Manaus, Brazil

Today we arrived in Manaus, Brazil a bustling city of 2-3 million people that is Brazil’s gateway to the Amazon Jungle. Before arriving we were bombarded with information about how dangerous Brazil can be. Violent crime on tourists is rare, but muggings and theft is common. It has been drilled into our heads to travel in groups. So, we headed out with a group of 12. Before we were even out of the port it seemed like a bad idea. Within the first 500 yards we stopped four to six times for photos, someone peaking into a store, the group getting too spread out, etc. This was definitely not making us safer. If anything we were now a more obvious target. We soon found a bank with 15-20 ATMs inside a lobby. While some people were getting money we decided to split into two groups and meet up later at the Opera House. That worked really well and the six of us who already had money left.

We headed to the Amazon Teatro or the Opera House. It’s the most beautiful building in the town. As we stepped inside we saw other people were filling the seats. We followed the crowd and in about 20 minutes a beautiful classical performance started. Wow, were we surprised! What great timing! We had no idea. The conductor was wonderful to watch. He was really a dancer with a baton and all the musicians responded to his moves. Manaus is considered the classical capitol of Brazil and they are very proud of their beautiful building.

The balcony in Amazon Teatro

After the performance Julie and I split off from the group because we wanted to go to the Manaus Hostel to inquire about another hostel in the jungle. We wanted to sign up for a tour and we had found the place online. There are a lot of tourist scams and everything we read about Manaus and Amazon jungle tours says to book tours in person at a hotel or the tour office. We were glad we followed that advice because apparently the place was fake. Hostels generally know about each other and they had never heard of the place. We went to three tour operators and ended up booking with the one located in the hostel called Amazon Antonio Jungle Tours. Our trip goes up north a couple hours from Manaus up the Rio Urubu. This river is more acidic which means fewer mosquitoes, which will be particularly nice in malaria country. We leave in the morning for 3 days and two nights in the Amazon jungle.

We came back to the ship for dinner because there is not much open on Sunday in Manaus and I am not feeling well. I picked up a cold from Julie last night. She’s fine now, but I’m stuffy and tired. She went out Samba dancing with some other friends, but I’m staying in tonight and hoping to rest up and feel better before our jungle tour.

The Amazon River

We spent the last three days sailing up the Amazon River. It’s a wide, mellow, brown, muddy river. It’s the largest freshwater river in the world flowing through the largest tropical rainforest in the world. The Amazon River has a flow ten times the size of the Mississippi with a watershed almost the size of the continental U.S! Every day it dumps 1.3 trillion gallons of water into the ocean. We are going 1,000 miles inland to Manaus, Brazil where we will get to explore the Amazon.

Shortly after we entered the Amazon from the Atlantic some Brazilian dignitaries and U.S. Ambassadors came aboard and sailed with us to Manaus. They gave talks and panel discussions about the Brazilian economy and other things. To be honest, it was pretty boring so I didn’t listen to most of it. The best part was the night before port the two U.S. Ambassadors to Brazil joined us for a game of Mafia in the faculty/staff lounge. Now, that’s good stuff.

Dominica

We spent two days on the beautiful island of Dominica. Dominica is nestled in the Caribbean and most Americans have never heard of it. This is probably because there are no resorts on the island or direct flights from the U.S. It’s a more popular travel destination for Europeans and we did meet two Swedes while we were there.

Middleham Falls, Dominica
The two-day stop was much too quick and we only saw a tiny bit of this fascinating country. The first day we hired a taxi driver to take four of us, me, Julie, Bianca and Dustin - 2 other LLCs, to a large waterfall called Middleham Falls. I think it was about 150 feet high and beautiful. One of the women with us, Bianca, has never seen a waterfall. She said ever since she was a little kid she’s wanted to see a waterfall and a unicorn. I hope I get to be there when she sees the unicorn too.

Bianca, Dustin, Julie, and me in front of Middleham Falls

When we arrived at the parking lot the driver told us he would wait since it was only about 45 min hike each way. There were four of us and we were a bit slow so the round trip hike took us four hours. We stayed at the falls for a bit and I jumped into the pool in my clothes. No one else wanted to – I can’t imagine why. We took lots of photos, but the forest created a dark canopy that made photos difficult, even with the ISO set to 800.

