i survived the amazon

Or should I say...I survived Brazil.  Brazil is a more dangerous place than I was expecting.  I constantly had my guard up.  So many people got mugged.  I think someone got beat up too.  But I am a cautious and smart traveler and luckily didn't have to deal with any of that.

 

So I just left Brazil.  I am now officially on my way home to America.  10 long days of finals and I will be reunited with my family in Ft. Lauderdale :)  

 

I spent the first day in Salvador. I went on a field trip with one of my classes to a town.  An organized group of children preformed for us.  (I will tell you much more about this in my blog which I will post in a few days after my finals.)

 

Then I spent four days in the Amazon, sailing down the river in a riverboat.  We slept on the second floor of the boat in hammocks. That was an adventure in itself.  I don't know how I felt about the hammock; I was torn because part of me loved it and part of me hated it.  It will be nice to fall asleep on a mattress tonight. I am sure I will sleep like a baby after getting bad sleep for the last 4 days.  In the Amazon we went swimming (and I didn't get eaten by piranhas!), alligator hunting, piranha fishing, and hiking. We even got to play soccer and volleyball against some locals.  It was a great trip.  We roughed it for a few days but had a great time.  It was funny because the main challenge of the trip was trying not to get bit by the massive amounts of mosquitoes, so I constantly piled on 98% deet, which is awful for your skin, and then we couldn't take showers.  Eventually the day we went swimming all of us took our shampoo and soap into the river and bathed there.  It got the job done. 

 

After a 2:30am flight into Brasilia, a four hour layover in the airport from 6-10am, and then another flight, we finally arrived back in Salvador today at 2pm.  My friends and I dropped off our luggage at the ship and tried to get last minute shopping in.  Now I am exhausted and am looking forward to sleep. Goodnight :)