Labyrinth of Solitute and Encounters

It was really cool to be able to read  so many different accounts of when the Spaniards first came and the reaction that the Indians had to them.  It was good to be able to see it from different perspectives, through letters and entries.  "Moteuccoma did this because he took them for gods, considered them gods, worshipped them as gods" (pg 98, par 4). I've heard before that the Indians thought the Spaniards were the white god that had been prophesied to come, but in the last story it really shows that they did, indeed, think this to some extent.  I can see from both points of view, when the Indians did sacrifices and put blood on the food for Cortez and his men to eat, they honestly thought that they were respecting them and showing them their great status.  From the other point of view, the Spaniards had no idea why they were doing it, all they knew is that suddenly their delicious meal was covered in the fresh blood of some other person. "and [the emissaries] sprinkled blood in the food, they bloodied it, which made their stomachs turn and disgusted them, because of the great stench of the blood" (pg 98, par 3). That would definitely make me lose my appetite.
     The bit that we read from "Labyrinth of Solitute" was super interesting.  I was totally caught up in the first part of it talking about solitude and how we come to that state.  "Death and birth are solitary experiences.  we are born alone and we die alone" (pg. 196 par.2).  When you think about it, you do have people around you for those moments in your life, but ultimately you are passing through them alone.  Those people cannot feel your pain, your fear, your acceptance.  Your emotions are your own and you alone can bear the situation.  He also mentions the adolescent.  There is a definite difference in a child and a teenager.  It goes along with the changes in your body, graduating elementary school and moving to bigger schools, more student body and more things to worry about.  I definitely saw a lot of the solitude side of me when  I was in Jr. High and High School.  You just feel so lost, so alone in the world.  I feel like, for the most part, Octavio has a very good knowledge of human emotions and

Pink Dolphins!

The Amazon is amazing!  Today we all loaded up into a boat and went to one of the most boring places in the world.  So this place, it is out in the middle of nowhere and we ride up to these lame, floating houses.  There we all get off the boat, wade down into this water that made our skin look the color of an oompa loompa, and then we all yawned as these two guys used some fish to lure dolphins out of the water and, unfortunately, they made us touch them.  Can you think of anything lamer than that?  Well I sure hope so because it was the most amazing experience ever!  

So the dolphins here have a pink tone to them, I heard that it has something to do with their diet, kind of like flamingos.  They also look a little bit different than the cute little grey ones we are used to seeing.  Some might say that they are a little ugly, but those people are merely judging these beautiful creatures.  They do look a little funky, but I still got to swim with them, rub their bellies and touch them with my feet!  It was not quite like swimming with the dolphins at say, Seaworld, or something, because these dolphins are wild and the river is their home.  They are not the tame pets that will jump through hoops 

 and do tricks on command, they are aaallll natural.  It was kind of freaky at first, walking into the funky colored water with these weird looking dolphins, what if they attacked or something?  But then it was awesome!

 This lovely lady is Sofia, she is pregnant and was one of the pinkest dolphins that we were able to touch and swim with.  What a beauty!

When we finished swimming with the dolphins we got out and they gave everyone one of these necklaces.  They have a scale at the bottom that is from one of the biggest fish in the river...I don't remember what it is called but pretty cool.

For the record, he is wearing a speedo underneath his leaves...but I love shot because you sure can't tell can you?!

 We also got to go and visit an Indian tribe today, let's just say it was quite the cultural experience as apparently the women in that tribe don't wear tops...awkward!  But it is just part of the culture so what can one do?  It was really cool though seeing their dances to celebrate the harvest and good catches at sea, to take pictures with the chief and to learn about their culture.

Just a picture of us with the Chief, he was old, and really cool.  Michelle is my roommate currently and is in the shot with me, cute!

Before we left I went with Shawndeen and had the chief paint our faces.  I also bought this earring and the green necklace to support them-so fun!

Welcome to the Jungle

    

  Holy crow!!!  today was basically one of the best days of my life, for reals.  We are in the Amazon.  We flew out of Fortaleza yesterday, we had to get up before 3am in order to get there in time for our flight-super gag, but Manaus totally makes up for it.  We stayed one night in the actual city, went and had a tour of the theater, walked to the pier and looked through a bunch of booths at the fair they had set up.  

