The next morning came way too fast but I was so excited it didn’t even matter. It was the day for swimming with the river dolphins!! It was one of those trips that I saw the word dolphin and said I’m doing it. I didn’t read the fine print saying it was in the same river with needle fish. Dengue Fever. Red Belly Piranhas. And whatever other microscopic creatures are living in there. The ride to the location was relaxing; we got to see the city from the river and received a brief history on a variety of things. We passed under one of the most expensive bridges of the world (currently being constructed scheduled to be complete next year). I cant remember money figures but the purpose of the bridge is to eliminate some of the population in Manaus. By building the bridge they are hoping people move to the other side to live and just commute to work in the city. But many people think the opposite is going to happen – people on the remote side are going to move to the city. We’ll see what happens! Anyways, the boat ride started getting kind of long after an hour and a half (they didn’t tell us exactly how long it would take in the beginning so it was a mystery for all of us). And it got longer. And longer. And longer. Every time we asked “Are we there yet?” the guide responded 15-20 minutes. Well those 15-20 minutes turned into 3 hours. I was pretty upset because that’s a lot of ‘in port’ time we could be seeing the city; all I was thinking was these dolphins better be the best damn dolphins I’ve ever seen. Once we all got to the little building in the middle of the river I had a bit of a panic attack. While we were getting our debriefing about the swim I noticed cockroaches. Not little cockroaches. HUGE cockroaches everywhere running around. Then my feet started getting wet. Well in the Amazon, the buildings are built so that they can rise and lower with the water levels. All of us were standing on one side of the building so our weight made that side unbalanced and go under water where all the roaches were living on the underside. I just wanted to go back onto the boat at that point, thinking how could Semester at Sea let us come to a place like this- there has to be some health code violation or something. But I remembered its once in a lifetime learning experience, sucked it up and jumped in the water. When I saw my first dolphin everything was better J. A few of the locals were in the water with us feeding the dolphins so we could pet them and get close to them. (Let me remind you these aren’t cute little Flipper dolphins- they are fresh water dolphins, pink, fat and kind of ugly but still cool) They are really fast and we cant see them coming since the water is actually black so one second they are in your face looking for food and the next they are gone. It was scary at first when they swim underneath because they just go in and out of your legs but you don’t know if it’s the dolphin or something else. Every time we bumped into each other it was like “was that you? Was that a dolphin? Are you sure?” After about 45 minutes we headed to the next portion of the day which was at a local village to eat lunch. Everyone knows the show Extreme Home Makeover in the states right? Well this village received a local version of the show and were sent to Italy for the week. They gave them a whole new village and drinkable water so the locals turned it into a jungle lodge for tourists as a source of income. The food was AMAZING. Could I tell you what it was? Most of it no but I tried a little of everything (it was a local type of fish, rice, pastas, beans – I think). After we toured the lodge we headed back to the dreaded boat ride back to port and got ready for the night! I didn’t do a whole lot. Just went to a local Brazilian steakhouse with a few random SASers I didn’t know because all my friends were on different tours. The steak house was buffet style and had every type of meat possible. It was cooked right in front of us but we couldn’t understand what everything was because they only spoke Portuguese. I understood tongue and chicken hearts through sign language. I tried the hearts but yuck yuck yuck. After supper we just headed back to the ship again to pack for the next two days at my home visit!!
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