What an incredible couple of days it has been. Tuesday morning (after another spectacular breakfast) we walked across the driveway of our hotel to the docks on the Rio Negro where our group of 120 boarded three large boats which, incidentally, were staffed by another set of outstanding cooks as well as other crew members, and began our journey to the rainforest.
Appropriately enough, it was raining at the time. But then the fact that the smallest of the three vessels was worth more than $1,500,000 and they were all multi-leveled with sleeping compartments done in fine wood and with game rooms with large screen flat panel TVs playing James Bond movies went a long way toward taking the kids minds off the soggy weather. We cruised down the Rio Negro toward where it joins up with another tributary to form the Amazon River, lunching in the gorgeous wood floored dining room and it was a grand adventure.
We stopped at a small village about a 1/4 mile in from the river and experienced a wonderful tribal music and dance presentation in a hut out of the rain. We also had an opportunity to purchase some local handicrafts which we took advantage of all too zealously. After being thoroughly entertained by the indigenous people, we walked back to our boats in the rain.
Eventually, the rain gave way to simply cloudy skies, so some of us went for a dip in the Amazon. From the third deck of our boats! What a rush it was to see the river flying up to meet you! And the water felt great! There were tons of photos taken as we plummeted into the dark brown water (from whence the Rio Negro, Black River, derives its name) and even some video. (Sorry, no time to post photos yet; it's all I can do to keep up on the written part of the blog.)
Back on the boats, we traveled further down the Amazon to the "Queen of the Jungle", a floating restaurant in the middle of the Amazon rainforest where we, you guessed it, ate another in what has become a long line of outstanding meals with no end in sight.
Dinner was followed by cayman (like a crocodile) hunting in the dark in a group of 15 person river boats that were much like motorized canoes. Also a blast and very cool to be on the Amazon at night. One of the highlights for me was when we stopped and shut off the engine to hear the sounds of the rainforest while floating gently on the river beneath a nearly full moon.
After an overnight on the big boats, we awoke before sunrise to get back in the canoes and experience the waking of the river up close and personal (ask someone about the sloth) followed by breakfast and the trip back to Manaus by the afternoon. (There really was much more to that than just a single sentence, but it is after midnight and did I mention we were up before sunrise?)
After returning to our hotel, we swam and cleaned up and headed for the Teatro Amazonas (an opera house in the middle of Manaus) for our first concert. It is a perfect location to showcase the beautiful voices of our amazing choir! And what a perfect end to our day...
Tomorrow we travel to Salvador. If the past three days are any indication, it will be amazing!
