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!  

A Bunch of Random Pictures from Brazil

Here are just a few random pictures from my most recent visit to Fortaleza.  With my week long trip to the Amazon I ended up with a little less than two weeks in Fortaleza and since the dates of the Mission Presidents' Seminar got changed from its usual October date to March, my parents had to leave for São Paulo yesterday.  So I really only got about a week and a half with them...and it went too fast because my parents had a lot going on.  It was busy but fun.  Oh, and I didn't get any of these pictures pre-approved by my dad, as he usually makes me do, but I wanted to get this post done now.  Sorry dad.  I think you look good in them all though, or I wouldn't post them.  

This was, and I quote, "the best day of my life" according to my dad.  He had just finished a stressful mission tour the night before, and it was Saturday, my parents' supposed P-day.  He had sunflower seeds that I smuggled in, those yucky chalky Valentine's candies he loves, and some new John Wayne movies. Yippie yi yo!

My dad with a cute little kid who was all decked out for church.  I think in my dad's mind my little almost two month old nephew Mitch is about this little kid's age and size.  Because, in my dad's mind, he and Mitch are already building forts, riding the tractor and going on 4-wheeler rides.  I can't tell you how many times I heard "Do you think Mitch would like that...should we get Mitch one of these?" etc.  Poor kid has no idea what he's in for with all of us baby starved adults.  Maybe it is a good thing that Mitch will be one and a half years old when my parents get home...at least he'll be closer to the size that my dad already imagines him to be.  

Just some pictures of the missionaries and my dad at the office.

This picture looks staged, but really was not.  The missionaries really were reading a scripture unlike those pre-mission pictures people get taken with them holding an open set of scriptures like they're reading...yeah right!

My favorite view of Fortaleza from the mission office. 

The corner of the site for the Fortaleza Temple.  Right now it has a billboard on it that I think says, "Drive, don't drink" or something like that.  What a good billboard to be occupying the temple site.  

My parents at the temple site.  

The temple's future back yard and my parents.  

The temple's front yard.  I don't think the site of the temple has been announced yet, but I doubt any of you are going to rush down to Fortaleza and buy up the surrounding real estate, so I'm not worried about posting these pictures.  Besides, nobody told me to keep it a secret, and you have to tell me if you want me to keep things a secret, and even then, sometimes I slip.  

My mom, getting dinner ready for eight missionaries who were finishing their missions.

One of the Elders doesn't like salad, so this is what he got in his salad bowl...my mom does her best to cater to everybody's tastes.  

The next day 23 new missionaries arrived...add in us and the five office Elders and it was quite the crowd.  

The office Elders had to take a lot of pictures of the arriving group.  I guess they are used to it.  

And lastly, a random picture of my mom holding a notepad with a piece of her half chewed gum on it.  My mom (as well as some other members of our family) have always been guilty of leaving partially chewed gum around because, and I quote, "the gum was still good."  I just think it's funny that my mom still does it here...now that she has Irene the housekeeper around who probably finds the little saved pieces of gum and wonders what the heck is up with our family...especially after Lee made little sheep poops out of Tootsie Rolls that he piled under the sheep in my mom's nativity set when we all visited for Christmas and Irene found them.  Crazy Americans!

"The Mailbox"

Remember that 1970's LDS film "The Mailbox"?  I remember as a kid they used to show it in the baptistry waiting room at the Idaho Falls Temple...over and over again.  That and Johnny Lingo.  Maybe they still show it even now.  I kind of hope not...it's just so sad.  I never have quite figured out what the point of that movie is except to make me cry.  Well, and I guess to help us all remember to write to old ladies.  


Anyway, I don't know why (because my mom isn't that old or lonely or anything) but every time we come home and she checks the mail (or email) and the mailbox (inbox) is empty, she makes the saddest face (see picture above), and in my mind I instantly see some old lady wearing fuzzy snow boots shuffling down a snow covered lane to check her empty mailbox.  And then I feel sad all over again.


So will someone (like my brothers and various other blog leeches) please write my mom a freaking letter, or email, or at least leave a comment on her blog?  Her mail-linked depression and neediness is driving me a little bit crazy! 


Sincerely, Becca

#44-Dominican Republic

Once again and as usual I'm behind in blogland.  But then so are all of you too.  A lot of you have been slacking lately on blogging, so I guess I don't need to apologize to anyone.  


Apparently I say "I'm sorry" a lot.  My book club friends recently pointed this out to me.  They told me that I shouldn't say "I'm sorry" so much because most of the time I really don't have anything I need to be sorry about.  They're right, but saying "I'm sorry" must be so subconscious for me because just minutes after that conversation about apologizing too much I said, without thinking, "Well, I'm sorry but I am NOT apologizing!"  I guess I need to work on not saying I'm sorry a bit more. 


So, I'm not sorry that I'm just getting to blogging my Dominican Republic pictures because at least I'm doing it for me, for my blog readers, blog leeches, and my non-existent posterity.  So there. 

My friend and past roommate, Yvette, invited me and the rest of our book club to spend the week at her parents' time share in the Dominican Republic in January.  Hmm, a free place to stay on a tropical island during a dark, long, bleak winter week?...well, that's a no brainer.  I think I bought my ticket within hours of her invitation.


Only 5 of the 7 of our book club were able to come, which may have actually been a good thing since we were sneaking 5 into a room meant for no more than 3 people.  Seven might have been a bit of a stretch even for my superb sneaking-extra-people-into-hotel-rooms skills.  