Then today we set out for the actual jungle experience and oh boy, has it been a doozey so far.  We got here by boat, it was about a 20 minute boat ride from the mainland and city to our isolated little hotel (which, by the way, was closed for about three months this summer because the water was so high that they were flooded out, luckily it was down and the hotel remodeled and fixed by the time we got here or I don't know what we would have done).  It is super cute, it is right off the river and by a swamp kind of thing that has at least two 

 caimen-that is what they call them here anyway, kind of like a small alligator-that lives in the swamp, and the houses you stay in are located around it.  You have to walk over a boardwalk type thing, the wooden walkways built over water, to get to our rooms.  The houses are built on stilts and so have water underneath them and they are just super cute.

 

They met us on the dock with a big glass of Brazilian juice and that just hit the spot and set the mood right there for the rest of our stay.

    Ok, now we are going to get into the really good stuff.  After having time to play in the pool and rest up a bit, we went out fishing for piranas, so exciting!  On our boat we had Vanessa and her kids-Marcello, Felipe, Danilo and Natalia, as well as Joe, Cristina and I.  Basically we had the coolest driver and guide ever.  The spot they took us to was hopping with fish, we caught around 30 fish all together, mostly piranas, but a few sardines.  I caught 6 all on my own, well one or two were sardines but it was still cool.  They gave us fishing poles that were made from bamboo and then a cup of raw meat, kind of 

  gross but perfect for what we were trying to catch.  At first Marcelo was like, the only one catching anything, and poor Joe only caught one the entire time, but Felipe ended up catching the biggest ones, Vanessa caught the most Sardines, and I myself caught 6 like I said.  Numbers 4 and 5 were a little bit sassy, one of them might have been a sardine, but the fact of the matter is that while I was trying to have my picture taken with them, they decided to jump of the hook and flop around my feet!  The funny part was that most of those fish I caught while I was not paying 

 attention.  I was super busy trying to take a picture of the amazing sunset, take a picture of Natalia with her catch or someone else, and that is when I would feel my pole start to take off!  Basically they thought they were pulling a fast one over on me but boy were they wrong.  It was amazing, the Amazon is just gorgeous and the place where we were fishing, it was beautiful.  It was definitely very relaxing to be in that location just lounging around fishing.  He put all of our fish on a line, it turned into a pretty cool looking necklace.  They are going to make a soup out of them that we will get to eat tomorrow, how amazing is that, I actually caught my own dinner...which was a pirana!

 

Once it started to get dark we gave up on fishing and went searching for Caimen.  Our guide had a light that he was scanning the vegetation with because when light hits their eyes they glow.  It was the coolest thing just cruising on a river, in the Amazon, in the dark scanning for these guys.  Our guide finally saw one so they slowly took the boat over, he leaned over the front, and just snagged it right out of the water!  It was super cool to see, our very own Caiman.  We named him Elmer, till the guide informed us that she was actually a girl, then I think Danilo renamed

 her Betty.  We all got to take turns holding her and getting our pictures taken-this place is phenomenal.  Our boat was awesome, I am pretty sure we caught the most fish out of anyone and we are the only ones that caught a caiman, so of course we kept him on the boat and showed him to all the others and let them take pictures, which was cool, but I am so glad I was on the boat that actually caught it because it was a lot of fun to see. 

     After we handed Betty over to another boat we started towards home, still searching for more.  And we found one.  When we found Betty, I didn't know what was going to happen exactly until they already had her on the boat, but with the next one I was prepared.  We had an awesome angle where you could actually see the eye glowing as we slowly road up to it.  It was legit, just this bright, glowing thing in the night.  Anyway, our guide went to try and catch it, but then jumped back-apparently it was over 2 meters long...however long that is, but it must have been too much for him to handle.  Anyway, all in all I was in the best boat and we had the absolute time of our lives!

When we got back to the hotel we found a frog in the bathroom, he was pretty big too.  Someone named him Tom, as in Peeping Tom, seeings how he was in the girls bathroom and all.  Then I got back to my room and Michelle was already here all upset because she could've sworn that she heard a plop in the toilet when she got back and was pretty sure she saw a little frogy and he was hiding in our toilet.  Well, what can you do?  She didn't want to flush him, but she needed to use the facilities and we couldn't find it anyway to prove if it really was there, so I flushed it, and out of the hole part in the front-I think it reduces water when you flush it, anyway, something shot out of that and then was flushed so poor Michelle lost her pet frog :(

    So that is the beginning of my trip to the Amazon, hope you enjoyed it even 1/16 of what I did because that would make you so happy.