Julie hoping on some rocks to keep her feet dry

When we returned our driver Charles seemed perfectly content that it had taken us so long. This style of waiting for clients is apparently quite common. On the drive home we stopped at a view over the city and Charles talked with us about Dominica and recent changes that are happening with the Caribbean as the Chinese get more involved in their economy. See Julie's blog for more on that topic.


Champaign Reef, Dominica

On Monday we went to Champaign Reef about 30 minutes south of Roseau near Point Michel. We were going to take the city bus, but Charles agreed to drive us there for the same price, $2/each. He dropped us off at Irie Safaris where we rented snorkeling gear for $12/set. There were five of us, but we just rented three sets to save a little money. The tourist office in town told us it was $4/set so we were a little surprised, plus one person wasn’t sure she was going to snorkel. We listened to a short orientation then walked down to the beach. The beaches in Dominica are covered in gray and black rocks so shoes are a must. It rained most of the morning so we nestled into a little cave-like overhang on the beach to stay dry. Julie, Alyssa, and I put on the snorkeling gear and waded in. Like my dad always says – it doesn’t rain underwater! The reef was amazing! We saw lots of fish and beautiful coral. There was one brain coral that was at least three feet in diameter. It must have been very old.

The brain coral

My favorite part was diving down to get closer to the coral. When you get closer the colors are much more vibrant and interesting. From the surface things look more blue and green, but when you get up close you see more variation. This fan coral was huge, about 2 feet high and swayed back and forth with the waves.

The fan coral

Me diving down to check out the reef up close

Our friend Raja had never snorkeled before and he did great. There was a funny moment though. At one point I got stung by something on my ankle. We were told there was something called sea lice that floats in the water and you can’t see it. It can sting if it’s touched, but isn’t very common. The sting was very minor and felt like an ant bite, but nevertheless I uttered a four letter word and Raja immediately wanted to know what happened. I reluctantly told him, reluctant because I knew he would want to get out. Sure enough he was swimming to shore so fast. For someone who wasn’t a good swimmer and had never snorkeled before he zoomed to shore so fast I couldn’t keep up. It was so funny. Needless to say he was snorkeling pretty well by then. The pain from the sting went away in a few minutes and I went back in for round three.

Julie & I snorkeling

We left after a couple of hours, but I really would have been perfectly fine staying for several more. I love snorkeling and diving. When I was a kid we had a pool in our backyard and I can remember snorkeling in circles around the pool for hours looking at every little variation in the tile. For me, it’s so peaceful and relaxing being underwater.

Our ship docked in Dominica

I look forward to the opportunity to go back to Dominica someday. Preferably to stay longer. It's a wonderful, beautiful place with kind, generous people.

Setting Sail

We made it! We set sail last Wednesday night the 12th at 8pm. We were supposed to leave earlier, but the closing of the Atlanta airport caused many students to be delayed to the ship. Because of the high number who would have missed the ship, the captain delayed our departure as well. (Has anyone else been thinking that Atlanta needs to invest in some additional snow plows?) Anyway, when we left there were about 100 parents and ISE staff on shore waving us off. Students were yelling their last “I love yous” to the parents and a few tears were falling. It was a neat moment. It’ll be even more emotional when we pull into San Diego at the end. More on that in April.

The faculty and staff were on the ship from Jan 9-11 for faculty/staff training. We were busy getting ready for the students so didn’t have much time to get off the ship and see the Bahamas. It was a fast training. Last time I sailed the training was 5 days and this time around I didn’t feel as prepared when the students arrived. I believe the change was entirely financial, but it’s definitely made it a little tougher for us.

MV Explorer docked in the Bahamas

During the four days we were docked at Nassau we saw new cruise ship neighbors each day, mostly Carnival ships with rock climbing walls and water slides and dwarfing our 7 story, 600 foot vessel. The cruise ships would arrive in the morning and leave at dusk. It’s really impossible to see The Bahamas or any country in eight hours. I couldn’t help but wonder, “what’s the point?” It reminds me that we are definitely not on a cruise we are on a voyage, and for that I am very thankful.

our home for the next four months

Planning, sorting, organizing, and packing

We left for our big Semester at Sea trip around the world a week ago! The first week has been great! Of course we are both very excited and for Christmas I got the book Creative Camera and that made me even more excited. Playing with new photography ideas, further exploring Miksang photography, and being in new places to inspire are some of the things I'm looking forward to during this voyage.

