What a Long Strange Trip it's Been

Here I am sitting in the dusty boarder town of Lethem in Guyana waiting for my flight back to Georgetown. It's strange to think that my trip is finally coming to a close and it's back to work just now. 

I ended up having a really nice time in Manaus. My couchsurfing host took me to her favorite bar and I've got to be honest, this place may be one of the best bars I've been to in my life; really a place that epitomizes what's wonderful about life. It was called Bar Caldeira and it's been there since before Guyana became a country. The actual bar is a tiny corner shop with some caricatures along the walls and old black and white checker tile floor. The real "bar" is outside. They've set up maybe two dozen red plastic tables and chairs in the street. Every two hours or so a new band would setup on the sidewalk playing samba and I couldn't tell if there were multiple singers or if just different people from the crowd would come to sing Brazilian tunes. Oh and did I mention none of the musicians/singers were under the age of 60? Maybe it's just me but that really added to the charm of the place. This bar wasn't a place to go to drink/get drunk. It was a place where friends met and to listen to some great old time samba by some of the most passionate old timers in Manaus. Behind the tables and chairs was a line of vendors selling grilled meats on sticks that filled the air with a scent that might just turn a few staunch vegetarians. Having a cold beer outside had the same free feeling as in New Orleans but with less debauchery. When I think of a perfect night from now on this is the memory I'll be going to: an outdoor street party under the stars, a perfect warm night with a cool breeze, an endless supply of cold beer, cheap grilled meats, live music, old couples dancing, with a backdrop of Manaus' Teatro Amazonas (their picturesque opera house built in the rubber boom era as well). 

All in all I had a great time on my adventure; met some kind and generous people, ate some wonderful food, and saw a new part of the world making fantastic new memories. I can't wait to do it again!

My Time in Rio de Banheiro... I Mean Sailing the Amazon

I'm currently swinging in my hammock on a small boat sailing up the Amazon River. Needless to say there is no wifi here so this post will be put up in a few days time. 

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?

Leaving on a Jet Plane

Well I'm about 2/3 of the way through my trip (but 1/3 in time) getting ready to fly out of Cayenne, French Guiana to head to Belem, Brazil and man am I having a blast. Besides the horrendous sun burn I got I've had pretty crazy luck with my experiences so far. My hosts in Kourou were absolutely the best, such a nice and welcoming couple, I had a huge smile on my face the minute I met them. They've been so helpful in planning my time in French Guiana going above and beyond what I could have dreamed a host would be like. Cooking homemade meals and sharing drinks (ti'punch a white rum cocktail with sugar/flavored syrup and lime, amazing! I'm bringing a bottle of the rum back to the states) while talking about anything. They're practicing for the TOEFL which I guess is a test to determine if they know English well enough to work in an English speaking country, so they were grateful to have me speak with them, but their English was so good we could talk about anything and did. I was sad to leave them this morning as I hitch hiked to Cayenne, but excited to see what the capital is like. 

In Kourou I was able to get on a tour of the Space Center where they are the headquarters of the European Space Agency launching satellites. They have three types of rockers they send: Vega (small payload), Soyuz (medium size), and Ariane 5 (large payload). And I was able to get to see all three launch sites. It was a fantastic tour with a nice museum at the end. Luckily for me there was a group of Canadians who already arranged a tour so I was able to join them on an English tour. 

The next day I visited the Iles du Salut, specifically Ile Royale, which was the former French prison colony famous for prisoners as Pampillon and Dreyfus. I brought my hammock, food, water, and camped on the island for the night. Which was such a relaxing experience getting to hike around the island all day and when most of the visitors left on the boat back to Kourou, I read by the waterside catching the sunset. Oh and the food I brought was just horrible: a baguette, stinky cheese, terrene of deer, fig compote, and a bottle of bordeaux. Just what the prisoners ate I'm sure. It has been raining a lot lately so if it was raining hard at night I was planning to sleep in the prison, but since the weather was nice I just slept under a shelter by the water; also horrible to fall asleep to. The following morning I awoke by the sounds of people walking about the island and I met a man (from the Holland America cruise ship docked in the harbour) who was doing geocaching so he took me along and I found the two caches on the islands. That was great as I had always wanted to try geocaching, really a lot of fun. I also met a man (also on the cruise) who's daughter was in the Peace Corps! What a strange small world! 

Right now I'm sipping a lambic on the patio overlooking the Place des Palmistes, just people watching as the sun sets. I'll head over to a next restaurant just now, then see if I can find this blues bar that supposedly has the largest supply of beer in Cayenne. That'll be a nice way to spend the next few hours as I kill time before a taxi to the airport for a midnight check in.

Rain in the Rainforest

There I was in the pouring rain with a cutlass in hand cutting away virgin bush with my guide making a fresh path within Brownsburg park to see the famed Leo and Irene vals (waterfalls). When we finally arrived scraped up and bruised from near death attacks by large animals along the way, it seemed like we had encountered the mythical El Dorado. Well in reality I was panting along a well cleared path, with a dozen other Dutch and Belgians all having a jolly good time with the guide speaking Dutch (I was the odd one out speaking only English) while I was dreaming of returning to the bus so I could get some water. But nonetheless I still had a nice time on a real "half day" tour to the interior of Suriname. 

The day before was also very nice. I began my day with some street food for breakfast, I had something that seemed like a bread pudding bar; It was delicious! Then I rented a bicycle and went to the rum factory/museum and had a small private tour of the museum (they only do a factory tour on Tuesdays) and a tasting of some rum. They were nice, but nothing to write home about, I still prefer the Guyanese El Dorado. Then after the tasting I biked out for 5 hours to the other side of the river to visit the old sugar plantation that the Distilery used to use. So in addition to a nice ride through the country side, it was a great experience seeing this particular plantation, marionburg, to see the full process of where the cane came from and to see where it went for processing and to taste the final product. A tiring but very worthwhile day. (I have however officially lost hope in sunscreen and think that it is a money making ploy to sell multiple skin products and nothing more. I don't want to hear any excuses, I had UVA/UVB protection AND I applied it multiple times throughout the day religiously. So I'm not sure why I would hav such a horrible burn? I feel like I burned more because of the cream I was using and may have been better off without it!). 

But alas I have moved on from Dutch Guiana (Suriname) and am now in French Guiana. I arrived yesterday and really had a nice relaxing time. It started pouring just as I left Parimaribo and really hasn't stopped since. My host in Saint Laurent-du-Maroni kindly picked me up at immigration after crossing the river from Suriname by speed boat (also through the pouring rain) and took me to his home. Since it was pouring all day I just relaxed and talked with him and his flatmates all day on their outdoor patio overlooking their gardens. Such a wonderful and relaxing time. 

Today I hitchhiked back to St. Laurent to walk around the town for the morning to see the Camp de la Transportation, an old penal colony in which the entire town was built around, and eating various fresh pastries as I strolled from shop to shop. 

I'm now in Kourou (actually staying at the home of the people that picked me up in st. Laurent while I wait for my couch surfing host to finish work) and tomorrow I'm hoping to visit the space center. 

Au revoir!