Amazon River, Brazil, South America Today had a rough start, but it turned into an absolutely perfect day. I didn’t sleep much at all out in the jungle last night. I was in my hammock by 10pm, and I know I laid awake until at least 3am before nodding off a little bit. It was hot and sticky, and the rain was so loud that it made it really hard to fall asleep. I woke up just before 5am and…
Amazon River, Brazil, South America I had a great first day in the Amazon rain forest today! I got picked up at my hotel at about 8am, and I was driver around the corner to the tour office. I left my bag there, and met a couple other people who are going on a similar tour with the same company. I thought that everyone I was going with would be on the same five day tour that I’m doing, but…
Manaus, Brazil, South America I had a very good night’s sleep and had a very nice breakfast down in the dining room of the hotel. There was fresh fruit, juices, eggs, and bread. Pretty good for a cheap hotel. I went out into the city to explore, only to find out that there’s not really much to explore here. Right around the corner from my hotel is the Amazonas Theatre, which is really beautiful. It’s a huge pink building with…
Manaus, Brazil, South America I got up this morning and had a nice breakfast at the apartment with Maria. I got a taxi from the apartment to the airport at around noon and it took just about an hour to get there. The traffic in Salvador wasn’t great, but I’ve seen a lot worse, so I couldn’t complain. I got to the airport with plenty of time to check in for my flight on Azul airline and the flights went…
Salvador, Brazil, South America I got a taxi into the city center today to meet Rafael, and it was really good having a local with me. I could have taken the bus, but I wasn’t too comfortable getting the right bus on the way there, so I opted for a taxi. The first night I arrived in Salvador I saw about 30 people get on a bus, and every one of them either jumped the turnstile in the bus, or…
Salvador, Brazil, South America I did almost nothing today except work on my blog. I went down to Subway for lunch, but every day I walk by the favela I get increasing more uncomfortable. This is the opposite of how I usually feel in a city. I’m usually a bit more uncomfortable when I first get there, but then realize pretty quickly that it’s not nearly as bad as I had initially thought. This is the opposite. Based on what…
Salvador, Brazil, South America I had a really nice day today, and it was completely unexpected. Maria told me something this morning, and even with Google Translate, I got the message totally confused. I thought she said her daughter was coming here because she speaks english and could tell me what to do for carnaval today. It turned out she was actually telling me that her sister was coming over with two guests she is hosting, and we were all…
Salvador, Brazil, South America Today was a pretty quiet day here in Salvador. I spent most of the day in the apartment working on the pictures for my blog that I took in Rio. I took a break at lunch time and walked down to a beach that’s just behind the Bom Preco. It was really small, but pretty nice looking. And Rafael said that because it was carnaval it would be packed, and he was right. I’m not a…
Salvador, Brazil, South America I got up this morning, packed up all my stuff, and was ready to go by 10am. Since I hadn’t seen Janine for the last few days, I had no idea what time I was supposed to check out. I also didn’t know the best way to get to the airport from here during carnaval, and Janine wasn’t there to answer any questions, so I had to figure it out myself. Luckily there is a nice…
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America I got up this morning and really had one goal for the day. I wanted to go back to the Havaiana shop that we went to on the free walking tour of downtown and get some flip flops as gifts for a few people. So I got up, got the metro down to Carioca where the tour had started, and was pretty shocked at what I found. There were tens of thousands of people…