Months ago when we were invited on this voyage around the world the preparations began. We had to figure out what to do with our house, where to store our cars, who would take care of our dog, and figure out how we could make this trip as economical as possible. We suspended our cell phone service, cancelled our home phone, downgraded our car insurance, bought foreign currency for 10 different countries, bought visas for 4 countries, and set up a packing station in the spare bedroom so we could pack over time.

In the couple weeks before we left I found myself going back and forth between being really excited about the trip and being bummed with all the packing, sorting, organizing, and planning that goes into it. Of course it's worth it, but it was really draining.

There were piles of stuff getting organized in most every room in the house. The office/spare bedroom has bins where we've placed various things we collected during the last month - shampoo, the mosquito head net, the new super tiny, lightweight sleeping bag (called the Atom - isn't that a great name?), Malaria medicine, flashlight, tent, binoculars, etc. I realized why more people don’t travel around the world. The logistics can be overwhelming! Fortunately, we made it and now that I’m here looking out at the ocean I can barely remember the stress of that week. The highlight was hanging out with some close friends at the Harmony a couple nights before we left. It was a great time and a much needed break. I realized how much would miss my close friends while we are gone. We love you!

the bins that we used to stay organized while we packed

A few days before we left we laid out all the clothes and started weeding through what to put back. The guideline we heard was to layout everything you want to take and then put half of it back. Good advice. It's so hard to decide what to bring because you don't know what situations will come up and what you'll need to wear. Plus, the more clothes I bring the fewer toys I can bring like fun camera gear and art supplies.

sorting all our clothes

When all the packing was done we each had a large duffle and a small duffle to check and two carry-ons. We booked our flights with Southwest so our bags could fly free. No need to pay those silly extra fees.

our luggage for the next four months

When we told people about our journey around the world we experienced a wide range of reactions and got lots of questions. I wish I had written them all down, because some of them were pretty funny. Here were the most common ones.

What are you doing with your house?

Fortunately, a friend of ours is living in our house and paying us a small bit of rent. It was a challenge to find someone for the short time, especially because we wanted to leave most of our stuff in the house. We needed someone we could trust and who wouldn’t need us to move everything out. Although we still had to empty our dressers and bedroom closet, move two couches, and remove a lot of stuff out of the kitchen. The good thing is that all this packing has led to a garbage bag full of clothes and other things that are heading for the thrift store or perhaps the next garage sale. We have too much stuff. I know I'll feel that even more when we get back, after living in a tiny room and meeting people who live with much less than we do. We also have a great next door neighbor who is always willing to help and keep an eye on things.

What about your dog?

Jake, our adorable floppy-eared Doberman is staying at Julie’s brother’s house. They also have a dog named Maggie so this was an especially generous offer he and his family made to us. Before we left we needed to make sure the dogs would get along. Therefore, Maggie visited Jake for an afternoon and Jake spent a long Thanksgiving weekend at their house. All went well. Then, the day before we left the country we almost had a crisis. We dropped Jake off at their house on Thursday night in Milwaukee. We flew out Friday morning to Orlando to attend my cousin Mark’s wedding on Saturday evening. On Saturday afternoon Julie called her brother to find out how things were going with Jake. The two dogs had gotten in a fight! Jake attacked Maggie and latched on to her ear and wouldn’t let go then did the same thing to her tail. Fortunately, no blood was shed or physical damage was caused, but Maggie was really nervous after that. We were nervous that we would need to find a new place for Jake to stay and made a few calls. However, Julie’s brother and his family decided it was a fluke and really wanted to keep Jake. He’s a very sweet, calm dog and it sounded like Maggie provoked him. We were incredibly relieved, but our blood pressure did go up for a few hours. Thank you Mark and Kristi!

Be careful of pirates.

Some people say it in jest, but some are very serious. Really? First of all, how does one recognize a pirate? Do I look for an eye patch, a Jolly Roger tattoo, and a wooden leg? Then, what would I do? For those of you who are genuinely worried about this Julie’s dad had a great point. Pirates wouldn’t attack a cruise-type ship like ours with 1000 people because it’s too many people to manage. There’s not really any precious cargo and it would extremely difficult for them to keep that many people captive without some people thwarting their efforts. We also are not sailing in those areas where the pirates have been attacking. So rest assured, we aren’t going to get attacked by pirates. Argh!