May 17 - May 20: Plastic Chairs and Beer ...

... is all you need to be happy in the Amazon.

It has been an adventure getting here, with two six hour plane rides and a five hour layover, and a three hour tour of Brazilian customs. We stopped in Manaus for a day and a half, which was a good introduction to Brazil and the extreme heat, mugginess and refreshing cold showers (except in the morning).

I have to laugh - our air conditioner in our room (we were lucky to have one) was on a timer, so we would wake up in the middle of the night sweating our asses off to restart the timer on the air conditioner. We discovered this little fun detail after sweating our asses off for the first night we were there, thinking that our air conditioning was broken (a fun little window unit). We did see the ``fast`` boat that we were going to ride if the airport remained closed; needless to say, I am glad we took the plane. By the way, the airport was closed due to birds circling trash dumps near the Tefe airport.

My first view of the Amazon River was on our plane ride to Tefe, where we are now. It is amazingly VAST - it looks like an ocean. I had no idea the magnitude of the river. Tefe is quite an interesting place, with about 50K inhabitants. There is little industry here, outside of small hotels (2-3), a few restaurants, and of course, the markets. I thought I would lose weight here, but given that the staple foods are fried fish, fried chicken, fried manoc, fried bananas and rice and beans, with beer being cheaper than water, it looks like I may have to forgo dietary restrictions for the time being.

The nightlife in Tefe is quite funny, with just a lot of drinking beer, and one dance club that looked like it was more appropriate for 14 year olds than us old farts. There was some sort of street party yesterday, that was semi-sponsored by the church, which uses a foghorn to blast the sounds of the bells. You could purchase local fried Brazilian food for fifty cents, which was good. Being foreigners, we are often stared at, especially by the younger folk. We do think that our presence here has quickly spread through the community.

Yesterday, we hired a `boat taxi` to take us around the lake/river right outside of our door, where we went were the two rivers in the Amazon converge - one is blackish, the other is brownish/murky, and you can actually see the colors mixing - like miso soup or coffee and milk. Here is where you can see the legendary river dolphins, as well as the Amazon pink dolphins. I will of course post pictures when I am able. We also visited a local village in which it´s possible to swim, and only Stephan (our Brazilian team member) braved the waters. Maiken, Steve and I watched from a beer shack on plastic chairs.

In general, I am pretty amazed by the vibrancy, the laid back attitude, and the casualness of the Amazon region.

Otherwise, my new official perfume is DEET, and my attire is consistently Indiana Jones, and my hair is pulled back due to the frizz that often sneaks out. I´m definitely enjoying myself, and look forward to the next three weeks!