Hard to believe that we have already left the second country of our voyage!! I got back from the Riverboat trip this afternoon and have never been so excited to shower!

 My time in Brazil was great. The city of Manaus were we docked was nice, we spent most of the day shopping around at the market where there were tons of trinket stands and local food. We also got to catch the beginning of a mass at a beautiful church! Unfortunately I couldn't understand the service because it was all in Portuguese but it was still a nice experience. Manaus is also home of a famous opera house which we got to take a look at as well. It was an interesting city because some of the buildings were built during a big Rubber boom but now that Manaus is not as wealthy they have not been kept up and are intermixed with some scary areas. I was sort of relieved that I was only there for the day because it was pretty unsafe and the language barrier was difficult too.

 Early Monday morning we left for the Amazon riverboat adventure. It was strange to get onto another boat where I would be living for the next four days! It is two stories, the upper level is where we slept in hammocks, and the lower level is where we had all of our meals. By the time we got back today I had definitely had enough and was super relieved to be back! However, it was a really great trip and I got to try lots of new things! The Amazon river is so magnificent and we got to see many different areas which was cool. It is very humid and there is a ton of lush green vegetation on either side of the river. The sky in the Amazon is gorgeous its hard to describe but it looks HUGE and has so much depth to it. At night the starts were brilliant were scattered across the whole sky! I could have counted hundreds- it was so beautiful.

   The first day we went fishing for piranhas! I wasn't that successful at it,  but a lot of people were! They just looked like normal fish so it wasn't too bad and we got to eat them for dinner later! That night we went looking for caymen, which are similar to alligators. I thought this part was really scary because we went out on little canoes in the dark and all we had were flashlights to spot to caymen. The guide was able to catch one and we learned all about it. I even held it!! Yikes! Some other activities we did included a trek though the jungle which was fun but HOT and a visit to a small village on the Amazon. I really liked the village because we got to meet the cutest kids and everyone was so friendly and happy even though they lived in a remote community on barely anything. More than half of the people got a stomach bug which really sucked, I was pretty under the weather yesterday and hungout in my hammock for most of the day. Luckily I felt better by nighttime because we had a beach party! They crew set up a barbecue outside with lights and music. We played some games and danced it was so much fun. I lost in musical chairs, but almost won limbo!

I really enjoyed my time in the Amazon but I am glad to be back on the ship where I have clean clothes and real food! Now we are on our way to Ghana! It is going to take over a week I think but Sea Olympics and Neptune Day will be in between which will be fun! I am going to catch up on some work and hopefully get a good night sleep =)