| Week 9 | |
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10/19/01
This week started with a one- day trip to Manaus. Phil has a chartered flight from Barcelos to Manaus on Saturdays for the incoming and outgoing Lodge guests and a flight on Sundays for the incoming and outgoing guests on the Queen. Since both flights had empty seats, we went in with the outgoing guests on Saturday and returned to the Lodge with the incoming guests on Sunday. We went to the mall in Manaus, which is pretty modern. The stores are sort of funny though. There were about 20 stores with all kinds of assorted stuff in them. There was absolutely no specialization. You had no idea what you might find inside. I can't describe them, but it was an adventure in shopping. The ladies in the kitchen here open all of the canned goods with a knife. It takes forever and it is not uncommon for someone to get a little knick on the finger. So I figured I would pick up a little hand-held can opener in Manaus. Can you believe there was no can opener...hand-held or electric to be found! I have found my get-rich-quick plan! There is a whole untapped market for can openers in Brazil! I could be the goddess of can openers! Well, Fridays are very crazy for both Scott and me at the Lodge. I teach pretty much all day long, and Scott has a lot of work preparing end-of-the-week fishing reports, processing fish replica orders, and settling accounts with the guests. So when we went to Manuas early Saturday morning, we were dead meat by lunchtime. After we shopped a few hours at the mall. We headed to Phil's house for a shower (hot water- Oh Yeah!) and a nap. For dinner we went to a Churrscaria (Brazilian BBQ) restaurant. It was very good, it was all-you-can-eat, and they kept coming around with different cuts of meat. Scott had a couple of beers, and I had a caipirinha (Brazilian margarita). The total cost of the meal was R$23 or about $9.00. That included cover for the band and tip! After dinner, we took a taxi back to Phil's house. The driver has some kind of deal with Phil and we didn't have to pay for the ride. So he took us on a drive around to see some of the sights of the city. Well, we didn't get very far before I knew I was going to be ill! I don't know if it was the food, the drink, the loco driver, or a bad mixture of the three. I barely made it back to Phil's before I rid myself of the dinner I had just consumed! No more Brazilian BBQ and caipirinhas for me! At 5:30 the next morning, we headed back to Barcelos and the Lodge. Despite my unintentional purge the trip was a success. My main goal was to buy a can of hairspray. It took me a while to find it, and I paid close to $6 for a single can. But I got the hairspray…in fact I got two cans of hairspray, so all is well in my little world. I'm sure by now, you've seen pictures of my monkey friend Chica. We had a nasty incident one morning this week. Chica was out of the cage (which is not too uncommon) and the kids, who had just finished breakfast, were outside playing with her. Well, one of the boys was afraid of her, and he would run up to her and just before he got to her, he would turn and run. He did that several times and I kept telling him to be calm around the monkey, and not to run. Chica got excited and started screeching. I was petting her trying to calm her down when the little boy ran up to her, and turned to run away from her again. This time she chased him. The boy started freaking out and Chica grabbed on to the bottom of his shirt. The boy started screaming, so Chica started screaming. I picked up the boy to get him away from Chica ,and Chica clamped down on my arm! She bit the snot out of my arm twice! It happened really fast and it hurt for about 3 hours afterwards. It was more bruised than anything. There was a scratch, but that was from her fingernails, not her teeth. I cleaned it real well, and now we are just monitoring the different shades of purple and yellow that the bruise has become. After it was all said and done, I took her a piece of watermelon. She told me she was sorry, and picked a few bugs out of my hair. I think it will be all right. During lunch, Phil had a huge conversation with all of the kids about the animals. The kids are very rough with the animals and often forget that the animals are wild. The animals react to the situation, and when the people get nervous and loud, so do the animals. We are going to go for a long walk along the jungle trails tomorrow, and will try to go fishing on Sunday! |