Amazon Adventure - Day I

Dear ones, I owe you the last adventures for a week now ... in the jungle we unfortunately had no reception, then we were knocked down by an infection and in the last few days it was just too busy. But now that we are sitting on the bus from Foz do Iguaçu to São Paulo for 17 hours, I can finally catch up.

Our Amazon adventure started at 8:30 am. Before we continued by speedboat from the port in Manaus, we picked up the rest of our travel group: our guide Gilmar, Hector from Chile, and Ravi from Israel. Manaus is located on the Rio Negro, which merges with the Amazon River just under a kilometer later - or at least it tries to. Over a distance of 10km, it is referred to as the "Meeting of the rivers", as you can see a clear boundary between the two rivers. This results from the differences in temperature, flow rate, density, and acidity.

For us, we went a bit upstream of the Amazon River to be taken to the next river with a classic T9. We were very glad that we didn't have to drive ourselves because it's currently the rainy season and the road was one big swamp. We did a few spirited drifts, but thanks to our experienced driver, we never got stuck.

The last transfer was at a floating supermarket, where we boarded a small wooden boat to be taken to our lodge. Luckily, it didn't rain and we were able to transport ourselves and our belongings there dry. When we arrived, our Brazilian hostess was already preparing lunch (rice, noodles, beans, and meat) and Katrin and I were excited to move into our double room with our own shower - very simple but much more privacy than in the hostel 😄!

After a little siesta (being German, we naturally arrived at the meeting point early, but no one was there), we went back on the boat to observe river dolphins. We were actually lucky and saw different groups of gray and pink river dolphins. And there was also a sloth sleeping quite high up in a tree. Our guide grew up in the area and suddenly said that we could swim in the middle of the river because the crocodiles and piranhas were not dangerous. The guys happily jumped into the water (and they are still alive), but we preferred to watch from the shore 😄.

After a trip to the next floating supermarket, we had a few beers in the evening and plenty of Caipirinhas for everyone - both in the professional version from the Israeli bartender and in the original Brazilian version from our guide ("he didn't even wash the bottle before using it to smash the limes" 😂). The last limes came straight from the tree next door...

Oh, in between we went to see crocodiles. Katrin and I were quite uneasy in this small boat, especially since it was pitch dark. In the end, we only saw two babies, but it probably still hurts a lot if you don't hold onto them properly 🐊.