Let me start out by saying I had an absolute blast in Belem (after a less than stellar experience at the airport in Cayenne where A) I have an old (though not expired) Brazilian visa so the girl at the ticket counter had a tough time believing it was real B) my passport would not scan at immigration resulting in the most painfully long and nervracking five minutes of my life trying to get the customs official and his boss to let me leave the country C) my blood sugar was super high, and the bathroom in the airport puts a back alley crack whore hangout to shame, so I had to discreetly put in a new infusion set for my insulin pump in a remote corner of the terminal. This was 40 minutes before take off so I thought I had time, but since the three other passengers already boarded the plane (at 2am) everyone was waiting on me; so much for being discreet. Then to top it off the ticket taker/security agent letting people on the plane was not only waiting for me but watching me from across the room, yelling in French to what I'm assuming was something along the lines of "hey mister, everyone has boarded the plane we're just waiting for you," watching me attach a suspicious object to my chest (my insulin pump). Then as I hurried over to the gate she began to ask me about this mystery attachment before letting me on the plane. D) everybody was speaking French. E) I do not speak French. F) in a groggy 2am mindset I realized that oddly enough on my French cheat sheet in my back pocket there was a phrase I tried to memorize figuring I'd never have to use it, "je suis diabétique;" and off i went to board the plane, still not sure if they thought I was a terrorist or not. G) I had more trouble with my visa when I landed in Brazil but thankfully after being passed off to only one other person I was let into the county) my host and his family were so nice.
One morning when my host, Victor, was out, his dad asked if I've ever had coffee with tapioca (besides the fact that I have recently given up coffee) I said I hadn't and right there he took me out to the corner stand where an old couple made me a fresh cup of coffee and a hot piece of tapioca (it's like cassava bread, or a chewy crepe). I figured that was it and we would stroll back to the apartment. No, he took me to Museu Emílio Goeldi, a zoo in the middle of the city! I'm not the biggest fan of zoos, but it was really nice walking through this rainforrest reserve. If I didn't know that I was in the middle of a big city I would have thought I was deep in the rainforest as the whole zoo is built within a dense patch of trees; it's only when we walked to the edges that I could see tall buildings peeping through the trees.
Other highlights in Belem included:
Victor's girlfriend taking me through the Mercado Ver-o-Peso, Belem's famous outdoor market where we ended getting açai ice cream (it is now tied with my favorite ice cream; such a rich dark berry flavor with the creaminess of olive oil, but not overly sweet at the same time, I wish I had gotten a double scoop).
Victor taking me to the best churrascaria I've ever had. Which is kind of unfortunate now, as every other one I'll go to in the future just won't be as good.
Walking around the old city; going to the gorgeous Teatro da Paz (a theatre built at the height of the rubber boom era) where I was able to take a tour AND sit in on the orchestra practicing! It was such a pleasure to hear live music and the beautiful venue certainly didn't hurt. Seeing both cathedrals in Belem (Catedral da Sé and Basílica de NS de Nazaré), an art museum, and Forte do Castelo with a great view of the market and the city as well as a cool museum inside highlighting a lot of indigenous life/art of the people in the area surrounding Belem.
And maybe the highlight of them all was spending a night at Amazon Cervejaria, a microbrewery in Belem wining multiple awards for their beers at the Brazilian Beer Festival (which happens to be going on as I speak. It was a tough call to book a flight to the city where the national beer feat is, or to sail the Amazon)! I'll be honest I was expecting the beer to be OK, but beer after beer they were fantastic! Taking traditional styles and brewing them with local fruits and herbs to give them a very localized taste like their açai stout, IPA Cumaru, a lager brewed with Bacuri, or their Red Ale brewed with a ton of local herbs, I have never tasted anything like it! And of course the food; I had a variation on a local dish, pato no tucupi, which was pulled duck filled fried dumplings with a spicy manioc juice sauce. Needless to say that last night in Belem I was in heaven.
And the next day with the help of Victor's father, I was able to make my boat for Manaus (I'm still not sure if I was scammed or what, but the less-than-official ticket salesman who took cash only ended up sending me to the "wrong docks" where there was no boat. But after some loud and seemingly angry Portuguese, the man who sold my ticket the previous day, showed up a little while later to take me to the "other docks" where a boat was waiting.
According to his dad, "river travel is only for the adventurous," which I definitely see why now. The docks were slightly on the sketchy side, but that was to be expected, and halfway through my 5 night journey I woke up one morning to find that everyone on the boat had left. And the person sweeping the deck I was on said something in Portuguese that I'm assuming was something along the lines of, "hey aren't you going to Manaus? Well this is the end of the line for this boat, you need to take this other boat, oh wait it's pulling away from the harbor as we speak, never mind just take a taxi to the other side of town to another set of docks and look for this other boat. They're going to Manaus." And it was because of him, that I found myself clinging for dear life on the back of a motorcycle with my big-ass backpacking back pack on being taken to a mystery location that would hopefully work out in my favor. Well, needless to say, I got on, what I'm assuming is, the right boat (even smaller than the first with just two decks for hammocks and the bottom for the engines and kitchen) and am now continuing down the mighty Amazon. Oh did I mention that I've spent the last 48 hours battling a wonderful case of diarrhea? Well yes that definitely has added to the adventure like spirit that Victors dad was talking about. All in all though, this river trip has been pretty nice. I've just been in awe with the scenery as it's constantly changing.
First off its nothing like the Amazon River Trail game I played on Windows 95, but it's still facinating none the less. Some times the river is so wide and open I can barely see the other side, sometimes it's so narrow that I doubt another boat could pass by, sometimes there are mountains and plains, sometimes thick jungle Forrest, sometimes green pastures with cows and horses roaming, and sometimes rocky cliffs that remind me of river trips in The Dells, all the while it's nice seeing remote houses dotted all along the banks.
This trip just leaves me wondering which patch of this rainforest is being saved by my various 25¢ donations I made as a child?
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