Ariau Amazon Towers Amazon River

... senão como as trazia de volta? e caminho descalço, entre pedras e pedrinhas, que tantos uis, porra, e uns sonoros car**** sacaram de mim. E tudo isto apenas para lá chegar, e descobrir que há quem use a cabeça, e se tenha lembrado que amarrar as mesmas à bóia é fácil, basta um cordelito Kiko, basta um cordelito.... mais uma vez, sou um idiota! Mas aí estou, mais 5 amigos, a curtir os rápidos do rio, esperando que nenhuma cobra de água morda a minha minhoca na água. Sabe a brincadeira ...

... which was a bit scary knowing that there were piranhas, caimans and eels in there!<br><br>We had a siesta after lunch, and then did a bit more piranha fishing, before our dinner. After falling asleep early again, we got woken up in the night to torrential rain. Impressively, the palm roof we'd constructed at the start of the trip held well, but poor Ceciliano who had been sleeping under the stars got soaked!<br>

... in hammocks. We opted for this and I did start to worry when the guides were looking for a spot for us to stay figuring they had a standard spot they always used. This wan´t the case and we had to clear the area where we slung our hammocks. It was quite a cool experience with the guides making skewers from the branches to roast our dinner of chicken on an open fire. I started to panic as a couple of people got a couple of bites from these huge unidentified ...

... were everywhere. At the tree-house lodge we were also very lucky and went pirahna fiishing and caiman spotting, although either side of a slightly nervous swim. <br><br>We´d heard lots of stories about the trip from Manaus to the coast along the Amazon to Belem by hammock boat, and it turned out to be highly eventful. We got on the boat fairly late compared to everyone else, and squeezed our hammocks in with everyone else´s, Kate next to a lovely old lady who fed us sweets ...

... a week in the desert. Had another couple of walks around town in between my jobs. Manaus is a bit of a strange place, it's visually not that attractive but it does have a certain frontier charm about it, it's cool for some reason. Tomorrow I leave Manaus to embark on a 7 day upstream boat mission to Tabatinga, will be the longest boat journey I've every taken! Especially with the added pleasure of sleeping in a hammock on an open deck.

... boat took us with a guide, telling us about the places we passed by, about the palafito houses by the river and the floating houses on the river, talked about the origins of those river inhabitants. We were also taken to this artificial looking jungle, where we were taken on rustic walkboards to a small lake covered in giant water lillies, which were pretty cool, but apparently those are more of a pest than nice or useful, since they pretty much kill all life there is ...

... As departure neared I was astounded to see how many more hammocks were strung up, creating two rows down each side of the boat. It became a bit of a laugh and I joked about it with the other gringos on the boat. Moving away from the Belém docks I watched the city lights disappear behind a curtain of rain and tried to smother a huge smile of satisfaction at being on the boat. I went upstairs where there was a bar and sat around with Trudy and Kylie (some Aussie ...