Brazil, The Amazon, and Monkey Bites

So… let’s see, where do I begin, I guess I should go back to the night before heading into Manaus, Brazil. We entered the Amazon on the 20th but docked in port on the 23rd. It was an interesting sail down the Amazon. The water clearly was different from the blue ocean water and the humidity stuck to our skin tightly. It was like being in Miami but with a different scent and vibe in the air. We sailed along the river and saw a variety of small local communities throughout the way that began preparing us to be ready for what was to come. We docked around 7AM and you can hear the bass from the music and I looked out my window to see Brazilian dancers decked out in tribal-like outfits welcome the MV Explorer. I wasn’t sure if that was the most appropriate welcome but I realized we were the “American Tourists” that they were used to and a bit of popularized culture probably didn’t hurt – it got the students excited. I went out to one of the decks and as usual took pictures of the local boats and port. While taking pictures I noticed 3 river boats perched on the side with banners on the front saying “Welcome Semester at Sea.” I pretty much guessed those would be the three boats we would be boarding to start the Amazon and Rio field program… After some time I made up to the Faculty Staff Lounge where the groups were meeting to take roll call and then head onto the boats that await us. At the meeting, prior to students coming for the trip we were briefed on a few things – my take aways: don’t eat the ice cream, the fruit has a higher fiber content so that might give you the poops, Rio is generally a touristy beach type area but beware of unmarked cabs, and whatever happens there will be people to help. I think that was good since I figured my crisis training was good enough from the past.

Sure enough – those were the boats. I was Boat #1… My group was great – a good mix of students who really didn’t know each other and the next 2 days on the Amazon River and Rio Negro will be filled with getting to know one another and experiencing an adventure not many people can say they have done. Once getting on the boat we were greeted by our guides – Antonio and Ronaldo. Antonio is in his 40’s and wore a small canvas safari hat with the strap and held a sign that said “B1 – Amazon & Rio”. I assumed we were asked to go out first and the other signs had B2 and B3 that B1 would mean Boat #1 and he was our guide.Ronaldo was a stout middle aged man who had a gentle expression on his face and always held more concern for us as a group than Antonio did. Rolando’s demeanor was always of care and concern while Antonio was more free spirited and wanted us to full experience the Amazon. Once I introduced myself to the guides I yelled for Boat #1 to follow me we were ushered up onto the boat where a center table of cookies, fruit, and crackers welcomed us. As usual, the students swarmed to the snacks and stood around as we waited to set sail. After taking roll again to ensure that all 30 of the students who are a part of my group were on I let Antonio know and we were off into the Amazon. Stop 1 – the meeting of the rivers. This is where the Rio Negro and Rio Solimoes meet… the Rio Negro is a black coffee color but if you look closely it is actually reddish in hue. This is because it is one of the most acidic rivers in the world. Due to it’s acidity not the biodiversity of the river is not as rich as the Amazon or Solimoes. That is actually a great thing for us as there would be less mosquitoes and other insets that could potentially give us bites and other diseases. Safety first! LOL… Once we sailed into where the rivers met we took pictures and then it was off to Victoria Regia water lilies. Basically there are huge lily pads that congregate in a specific part of the Amazon in Lake Januari. It was a small hike over a wobbly bridge that made a trail to the pond of lilies. Upon entering the area there was a small viewing area perched above the lilies. There were also little kids dressed in the same tribal attire as the dancers that welcomed us at port who stood around for picture opportunities, but not without a small fee. We also a few large Cayman alligators and Antonio brought a piece of raw chicken to toss into the pond to attract more for our viewing pleasure. After a handful of pictures and gawking we headed back for lunch on the riverboat and then a 3 hour sail down the Rio Negro to go Cayman hunting in the night. Once we got to the next destination we hopped onto smaller motorized canoes. Each canoe held 15 people and we sailed into the dark. After about 20 minutes and some wandering Antonio spotted a 2 foot long Cayman and caught it. While sailing the sky was speckled with hundreds of stars that made it hard to decipher the usual constellations that I was familiar with. The darkness and pitch black night made it easy to see almost every star in the sky. Also, a lightning storm to the west made the night even more memorable and eerie. Anyway… after Antonio caught the Cayman he passed it over to Ronaldo to educate us on the species. After a small lecture about the animal he allowed us to pet it and some students were even brave enough to hold it for pictures. After that excitement we headed back to the riverboat for some snacks and bedtime. We went to bed early because we needed to be up by 5am to go Piranha fishing – and really… I thought it was a joke and the fishing would be just us sitting around. Was I wrong… yes, there are piranhas and our bait was red meat… you place it on a hook on the end of a long stick and once you feel the bites you yank out the stick quick… which would also leave the potential for the fish to be flung across the boat into another person or the other side of the canoe. Oh, by the way, we took the same motorized canoes as we did for the Cayman hunt. After about 30 minutes and 6 catches we headed back to compare which of the 2 boats caught the most. I believe they said that the Piranhas would be made into soup but not for us. After fishing we had lunch and then it was off to an Amazon Survival hike to see a variety of plants, trees, animals, and tips of how to last in the forest. We learned where to find water sources, larvae for protein, and how to make things out of palm reeds to escape jaguars and make a roof for a hut. Pretty cool… Then we stopped by a local community where they showed us how grains were processed and turned into a cornmeal for food. The woman at the location cooked the cornmeal into a pancake like snack that was slathered with butter and fried on a large skillet that resembled one of those cooking surfaces for Mongolian Barbeque you see behind plexiglass windows in a mall. Afterward we returned to the riverboat and headed back to Manaus to get ready for our overnight red eye to Rio! Since we had some time I showered quick to get the deet and sunblock off my body and headed into Manaus to get some snacks and take pictures of the city since it was the only time we had to see the port city. The city is definitely untouched from tourism so that was a great perspective.

