More than you ever wanted to know about my trip to the Amazon...

During my last visit to Brazil I got to fly up to Belem and spend a week with the Campos family.  They are friends of my parents who I got to know when I was their tour guide when they came to General Conference last April.  (Being a tour guide...even if it was just of SLC was a dream come true for me...I would love to be a tour guide someday.)  And I guess I was a decent tour guide because they invited me to come and stay with them for a week so they could be my tour guides.  While I was visiting they had to do a zone conference in Santarem which is quite a ways up the Amazon River.  So, I got to go with them.  Here are some pictures of that trip.  

This is just a picture of part of the dock area in Belem.  Belem is where the mouth of the Amazon is.  

Just a picture of me and Sister Campos at the fort on the Amazon in Belem.  

I don't know who they were fighting...maybe the Portuguese or the Spanish...but they had a lot of cannons so I bet they kicked trash.

Just a local coconut salesman.  

We took a little boat tour around Belem.  While we were waiting at the docks we saw a bunch of little kids all dressed up for Carnaval.  I had to get a picture of this little Batman.  So cute. 

I thought it was funny that this kid was eating popcorn up through the bottom of his mask.  

He saw me taking his picture and decided to come over and pose for me.  I didn't realize before that the kids dress up for Carnaval, but, I guess they do.

Sister Campos, their son Venicios, me, Venicios ex-girlfriend who was visiting. I'm still not quite sure why the ex was visiting...but whatever.  

A view of the mighty Amazon at sunset.  Allow me to pause here with some fascinating facts about the Amazon, brought to you by Wikipedia.  


Fact numero uno:  The Amazon is the largest river in the world by volumetric discharge and arguably the longest river in the world too.  I guess the Peruvians and Brazilians claim it is longer than the Nile but others say, no crazy Latinos, it isn't.  Either way, it is really huge and really long.


Fact numero dos:  The Amazon accounts for about one-fifth of the world's river flow...or in other words, the Amazon is responsible for about 20% of all freshwater entering the ocean.  Whoa!


Fact numero tres:  There are no bridges crossing the Amazon.  So, you better get a boat.


Fact numero cuatro:  The Amazon really does have a bunch of crazy weird animals living in it...from freshwater dolphins, to manatees, to man-eating piranhas, to huge Anacondas (by the way I think the worst date I've ever been on in my life was to see the movie Anaconda...it wasn't who I was with...it was that horrible movie that never seemed to end.  If you haven't already seen it, don't bother.  It is retarded, trust me.), to even bull sharks that have been found 2500 miles upstream.  Think about that the next time you go swimming in the Amazon!

From Belem we flew to Santarem, which is a city quite a ways up the Amazon.
Here are Sister Campos and I in Santarem.  

In Santarem they have a park area along the Amazon where they have free WiFi...there just seems to be something wrong with free WiFi and the Amazon being in the same sentence.  I didn't want to see people surfing the web...I wanted to see people shooting each other with blow-darts.  What has the world come to?  

The little fisherman boats all lined up in Santarem.

Ditto.

Okay, this is seriously cool.  In Santarem the Tapajos River joins the Amazon but the Amazon is so muddy that these two rivers run side by side for miles without mixing.  It looks like chocolate milk and water flowing together and you can see a really defined line between the two rivers.  Weird, huh?  Maybe some smart-A can leave me a comment and tell me why the water doesn't mix.  Because you'd think that they would mix, right...even if one was way muddier than the other.  Physical science nerds, please leave me a comment and explain this phenomenon.  

So basically the entire Amazon trip my hair was all humidified and my face was all greasy...combination for self-esteem disaster.  I'm actually surprised I'm even showing any pictures of me, but I guess I do have to prove I was there.  

Some old guy catching little tiny fish...hardly seemed worth the time as I bet it takes as many calories in energy to catch the fish as the fish provides, but whatever.  I guess it's no different than eating celery and I love celery so I won't judge him for eating tiny fish.  

The fish market in Santarem.  The fisherman just pull their boats up and sell the super fresh fish.  We were with the district president and he stopped here to buy some fish for his family for dinner.  He put the fish in the back of the car and they were so fresh that they were still flopping around.  

Why drive a car when you can have a cow pull you on a cart?  Horses or oxen pulling a cart=sort of normal.  Having a cow pull your cart=weird (especially in 2010).  But hey, whatever works.  

In Santarem they load up lots of boats with supplies to be taken further up the Amazon.   Here are some watermelons waiting patiently to be loaded on boats.  

This was the view from our hotel.  I loved the teal church and the Amazon behind it.  So cool.  

From Santarem we took a boat ride (4 hours via speedferry) to Oriximina.  When we got to Oriximina the song Forever Young by Alphaville was blasting out over the town.  If any of you have been to Brazil you know that Brazilians don't just listen to music, they BLAST music.  So our boat lands in this little town probably 1000 miles up the Amazon and Forever Young is BLASTING.  I wanted to yell out, "turn that music off...you're ruining this moment for me...I'm in the Amazon...not at my Junior Prom!"  Then that song ended and a James Blunt song came on...I guess there's no hope for this world.  


The picture above is just one I took on the way to Oriximina.  It's kind of too bad we took a fast boat...we passed tons of cool scenery but I didn't get very many good pictures.  But trust me, it was super cool.

