Jungle Time, part II

Today is my last day in Manaus, and I finally did something decidedly touristy and had lunch in the revolving restaurant at the top of the Holiday Inn around the corner.  This restaurant is on the thirteenth floor and is quite small.  You walk up a narrow carpeted spiral staircase and emerge in a circular room with enough space for one four person table between the windows and the central staircase.  There were perhaps twelve tables.  When I arrived at one PM I was the only person in the restaurant, which remained the case until I left.  The restaurant slowly rumbles in a circle, and from that height you have a clear view of the river to the south, the jungle beyond it, and the city stretching virtually as far as the eye can see in every other direction.  Manaus is primarily comprised of two or three story buildings, with the occasional ten to twenty story building here and there, mostly residential.  Concrete is the medium of choice and designs are generally boxy.  There are almost no gardens, but a large number of trees.  At street level, sidewalks are uneven but not dangerously so.  In the center, wheelchair access ramps have been built into the street corners.  Most streets have vendors operating carts selling anything from food and soft ice cream to underwear to video games to sunglasses.  Trash is cleaned regularly.  Open storefronts blast air conditioned air onto the street.  When the rains come, all the vendors adjust the umbrellas above their carts, switching them to protect from rain instead of sun.  The simultaneity of the action looks dance-like.  Here the women wear high heels or sandals, shorts are common on both sexes.  Shade is sought out when the sun breaks through, as it is very intense.

Back to the jungle story, when we returned from our hike, we had lunch in the dining area.  The buildings of the lodge were built of local wood, the extraction of which was performed after obtaining permission from the government.  Roofs were constructed of palm thatch and only the individual rooms for guests, a shed, and the kitchen had walls.  After lunch Jungle James excused himself, he would be City James for the next few days and our new guide would be Leo.  I took another nap in a hammock and when I woke up the plan was to go piranha fishing.  A young Swedish couple had arrived and with Leo at the helm we set out on the river in a long wooden boat with a small outboard motor.  After maybe half an hour we pulled into a small shallow stream and Leo killed the engine.  We took out wooden paddles and silently proceeded up the stream, dodging any number of small trees the grew directly from the water.  Leo performed an impressive series of whistles to call local wildlife, but all was quiet.  When we had proceeded to a point where vegetation obstructed our movement we waited a few minutes, then Leo fired up the motor and we were off again.

Leaving the stream, we soon pulled onto a sandy point where we would fish for piranha.  We used small pieces of uncooked chicken for bait.  I could try to explain how fishing for piranha works, but while we as a group caught twelve or so, all I managed to do was feed them.  The piranha is and ugly and downright frightening looking fish.  The ones we were fishing could give you a nasty cut, but were not the black piranha, found in the Amazon River itself, which can easily remove a digit.

The other activity for the night, after dinner, was looking for alligators.  We took the same boat out, with the moon so bright we did not need lights and in fact you could see your shadow clearly in the moonlight.  We pulled into another stream and panned back and forth with our flashlights.  Seeing nothing, we pulled to the side and Leo hopped out.  About three minutes later he returned holding an alligator of about eighteen inches.  We looked at it, pet it, then put it back.

That night I dressed more warmly for the coolness of the night, but still found myself cold.  Apparently, the cold gives me bad dreams.  The first night I had the classic "didn't attend class or do the homework" dream.  The second night, in one extraordinary dream sequence the following series of events occurred: I was late for choir when I realized I had also forgotten my music.  My ex-girlfriend, who was giving me a ride, then broke up with me again.  Finding myself in my old car, I promptly got into a car accident and when I got home some guy berated me about something on my front lawn.  After that series of events, I was hesitant to go back to sleep.

The next morning we awoke at five AM and took a boat out onto the river to watch the sunrise.  After a short while, we headed back to shore and Leo, who was not feeling well, went back to sleep.  The Swedes and I waited for breakfast -- eggs, bread, fresh watermelon, fresh pineapple, and strong bitter coffee.  Carl offered Leo some medication for his headache which he accepted and before long we were off on another hike, this time discussing the medicinal properties of plants in the forest.  We swung on one type of vine and drank water from inside another.  We observed the white sap of three different trees which are used either to figk ht asthma, aid in digestion, or make rubber.  It is important to get your trees correct in the jungle.  Leo also told us a bit more about himself -- also born of Amerindian parents, his from the northeast, he grew up in the jungle along with his six brothers and six sisters.  He spoke nostalgically of nights spent fishing with his father in the jungle, of stringing hammocks across the water and listening to the sounds of the frogs and the birds.  He had ten years of experience as a guide and still seemed to be enjoying his work.

Back to the current moment, my plane for Sao Paolo leaves in a few hours on a dreadful schedule that puts me in Sao Paolo's airport at three-thirty AM Manaus time where I must wait seven hours for my connection.  It should be miserable, but I set myself up for it.  I can sleep to my heart's content in Bogota where I will soon be joined by my friend Abe.  So for now, I'm signing off again.

to be continued...