The locals stared at me… a lot – but it was expected as we prepare ourselves and students about situations like this. It is a point of understanding that as we have the luxury to go into these destinations it is imperative to realize and understand that many of the people who live in these places may never have been exposed to or interacted with Americans. Not only just White people but all races who identify as being from the United States. It happen more in Rio as people came up to us and wanted to pictures because they have never physically encountered a White or Asian person. Very fascinating and thought provoking when it comes to thinking about how big the world is, how lucky we are to be able to have the opportunities to be exposed and learn about issues related to diversity and difference. For these people it was almost a crash course in the exposure to difference piece as they were shocked and intrigued by actually talking to people who are ethnically and racially different and rare to them.

Rio de Janeiro was a great beach city. When we had our preport overview and interport preparation lecture it appeared as though it may be dangerous… but after the first night and doing some observations I can tell that the main area we were in (Copacabana and Leme Beach) was very touristy, safe, and full of heavily armed police. In NY we see the national guard and officers at main hubs of transportation with rifles but on the beaches of Rio it was almost standard that all officers are coupled with a nice rifle… and they weren’t afraid to show it. I guess it all boils down to safety. We stayed at a hotel called the Golden Tulip Continental right in front of the beach. It was what you would expect from a hotel room, basic double beds with a small TV and the mini fridge. But before the hotel the adventures in Rio started with some organized chaos (or I would like to think that it was organized). We had a red eye flight that had a layover in Brasilia… the problem was that when we all checked in for the flight they changed out layover flight from 7am to 11am which disrupted the itinerary and plans to hit the city and squeeze in as much as we could in 2 days. Long story short, we were a bit upset and I, being the trip leader, was going into a contingency mode on how we would reorganize the trip with the tour guides. I was prepped to call the emergency line for the staff on the ground once we hit Brasilia to inform them because the office (because it was the middle of the night) was closed… the entire 3 hour flight to Brasiia, the layover destination, I was formulating a game plan… too bad it was for no reason because once we started to disembark the plane a gate agent from the airline cut us off before we entered the gate area and redirected us into another plane… it was the fastest, most confusing, process. As we all entered this new plane with no concept of what was going on, I just hoped that this plane was taking us to Rio – which indeed it was. With no one who can speak Portuguese, I had no idea what was going on beside the fact that we were asked to board a new plane. We made it on time, actually earlier than expected, and as we taxi-ed to the gate in Rio I just prayed that our guides were not cancelled for the correct arrival time. After advising the other trip leader to collect students and come on down to the baggage area, I ran down first to see if anyone from the tour company was waiting for us – to my surprise they were there holding signs saying “Semester at Sea”. We were on our way… first up breakfast on Copacabana Beach and then a city wide jeep tour where they packed 10 each into a large jeep to take us to see the Christ the Redeemer statue. We had to also get off the jeeps and hop onto a mini van that took us up the rest of the way to see the statue. After that we toured botanical gardens and had a few snacks here and there. We also saw Rio’s waterfalls and also did a bike through Ipanema Beach into Leme Beach where our hotel was. It was friggin’ hot but well worth the experience. The statue of the “White Christ” was definitely an experience… it was like seeing the Status of Liberty for the first time… it is overwhelming at first, you are in awe for a little bit, take a ton of pictures, and then step back and soak it all in. The view around the statue was also pretty sick. I took a lot of city pictures and it reminded me a little of being on the top of Diamond Head in Hawaii when I saw the beached and ocean from the viewing point. Once we showered and got settled into the hotel it was dinner on our own – I found a nice Italian place along the beach where all the students congregated and as they made their night plans to hit the town I decided to call it a night and sleep knowing that the next day would be jam packed with a tree-top canopy ropes course ending with a zipline and then the afternoon on our own where I wanted to go to Sugar Loaf Mountain and ride the cable cars up to the top of the mountains, then check out the malls and shopping along the beach, have a huge Brazilian BBQ (all you can eat) dinner at a place known as Porcao and then hit the night market. Then it was time to catch the morning flight by getting everyone on the bus at 5am to head back to Manaus. I had to deal with a minor or major, depending on your perspective, issue with a missing student that was resolved in a matter of an hour and made it to the ship with all the participants we started with.

