Our port was in Salvador but I only spent about 8 hours there out of my entire time (6 days) in Brazil and those hours might’ve been my favorite. Of course I woke up to see us pull into port, to our dismay the sun had rose about 2 hours before our 7:30 port time so I missed sunrise but we ate breakfast on the back outside deck and got our day started. We always get to ports on Sundays which is basically the most boring day in most countries because everyone is at church and everything is closed but we still went out to explore the city of Salvador. Mind you this is the murder capital of the world because of all the favelas and drug/ gang wars happening, so we were on our toes. I had 4 hours before I had to get back to the ship to pack my bags and then catch a bus to the airport to catch a plane to Manuas to catch a boat into the Amazon, so I was hauling through the city trying to see as much as I could. We ended up taking a taxi to one of my favorite places, the beach! This was a beach like I had never seen before, all the people who weren’t at church were here and it was evident by attitude, drink choice, and swimwear. Never have I seen so much skin at once, everyone was rocking what they got. We hung out at a beach bar and helped ourselves to caprihanas and original beers. Then we made our way out to the cliff jumping ledge with the locals. I had about 20 minutes of swimming before going back to the ship and I jumped off that ledge at least 6 times. I think the locals were playing some sort of game with us but I was not a fan because the game consisted of them begging us to jump again and then they would basically jump on top of us, it made no sense, like literally they would leap off the cliff right after us luckily nobody was hurt. Then I rushed back to the ship to get ready for the Amazon! We left that afternoon and two flights later we arrived in Manaus to board our Amazonian riverboat for the next three days.
Once on board we were welcomed with a performance from a local Amazon tribe and got to pick our hammock which would be our place of sleep for the next couple nights. I chose a red, black, and white one strung extremely close together to my new friends. All night we rocked and bumped and moved into each other but I will say they were quite comfy. Bugs weren’t too bad of an issue (I say this because we had to take special malaria medications to save us from contracting the disease while in Brazil). The heat of the night got very uncomfortable at times. The next day was very lackadaisical, we spent much of the day on the river traveling to our destinations which was the meeting of the rivers. It’s the junction of the Amazon River and the Rio De Negro and they literally do not mix because of the different acidity levels. One looked like coffee with milk color and the other was very oily looking. Then we ventured out onto the land and did a jungle walk where we ran into locals with sloths and anacondas, we were really immersing ourselves into the environment. That evening we also went piranha fishing and our little boat got very unlucky considering we didn’t catch one piranha and the other boats caught like 20. I was pretty upset about this so please don’t ask me about it when I get home, I don’t want to relive that intense feeling of failure again. Our boat did catch a cayman (alligator) though, our guide just reached in the water and grabbed it with his bare hands so that helped combat our sadness about no piranhas, no other boat caught a cayman so we were pretty lucky.
The next morning was the real jungle walk, we had a man with a machete cutting a path through the jungle, we never came across any jaguars which was the hope. But we did find a HUGE tarantula and a lot of different bugs creeping crawling and flying around, we felt like we were in the thick of it. After that we were hoping to cool off with a swim in the river but it was so warm due to the shallowness of the water and the heat of the sun. Also, on second thought maybe a swim wasn’t the best idea considering that there were terrifying anacondas, piranhas, caymans and other mysterious water creatures lurking. Then you add onto the fact that you can’t even see your hand directly under the water. It was brown and thick and murky, questionable to swim in but it felt wrong to be living on the Amazon river and not take a swim in it.
The next venture was to a pink dolphin sanctuary, now pink dolphins may sound beautiful and majestic to you but they are quite the opposite in my opinion. They are a very interesting concept but are not pretty by any means. These pink dolphins are only natural in the Amazon and the reason why they are pink is there is something in the water that causes them to have albino tendencies and the pink comes from the blood traveling throughout their vessels in their body, so they are basically blood stained. We got to touch them and see them eat fish it was amusing but I was not that impressed by them. Plus, they were slimy and rude.
What I was impressed with was the arapaima and how insane they were. Arapaima are huge fish like literally thousands of pounds and they had like 10 of them in this enclosure and they would tie chicken legs onto a string attached to a bamboo pole and they would just go after it. It only lasts for about 5-10 seconds before they get the meat off but its the fight of your life in that time.
Following this we went to a village where we got to do a craft workshop and make our own bracelets, I will probably be wearing mine until the day it breaks off me, we visited the local school and then we got to play soccer. Oh my gosh it was so fun, I miss soccer so much it was a pretty even match too. I really enjoyed my time, its probably one of the highlights from my entire trip. That night on our way back to our little riverboat on a little canoe from the village we were greeted on the island by fireworks and if you know me you know I love a good firework show so my whole entire trip was made in that moment. We had a party on the beach they had food and games all set up for us, I took 4th in musical chairs (out of 32 players I must add) and my team won tug of war. The food was also amazing. I couldn’t tell you exactly what I was eating but there was a wide variety and it was so tasty. I learned that I am a big fan of Brazilian and Amazonian food. Our night was short lived because we had to head to the airport at around 2:30am to catch a flight to Rio so we got a couple of hours of sleep in our lovely hammocks and headed to the the airport saying goodbye to the amazon. And this was only halfway through my time in Brazil.