Anyway, we had a super awesome trip and here are some pictures to prove it.  Oh, and lots of people have asked me if things in the DR were affected because of the earthquake in Haiti three days before our trip to the DR.  As far as I could tell nothing was really unusual in the parts of the DR where we were except that the aquifer where we were staying in Puerto Plata got messed up with the earthquake and the water level dropped a bunch and we only had running water in our hotel for certain hours during the day, but it didn't end up being too big of a deal.  


Other than that things seemed pretty normal.  It was a little weird relaxing on vacation when on the other side of the island people were suffering so much.  We tried to volunteer to help package or take aid to Haiti but, at least in the part of DR where we were, they weren't really organized for volunteers just yet.  And we looked into crossing over the border but the border control was really tight to prevent all the Haitians from fleeing to the DR so it was a pretty big mess and we would have probably just been more in the way than help, so we just vacationed instead of saving people and stuff.  At least we did try to find a way to help before we ordered virgin Pina Coladas and sat on the beach. 

A pretty view of Samana where we went whale watching

Bacardi Island...gorgeous!

A view of Mount Isabel, I think...

Our little group of five...Yvette, Hailey, me, Brooke, and Marissa.  I met all these girls this summer in Africa.  We make a good travel team since we've all traveled quite a bit and know what it takes to be a good traveler.  It was a really fun group and we (or at least I) had a great time.  

Here we are at church.  It is always fun to go to church in other countries and meet the members.  Plus, you get bonus points for going to church while on vacation that you can store up for later.  

We saw these cute little girls downtown on Sunday afternoon.  I think they had just attended Mass or something.  We just loved how they were strutting around in their heels. 

Just a super awesome picture Hailey took in the plaza

In the plaza with Lonny, our friend we met at church, who showed us around the town for the rest of the day. 

Yvette's birthday dinner at Cabarate after a day at the beach.  

Sosua, our favorite beach

Sosua Beach

A picture of Isabella where Columbus had a permanent settlement where he and a bunch of other Europeans lived until Malaria struck and killed a bunch of them to revenge the Indians, or something like that. 

We found, after the first day in the Puerto Plata, that we could either take ridiculously overpriced taxis (since we were in a touristy area) or we could pay like 25 cents each and hitch a ride in these local transport vans.  We saved a lot of money taking local transport and had way more fun too.  There's just nothing like having 24 sweaty people (yes, we counted) crammed into a van meant for 10.  

A few times when we flagged down a van we'd look inside and think that there wasn't room for the 5 of us and that we should wait for the next van to pass...but then all the other passengers would start scrunching and would encourage us to get in.  Everyone was so nice an friendly.  At one point Marissa and I were sitting in the area behind one of the rows of seats right over the engine and Yvette was sitting on some lady's lap.  It was a great adventure.   


One of the times we went to Sosua we had the van to ourselves and I think we  payed the driver maybe 10 bucks or something to take the five of us to a beach about 30 minutes away.  We overheard him bragging to his buddy about how much he was charging us...I think he thought he was ripping us off.  Haaaaaaaa we didn't even care.  Two bucks each to get to a beach 30 minutes away?...steal of a deal as far as we were concerned.  I'm glad that "ripping us off" made his day though.  

Another picture of Sosua Beach


Anyway, we had a great trip.  We spent all day at the beach and nights crammed in our hotel room watching movies and talking.  Our week in the DR was the best book club activity ever!  


Oh, and somehow I came out of our week of beach bumming with a sunburn on my upper lip, and only my upper lip.  I don't know how I managed to do that, but it looked more like a nair disaster than a sunburn since it was just in that one spot.  I kept having to apply face lotion to my stache to keep it from peeling all over the place. 

I don't know why I post pictures like this of myself, but on the way home I painted on a moisturizer mustache to soothe my burning lip (and to be funny of course).  Yvette was nice enough to throw in the bunny ears to really make this picture special.  And the greasy face and flat hair was brought to you by the Dominican Republic's tropical climate.  


So, one post down, many more to go...


Oh, and does anyone else feel like punching someone in the face every time they do a blog post and blogger double spaces everything and you can't fix it unless you mess with the HTML code?  I do.  

Great, now what?

Look what came in the mail.


Great, now what?


I know, I know...I need to get a job, but I really am enjoying being a Stay At Home Spinster (SAHS) right now.


I wish there was a bigger market for SAHSs because I think I'd make a great one.  I wouldn't play Farmville or watch Judge Judy and I wouldn't be like Paris Hilton.  I would do humanitarian projects, help old ladies cross the street, plan trips for people (and myself), blog, babysit, help the needy and downtrodden, and maybe even write a book or something.  


But, unfortunately, being a SAHS isn't a very realistic occupation for me as I'm not a rich heiress or Powerball winner.  So I know that I need to start looking for a job soon, but I just can't bring myself to do it yet.  I just need to enjoy freedom from Adam's curse a little longer...take a few more deep breaths of life before I get back into a suffocating career.  


Don't get me wrong, I don't mind working.  I like to be productive and contribute to society blah blah blah, but I just am not interested in a career per se.  Most things that pay well enough to support my rock n' roll lifestyle don't interest me.  And maybe I shouldn't expect to find something I enjoy to do...maybe I just have to suffer through the next 35 years of life...but, then I read quotes like this one from Henry B. Eyring's dad: 


"You ought to find something [for a career] that you love so much that when you don’t have to think about anything, that’s what you think about."


and I get all confused.  Because I know what I love to do and what I think about when I don't have to be thinking about anything else, but I don't know how to turn that into a career.  How do you turn travel, teaching, and writing into a career?  


Anyway, enough about me and all my problems with making life decisions...how are all of you, blog readers and leeches alike?