So, did all that and then I came back just in time to help with on-ship docking of all the students. With only one slight situation of a missing student for on-ship time, who we traced and brought onto the ship without any major issues… then we quickly set back into the Rio Negro taking us into the Amazon River as we head into Ghana. And now that we are back on board the stories are overflowing… the major one that I want to share is about another group that went on an Amazon Jungle tour that had time to play with some of the animals that were a part of the itinerary… well, it turns out that 3 students who were on the trip got bit by one of the monkeys that were playing with the group members. 15 others were lightly scratched… not sure what was going on but if I saw a monkey bite down on students and scratch people I would have stopped the entire trip to assess what was going on. Regardless, it happened and apparently the folks who were bit had to get 3 shots of immunizations to make sure they didn’t have rabies and the rumors are running rampant. I did however ask if they had to kill the monkey as that was one major rumor roaming through the ship – I had visions of the movie Outbreak and how someone had to trace this monkey and find it, knock it our with a tranquilizer dart to get the vaccine – however, that is a movie and the real story is that they will not have to find the monkey just get the vaccination shots from the clinic and inject it into those poor folks who were bit. Good times… one thing I am really enjoying about the position is that we lead a variety of mini-communities within the ship… so I have a reflection group that meets to discuss the various experiences each student had and I, of course being me, throw in some critical thinking questions to provoke some thinking as well as connect it to a diversity and social justice perspective which I think is interesting as they may not be thinking that will be the content of the conversation. My game plan for these discussions is to let the student talk about the fun and then quickly transition that into the deeper, richer conversations that they may not necessarily be wanting to talk about or think to examine. I love my job. The other communities are the extended families where we get randomized groups to hang with and talk about anything and everything. I have a small group that is made up of very different students. I think I will coax them with some ice cream next as this group does not really have a vision, mission or direction – I get to make it what it is… this should be fun. LOL!

Well, we have 9 days at sea now as we make our way to the Takoradi port. So what do we do at sea? Well this will be the long stretch where students get back into the groove of school, we get back to the daily grind of work and creating programs, community, and managing all other aspects of student life, and the one thing I am very much looking forward too – SEA OLYMPICS! It is a competitive atmosphere and the trash talking and display of Sea Pride has already been established… now it’s about reppin’ and taking the prize. I chose 2 great Sea Olympic Captains and my 2 staff members and other residents of the Almighty YELLOW Sea are ready! Will post again after the Olympics and let you know how we do!!! But for now… take care my friends… I am a bit.. not too much… missing people, as I know that Spring semester has gone underway… but I know whatever is going on, I am sure people are doing well and I am sending my best for all my friends and loved ones to be doing great. And yes… I do miss everyone… I saw a quick youtube video of the roll call that the GG staff did for winter training and obvi… I am impressed and there was a few tugs to my heart as I wished I was there, but without a doubt I was there in spirit. But it did, however, get me pumped for an amazing Sea Olympics and for me to focus my energy and pride I have for GG toward my sea and the amazing group of students and leaders here…