We arrived in Rio and took the drive from the airport to Copacabana Beach which is where we’d be staying for the next couple of days. We had some time to roam and explore before we had to meet back up for our food tour so we went and walked around on the beach, drank some caprhinas, and attempted to challenge the locals at their badminton like game. They denied us because it was some sort of league going on (but I just think they were intimidated by us).
We were feeling fantastic and our next step was a street food tour with some locals. We literally were just walking around through the streets and would arrive at restaurant or stands and they would give us their goods. Let me be your food critic for a moment. All rankings are out of 10 and take into consideration spice, texture, fillingness, visual appeal, and overall taste.
- Bread ball thing w/ homemade hot sauce -8.7
- açaí -6.9
- fruit smoothie stand (we tried so many different flavors and strange fruits, its impossible to breakdown-7.2
- fried ball stuffed with meat (off the charts) (amazing I could live the rest of my life off them) (I would move to brazil soley for these) (I ate like 6 of them)-12.4
After our food tour which had filled us up fully, I literally felt like I could not eat another thing, our leader says “okay now to dinner” this normally is good news but collectively as a group we felt as if one more piece of food was to enter our body, it would be bad news. But we suffered through. It was such a mentally challenging task to be served so many different foods (I swear there was at least 20 different items of food to try on our table) and wanted to try them all and then they taste so good so you just want more but you’ve already eaten yourself to sickness. It was tough to compromise between nausea and tasty food. I would compare this to how you feel after Thanksgiving but this was like you had a huge thanksgiving dinner with your family you thought that was all the food you’d be eating for the day and then Gordon Ramsey calls you and says “oh hey I want to cook you 20 more things to try right now” you can’t say no to that, you have to try everything, you don’t want to upset Gordon. Following this everyone went into pretty extreme food comas so we rested and then once we could handle the nausea we went to explore the nightlife in Rio, it was enjoyable.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go to the Christ the Redeemer Statue up on the hill and it was so massive. We took a train up through the windy track to the top, it was so luscious and green and there was jackfruits everywhere. Please enjoy the view from the top on the mountain.
Again I love viewpoints so much so this was a highlight for me, there was also monkeys up there so that just bumped up the experience so much higher in the highlight rankings.
We ate buffet style lunch then headed to the Carnival and Samba School after this to learn about their carnival and it is so intense, let me explain… in Rio once a year they have a huge parade and carnival people come from all over to celebrate. I’m unsure of the significance of the day and the carnival, I think its just so they can all party and test out their Samba skills. So at these “schools” its huge warehouses where they prepare the entire year for the parade and performances, like it’s such a big deal. We weren’t even able to take photos in some of the places because they were worried we would show the other schools and ruin the shock of the performances. We learned all about how it provides tons of jobs, entertainment, and community within the city and how close to the heart they hold carnival. It’s like a huge competition between all of the Samba schools and they get judged on the dancing, costumes, parade, floats, everything. Then once it’s over they start preparing again for next years. These schools also played a huge part in the opening and closing ceremonies in the 2016 Rio Olympics. We got to get dressed up in the costumes (I was a pineapple) and dance and drum around. Conclusion of the day was overall very fun, gotta come back to Rio in the future. Again, we didn’t get much sleep before we had to leave for the airport at 3am and our flight got delayed and we didn’t end up taking off until 9am which gave us a window of about 7 minutes to catch our connecting flight, we were very lucky and we made it back to the ship on time but not without some stress.
Now I was back to Salvador by 2 and I had about 4 hours to complete my time in Brazil. We went to the beach to celebrate some birthdays and it happened to be some sort of Brazilian holiday so it was insane and lots of fun. Brazillians know how to party, dance, and live fun lives. We hung out in the city center for a bit, drank some caprinhas and originals and then finished our trip with a BBQ back on the ship which was a big deal because traditional American food is hard to come by around here and it was awesome. We got to eat cookout food on the pool deck so that was a nice surprise and a pretty sweet ending to our time in Brazil.
A notable event would be that at least 20 people had been robbed during their time in Salvador, luckily I can say my friends and I were not part of that statistic but we heard some pretty insane stories about men robbing people with machetes and knives, and other stories where people fought back against the robbers and got some injuries. We never experienced this type of offense but sometimes I wish I would’ve so I could’ve tested out my skills to see how I would’ve reacted. Obviously I’m glad that didn’t happen but it would’ve been a memorable story that’s for sure.
Ally’s Insights
- don’t be stupid
- driving laws do not exist
- caprihanas are stronger than you expect
- pink dolphins are kinda slimy
- Salvador actually is somewhat dangerous
- sleeping in hammocks is slightly painful and equally enjoyable
- rio food tours are incredible
- Budweiser is popular in Rio
- don’t get sick in the amazon
- watch out for men with machetes
- tarantulas the size of a medium sized dominos pizza exist in our world
- arepimas are insanely aggressive
- I still got my soccer skills
- Christ the Redeemer can be seen from almost everywhere in Rio
- Paul the monkey is pretty rude
- dont flush tp
- pirhanas are tough to catch
Next Stop, Trinidad & Tobago
Ally's Adventure Abroad 