think :P) Our friends Kelsey and Lexi ended up leaving very early for a trip they had while Kristen and I stayed at the hotel. We continued to talk with friends and family and decided to leave to go back to the ship for lunch. After lunch we decided to walk around the town to find a few shops and the Opera house. (Basically when you ask a local what to do in town they say go to the opera house and the fish market... sounds like a great place to visit right?) We walked all the way to a store and found a couple souveniers and continues to find the post office to get stamps which was so hard. After that we searched the city for a brazilian flag. it was NOWHERE TO BE FOUND. The thing about Manaus is there are little street shops lined up on the side walk side to side along the streeets for so long but thet things they sell are rediculous. they sell remotes, kids toys, hats, fake jewelry, notebooks. Such random things. there are absolutely no souvenier shops in Manaus, i think we came across like 4 tops and 2 of them had literally nothing in them they were just kind of like exhibits and were really overpriced.  we decided to head back to the ship only to find that the store we pass by inside the port terminal had a brazilian flag. Awesome! We have just been back on the boat relaxing and we are probably going to go to bed extremely early tonight to catch up on some sleep before we go to the zoo tomorrow.