December 25 - Manaus, Brazil (Amazon River)

best rain shot of us I could muster

Angelo

DAY 2 at the Eco Lodge

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Weather – 25º during the torrential downpour, 30º when it stopped

Steps – 13,270

It didn’t take much to wake up this Christmas morning. It wasn’t yet light, but we heard what sounded like rain, or was it just wind. I peeked out and didn’t see rain. I hopped that’s all it would amount to…nope…soon it became TORENTIAL!

jungle fungus

UGH! We came semi-prepared for rain. Shoe

ant colony

condoms (that Chris abstained from and in the end couldn’t compete with the Amazonian downpour), umbrellas (not useful in the thick jungle), and emergency ponchos (these were surprisingly effective.) The only thing I think I’d do differently (not that I’m likely to do that again, but I highly recommend it) is to bring water-proof hiking shoes. However…other than rubber boots, I’m not sure how effective anything would be. Other people in the group were totally kitted out with gear – (no rubber boots though) and got just as w

huge tree, half the trunk

et as we did, some were wetter.

It was quite lovely to sit outside our little eco cabin under the covered porch first thing in the morning and watch the storm, it was warm, maybe 25º …I didn’t last long…BUGS! BTW, the vast majority of the bugs we encounter are the ones that feasted on me last night. I had expected more like the occasional scorpion or such, but nope.

We trekked during the main part of the storm of course. We had no choice - it was now of never. We had to head back to the ship this afternoon. About an hour into our 2-hour trek the rain let up. Unfortunately, the animals don’t like the rain and

random Manaus building

mostly hid. Angelo pointed out another tiny frog camouflaged on a leaf – I asked him how he even saw it, he said he saw it jump, so the movement caught his eye. We also

blue dot = Eco Lodge

saw a cricket…that was it. As the rain lessened, we started to hear animals – birds, monkeys, but none were to be seen.

The jungle was exactly as I expected…thick, dense, vines. We were kind of walking on a path, but sometimes I wasn’t sure if we were on a path at all. Thankfully we had Angelo…had we been on our own we would have been very lost.

cutting grass of prop

This trek was definitely not for the mobility challenged – we were climbing over fallen trees, under vines, dogging spiky trees (one in the group got 2 spikes in her finger, she only got 1 out and is planning to keep the other one) all the while watching for snakes – Angelo warned us that snakes come out of their flooded holes in the rain. 9 of the 2 of us

one more FROG

decided to go on the hike. Numerous times, Angelo brought out his machete and blazed a trail for us…exactly like in the movies! The rain kept me from taking too many photos.

We so glad Angelo suggested we do the monkey visit yesterday. I’m not sure if we would have even done it

group photo

today. If we had, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fantastic as it was yesterday.

One thing about the rain, was that it kept the heat at bay. In fact, it was the perfect temp…to be wet.

Back at the lodge, we dried off, packed, had one last beer, showered, ate lunch and were

Boogie and Kasia

back to the ship.

Once back at the boat we immediately sent out our wet, dirty laundry, Facetimed my parents, sent some Merry Christmas texts and were off to Christmas dinner. Chris had turkey…I had fish.

It was an amazing way to spend Christmas…one I’ll never forget.

In the evening (as usual) we had a pre-dinner drink while being serenaded by Boogie and Kasia.