Welcome to the Jungle

We started our trek out into the Amazon with our guides who picked us up from the Manaus bus station, with Amazon Backpackers. We all loaded up into a mini bus and drove to the harbour, where we caught a small 20 passenger boat over to the other side of the river. Our first stop was a shanty town on the edge of the water, where our guide paid two local VW bus drivers to bring us to where we needed to catch our small boats down the river, to our lodge in the woods. I got the lucky seat up front in between the driver and our guide -which meant I got to see all the scary things that everyone else missed. The roads are red clay, pot hole ridden paths. In the rainy season, the pot holes fill with water, so you cant tell how deep they are, and on hills dry up so smooth you can't get any traction. Everyone in the back of the bus was laughing while we fishtailed around the road, when the guide said to me,

"Have you ever noticed how tourists always think everything is part of the game? The driver and I are up here, holding our breath that we don't roll over, and they're just laughing and smiling back there. Last week, one of our vans rolled over. But everyone was ok, so we just kept going." I regretted the seat choice even more, when we drove over a bridge made of 3x6 wood planks, with no real fastenings. We did safely make it to the boats at just about the time a rain cloud came, so we spent the boat ride to the lodge covered by a giant sheet of plastic.

We did the normal tour of the waters during the day, and our guide, Shamir, would point out wildlife as it passed. It was a beautiful ride, and he told us we'd go searching for an alligator in the night, so he could catch it and show it to us up close. Shamir collected us (7 passengers) in the boat that evening. We went slowly along the river, looking for the red gleam of an alligators eyes in the reeds. Shamir told me I could bring my headtorch, so I brought it along to look for myself. Shamir caught the first little alligator, then returned it because it was too small. When he caught one of a decent size, he handed it to guy behind me, Ricky. Ricky was a fun guy, and also a prankster. He pretended to throw the alligator at me, when I asked if I could touch it. I squealed, and everyone had a good laugh. We started to head back to the camp in our 7 person boat, when all of a sudden, an alligator jumped in the boat, and struck me in the chest with it's tail. I screamed and other people started shouting as they were hit by it's tail. I lowered my head torch into the boat to find the beast in desperation and fear of being bitten. It turned out, the spot light was attracting flying fish, who were leaping out of the darkness and into the boat, accidentally hitting us along the way. I shone my light on one little sardina -it was dead. I was going to throw him back in the water, anyway. "Aww. He's dead," I said. I grabbed hold of him, and he started to flop about in my hand. I shouted as I threw him back in the water, and more fish flew into the boat. One landed on my seat as I went to sit down, and flopped about under my butt, and I shouted again. The girl at the front of the boat, who was holding a small alligator, let go of his neck in the commotion, and he turned round and bit her in the wrist. She screamed, and dropped him into the boat, and chaos ensued again. After 5 minutes of off and on fish attacks, and recovering the small alligator, we headed back to the lodge. No one said it was going to be easy to catch amazonian alligator in the night...