There are a lot of areas along this part of the Amazon where they graze cattle...then they just load them right into boats and transport them to other parts of Brazil...that is if the piranhas don't eat them first.  

A huge supply boat or something going up the Amazon...the river is so Amazingly wide...you'll think you're seeing the edge of the river at times but you are really just seeing an island on the river and there is more Amazon beyond it.  


We spent just a few hours in Oriximina where the Camposes did a fireside for the members.  Poor members...first of all their chapel is so freaking hot...and they only have fans, no AC.  And second of all they currently have to travel for 11 days via boat and bus (round trip) to go to the temple.  Can you imagine spending 11 days just in travel time to go to the temple?  When they go they stay for quite awhile (usually 5 to 7 days) to make the trip worth it.  So a temple trip is more like a temple month!  It will be a lot better once the temple in Manaus is finished though.   

On the way back to Santarem from Oriximina we took the slow night boat.  I think it took about 8 hours.  I was excited...I had taken night planes and night trains and night buses but never a night boat before.  Most of the people just bring hammocks and find a place to hang the hammock on the boat.  The Camposes told me that's what we were going to do and I thought it sounded cool.  They were just teasing though...we spent 30 bucks and got private berths on the boat.  


Oh, and don't judge how I look in this picture.  About 10 minutes later I barfed from a heat induced migraine thanks to the non-AC'd chapel in Oriximina.  They really really need AC there.  If anyone knows the prophet, please tell him.  Thank you.  

Here's my little berth on the boat.  I had the room all to myself.  

Each room had its own bathroom which was good considering the whole migraine/barfing incident.  Also good because I'm not a big fan of shared male/female bathrooms on modes of transportation such as trains, planes, buses and boats.  I personally believe that all bathrooms, especially those found on moving objects like trains, planes, buses and boats, should be either male or female, but never both.  No offense to guys or anything but you already have enough trouble keeping bathrooms clean when the toilet isn't moving.  Men+moving toilets=recipe for disaster.  


I once almost died of urine intoxication because I couldn't get myself to go to the bathroom in a unisex bathroom on a night train to Poland because the bathroom was so SICK.  And that, people, is why, when I'm president, bathroom segregation will be a top priority.  


Oh yeah, and snot rocketing will be illegal too.  There was this guy totally snot rocketing off the boat's second floor (hello?...people below!) which may have contributed to the migraine/barfing incident.  I do not know what makes people think that snot rocketing is okay to do...it is never, under any circumstance okay.  There's almost always TP or a kleenex, and if for some reason you absolutely cannot find some, then use your shirt, but DO NOT SNOT ROCKET!  Thank you.  


Okay, I really hope nobody is reading this while eating!  Sorry about the gross topics.  I just feel passionately about these things and must share my feelings with the world, or at least my few blog readers. 

From Santarem we took a drive to Alterdochao or something like that, which is just further up the Tapajos River, before it meets the Amazon.  It was a pretty place and even has some nice beaches/swimming areas.  

Tapajos River

Ditto.

We found a huge mango tree in Alterdochao and just waited for delicious mangos to fall from the tree and then we picked them up...there are free mangos falling from the sky all over the Belem mission.  What a dream come true!

Here is the big old mango tree we gathered mangos from.  They were too high to pick but just in the few minutes we were standing there about 10 fell and at least six of those ten weren't too smashed to eat.  You actually have to be careful of where you park you car in Belem because they have so many mango trees lining the streets and you wouldn't want to get a big dent on your hood from a mango.

On the way back from Alterdochao we stopped for coconut water.  If you get a good coconut, the water is really good and sweet, but if you get a bad one, it's not so tasty.

I think President Campos got a bad one.  

We flew back to Belem...here's a picture of the city from the mission home.  It is quite a beautiful city and between the Amazon and the ocean you see water in any direction you look.  We went to some huge jungle-ly parks they have in the city that were pretty beautiful.

Oh, and one last picture of the docks at Santarem.  Somehow this picture got out of order and I'm too lazy to move it.  It is fun to watch them load the boats...they guys loading are pretty much always potbellied men wearing shorts with no shirts...that's not the fun part.  The fun part is watching them walk up that little plank with a cases of Coke, toilet paper, bug spray, and other jungle necessities on their heads.  


Anyway, I had a great week with the Camposes.  It was weird being totally immersed in Portuguese for a week since I don't really speak Portuguese, but it was good.  I understand really well, but I probably sound (and look) like Helen Keller when I speak.  With a few more weeks of complete immersion though I probably could be somewhat proficient in Portuguese.  But, I didn't get those few more weeks so I speak pretty crappy Portuguese and now I speak pretty crappy Spanish since I keep mixing Portuguese in with my Spanish now.  Great, just what I need.  


I must have been starved for some English speaking because the day I got back to Fortaleza I just could not stop talking to my parents...it was so nice to be able to talk again without having to use my hands or a dictionary.  


Anyway, it was a great trip.  It was fun to see the Amazon, practice my Portuguese and spend time with the Camposes.  They are really fun people and are easy to be around.  And I decided that I like traveling with Brazilians...they always make time for showers and naps...I love being clean and I love being well rested!